Board Thread:Stories/@comment-33528506-20190929025714

=PROLOGUE=

A man was stalking the streets. It was dark, it being past midnight. The man wore a brown leather jacket, black pants, a striped sweater, and a brown fedora. His eyes flicked around the neighborhood he walked through, noticing as people quickly shut their blinds as he stalked onwards. His hands were neatly tucked inside his jacket pockets, and he turned his head around, almost turning his body around completely in order to look behind him, and spotted a woman disappear into a bush.

He cocked an eyebrow in confusion. He recognized the woman as Marge Thompson, the wife of Lieutenant Donald Thompson. He shrugged, and kept walking, failing to notice as Marge crept out of the bush, and a few more citizens fell in behind her, all slowly following the man. He calmly hummed, and as he passed a wall he glided his hand smoothly across the surface, imitating a weapon he had become accustomed to using in his crimes. He had been caught, arrested, then in a turn of events, freed without a prison sentence, though he was admittedly guilty.

He smiled devilishly as he remembered his mere escape from a possible life in a cold, barren cell with many other dangerous criminals around in their cages, locked up like animals… What a life… he thought to himself as more civilians followed Marge. One had a full tank of gasoline, and the other had a lighter. The man slowly made his way to an abandoned building; an old power plant that he used to work at as a janitor. He committed his crimes there, and hadn’t been caught until recently; his five-year-old daughter, Katherin, had told the police about what he’d done after he had viciously murdered her mother, Loretta.

He grinned at the memory of slamming his wife’s head against the wall of the house, blood staining the white paint and turning it crimson. He remembered her pitiful groans of pain that she uttered each time her head hit the wall until he dropped her lifeless body to the grass-covered ground. Katherin had witnessed the final few strikes and promised that she wouldn’t tell the authorities… Liar… the man thought, grimacing. He opened the door to the power plant and ventured down to the basement.

Sliding off his jacket with ease and placing it on a coat hanger that he had left there, he pondered on what it would have been like if he had been given a prison sentence. He gingerly took off his hat, placed it against his chest, and put it on the coat hanger as well. His thoughts were grim as he turned to a shelf not far from where he was standing. He walked up to it and hidden behind mop buckets and other cleaning supplies, was a bladed glove. The steel claws were polished, and sharpened, clean despite being used to murder innocent children.

He slowly took the glove, placing it gingerly in his cupped hands. Looking down at the home-made weapon, he grabbed a small screwdriver, not looking away from the glove. The man began to meticulously tamper with the weapon, fixing hinges if they seemed too tight, or just staring down at his project, his pale, green eyes gleaming with obvious malice and pride.

-

Marge grabbed the gasoline tank, and slyly entered the building, pouring its contents onto the floor and hoping that she wouldn’t get caught by the man. She gingerly creaked open the basement door, and poured a large amount of the flammable liquid down the stairs, praying that it would reach where he was. She ran out of the building, dropping the gasoline tank in the process, and grabbed the lighter from one of the other civilians. With a growl, she grabbed a bottle filled with an explosive liquid, lit a cloth that was sticking out the top, and hurled it at a window. The gasoline caught fire easily, and the flames followed the trail, hungrily.

The man heard the window break, and he looked at the door to his hideout, only to find it open with flames gnawing at the frame. The fire crept slowly down the stairs before seemingly pouncing and surrounding him.

“What the Hell?!” He said as the flames heated the room, and he felt pain as the orange, flickering fire licked at his body. He attempted to move away from the inferno, but it was all around him, blocking every path possible. His mind raced, and his heart pounded as he got against the wall with the least amount of fire, and he pressed himself closer to the surface as the flames edged closer, before swallowing him as he emitted an ear-piercing shriek of pain.

-

=Chapter 1=

The man stood, leaning on a few pipes and tapping his blades methodically against the metallic tubes. He was waiting, but he didn’t know what he was waiting for exactly. All he knew was that something was going to happen. He looked to a pipe that had burst long ago, his gaze resting on steam that drifted up, lazily, to the ceiling. The man sighed, and slowly dragged his steel claws down the pipes before walking slowly towards an old machine. The man’s name was Frederick, though he preferred the nickname of Freddy and nobody wanted, nor did they dare ask why.

As he walked, he set his hand down on a metallic surface, allowing the blades to scrape against it. He liked the sound of metal scraping against steel; in fact, it calmed him to some degree. He continued to let them drag against the metal plate, smiling. He was bored, he knew it, but he didn’t want to admit it. The reason Freddy was bored? Simple: He had nobody to torment.

Freddy groaned, seemingly with pain; though there was none. Perhaps he was remembering his demise: the fire melting his skin as he screamed in complete agony? No, he wasn’t. It was just that the thought of no victims to torture gave him a sense of utter pain… it wasn’t just that he wanted to kill, he had to kill. Without the maniacal glee that burned within him when he murdered innocent teens, what was he?

Slicing through his thoughts by waving his gloved hand in the air, he shook his head. Freddy could find something to do, and he would perform that task - even if it was childish. He grabbed the edge of a pipe and broke it off of the wall. He didn’t care about the liquid that sprayed and poured when the line became disconnected, so he simply trailed the pipe on the now wet floor of the boiler room. He dragged the metal tube towards a metal door, humming a tune as he went. Opening the door, Freddy threw the pipe into the room and ran in after it, nearly tripping in the dark.

