In Dreams: The Nightmare King

Vengeance

"Rue, RUE!?"  Brie called, running back in the door.  "What's the matter?  What happened to her?"  She accused Kaden, crouching down to grab my arms.

"Make it stop, please."  I sobbed at them, still holding my head.  I could hear Kaden's labored breathing beside me suddenly.  His hands were trying to maintain contact with my face, but Brie was screaming and scrambling at him to get him away from me.

"Brie,"  I moaned.  "Stop!"  But she couldn't hear me over her own screams.  Kaden finally must have had enough, he abruptly turned to face her, gripping her arms.  She fell limp and he carefully laid her out on the floor.  My mind was trying to shut down around the headache, I could feel myself trembling and sweating from the pain, but I was losing contact with the outside world.

"Ok, your turn."  Kaden grimaced as he put his hand on my forehead again between my hands.

"Rue, I'm going to have to do a bit of surgery here."  Kaden sounded like he was in my head.

'Surgery?!  What do you mean surgery?!'  I thought fearfully at him.

"Just trust me, ok.  This will make you feel better."  Without warning I found myself standing in a quiet room.  I could no longer feel my body or register anything happening outside my head, and I realized I really didn't care.  Kaden appeared, only he didn't look like the Kaden I knew, but I still recognized that it was him.

"Listen, I'm having to do a sort of exorcism.  That damn creature has got to go."  He sounded strained.  "You may lose some of your memories if I do this, but if I don't...I'm afraid it'll try to rip us both to shreds."  I hesitated for a moment, thinking over what he said.  The thing that kept repeating itself over and over in my head was...

"You want to get one of those things out of my head?  Do it!"  I shouted.  Kaden nodded once, and suddenly my head felt like it was being pulled in two  I screamed until I was hoarse, and the next thing I knew I was looking through teary eyes at Kaden, laying on the floor in front of me, panting like he had just run a marathon.  His hand had slipped from my face, and he groaned pitifully.  I was still shaking and covered in sweat, and I felt like my head would bleed if it could.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to process any of this, because as I looked passed Kaden, I saw one of the nightmare creature standing in Brie's living room, right over top of Brie.  She woke up with a start and screamed bloody murder.  I tried to sit up quickly, and felt something trickle down over my lips.  I wiped at it, and my hand came away covered in blood.  Brie was scrambling away from the creature, and I realized Kaden was now in it's path too, but I couldn't think straight, my head was still too muddled.  Kaden groaned again and gripped my arm.

'Just get us out of here Rue, Nobody can take this thing on right now.'  I heard his voice echo in my head.  Right, that was a good idea.  I grabbed Kaden's arms and started to tug him towards the door.

"Brie!"  I tried to yell at her, but I had lost my voice from screaming earlier.  Letting Kaden go, I clapped my hands to get her attention, but she wasn't paying me any mind.  Plus, the creature was still currently after Kaden, so maybe she would be ok.  I tugged Kaden harder, trying to think around my mushy head.  A sudden CRASH caught my attention.  Brie had slammed a lamp into the creatures head.  I would have whooped happily if I had a voice, until it turned around and looked at Brie, and then at the lamp shards on the floor.  Brie wasted no time, sticking the broken light bulb part into its side, and the thing jolted, looking at the part of its flesh that was now spasming uncontrollably.  Brie ran past it and grabbed one of Kaden's arms from my grip.  We successfully dragged him outside and slammed the front door.  Kaden groaned.

"Won't take him too long...  to figure that out."  He wheezed, and tried to sit up.  His nose was also bleeding, and there were deep gashes on his chest and back.  Brie and I pulled him to his feet, tucking our shoulders under his arms and dragged him towards the car, which I noted was still running.

"Really Brie?"  I panted, rolling my eyes.

"I heard you scream!"  She yelled back harshly, grunting as we tried to shove Kaden in the back seat. He moaned, and his face got very pale.  I muttered complaints as my annoyance at how slow we were moving grew.  The racket inside the house grew, causing me to panic and crawl over Kaden's mostly limp body to drag him the rest of the way into the SUV.  Brie slammed the door and scrambled into the driver's seat.  I watched the house closely, pulling Kaden's head into my lap so I could glance at his wounds.

"I didn't know you cared."  Wheezed Kaden, with a chuckle that turned to a cough.

"Shut up."  I grumbled, pulling aside his shirt, I hissed at the sight of his mangled torso.

"I don't have anything to fix these."  I lamented.  "Should we take you to a hospital?"  I asked seriously.  Just then the creature broke through the living room window, roared at the car, and then shrieked angrily at the sun while shading it's eyes. It ran for us blindly and Brie floored it, racing right at the creature.  It tried to get out of the way, but with a jarring clunk, we ran right into it.  Brie backed the SUV away from where it lay on the ground.  She deliberated a moment, but when the creature tried to struggle into a sitting position, she floored it.  There was a sickening "pop" as some part of the creature burst when she drove over it.  Brie laughed maniacally and drove madly down the road.

"Which hospital should I head towards?"  Brie asked urgently.

"No.  Not human, remember?"  Kaden gasped, then gripped my arm tightly.  A flurry of images flitted through my mind, and I understood exactly what Kaden was requesting to help him survive.  I nodded at him.

"Brie-no hospitals.  We're going to take a little nap."  I informed her.

"A nap?  Now?"  She squawked and then "oh wait, will that...?"  But I didn't hear the rest because Kaden gripped my forearm tightly and the world faded away.