Blinking once, then twice, Freddy’s green eyes began to glow. He looked around, and his pupils became cat-like as his eyes adjusted to the low lighting. Only green orbs with black slits were visible in the dark until the burnt demon clicked one blade against another, making the room light up rather quickly. He shook his head, and his eyes became normal again, flicking around the room. Freddy sighed, grabbed a rough edge of the pipe, and hoisted it onto his shoulder and kept it there. He looked around the room, searching for something; either rope or an old electrical cord would do… as in this world, his world, he had no use for electricity, nor did he have to use an actual rope to tie up anyone. He could simply summon a jump rope, or just a regular rope and use that.

Of course, with a power such as his, there was great responsibility… a responsibility that he frequently overlooked.

See, demons have different types like animals have different breeds. His type wasn’t all that common, but it wasn’t really rare either; he was a dream demon, an unholy being that could enter people’s dreams and spin them into a demented reality. They can be dangerous, or simple tricksters that just enjoy people’s fear and confusion. Freddy was one of the most dangerous of these night-stalking entities, having killed around 40 people in his entire life, demonic one included. It may not be nearly as much as other demons kill their victims, but he was rather patient, knocking each one off like chess pieces: slowly and methodically.

However, the great responsibility he overlooked was the amount of lives he had. Dream demons have around 135 lives, and they can be taken quickly, or last for years if the demon does nothing. Freddy has lost around 15 of those lives, and with each life taken, he would slowly get weaker and weaker until eventually he could no longer fight or kill, only mess with people’s minds for eternity until his last life withered away due to a lack of soul collection.

The reason he overlooked this? He didn't want to admit that he could eventually die. His pride kept him going, as well as his resentment towards young children… Piggies, he’d call them, simply because they had happy lives. When he got the chance he would shred all happiness and life out of the teens he’d come across, either viciously or quickly. It was what others would call “a Process”, but to him, it was simply a way of doing. It was a way of “enacting justice”. The parents that killed him would pay with the blood of their children, and the suffering that came from the loss.

Now, however, with a majority of his victims being teenagers,  they barely slept. Finals were coming up, and they were more focused on studying than sleep. The ones that did eventually sleep or pass out were tormented and killed if Freddy could manage it. This was the time of year he dreaded… if you asked him, he would have said that he could feel himself slowly withering away; disintegrating like ashes.

He sighed and dropped the pipe, letting it fall with a loud clank,  which echoed violently around the room.

“What does a guy gotta do to have some fun around here?” Freddy asked himself, disappointed. He hated being bored: the feeling of nothingness, doing nothing and overall feeling like you hadn't done anything in your life. He snarled a few swears under his breath, and stalked to the other end of the room, the room itself elongating into a large, long hallway. Along the wall, pictures faded into existence, seemingly taunting him. He looked at a few and chuckled.

“Heh... I remember you…” He said to himself, eyeing the picture of Nancy, the daughter of Marge and Donald Thompson, all of which he had systematically murdered over the course of five years. He smiled a smug smile that showed his broken, yellow teeth. His green eyes shone slightly blue in remembrance, and he chuckled softly. “You were the root of all my problems, weren’t you, Don?” He continued, the framed picture fading into a photograph of Donald. He raised a single eyebrow. “You were… and so was Marge… she helped plan my murder, didn’t she? I bet she even lead it!” He snarled hatefully as Marge’s picture faded into the frame. “Your daughter was the one to end it all…. She could have lived if you had just let me stay in that mortal realm of yours…” Freddy breathed, a growl embedded in his gravelly voice.

"At least you won’t cause trouble any longer…,” Freddy said, and walked away from the pictures and continuing down the endless hallway of pipes, metal, and concrete. He hummed softly, closing his eyes and scraping his blades against the pipes beside him as he went. His steps were quick, loud, and yet precise, as though he knew where he was heading despite having his eyes shut. The hallway around him dissolved and reconnected, creating the entrance to a house with a nicely cut, green,  grassy lawn with two trees out in front. The house's number read “1428”,  and it was highly disheveled,  despite the lush greenery outside. Three girls skipped rope nearby, chanting a rhyme to the tune of “ Buckle My Shoe”, though phrases and words were swapped and twisted to suit Freddy's fear-filled existence.

Freddy smirked and looked at them. They were his past victims. He forced their spirits, that were connected to him for one reason or another, to taunt and confuse the sleeping teens that he mercilessly stalked and terrorized… some of these spirits viewed Freddy as some sort of malevolent creature, while some, oddly enough, viewed him as a father figure, though he had murdered them. That was why some listened… that's why they followed orders.

One turned her head and looked at Freddy, a terrified look on her face, while the one in the middle continued to skip rope like he wasn’t even watching. The third girl smiled at him, making him wave out of instinct before he stalked off again. The terrified spirit, Sandy Grey, watched him closely; she didn’t trust him. He walked past them and towards a road which appeared before him. Behind him, the house still stood. He hummed the tune of his twisted song, calmly stepping along the road, which materialized in front of him, fitting together like the pieces of a puzzle and flattening at his feet. He always seemed like the expert when controlling dreams; twisting them, making them into horrifying nightmares that would ultimately become a reality… that was why he was called the “Dream Master”. However, he had met his match some years back: Alice Johnson. She was able to gather the powers of her friends as each one was picked off. Freddy would get the souls, while she would get the power. She managed to defeat him and keep him at bay until his “rebirth” two years later.

He hated Alice more than he had despised Nancy… but he had needed her. He wasn’t strong enough after his rebirth, so he used her unborn child to seep into reality and slaughter her friends. This had ultimately failed as well…

He clawed at a tree when he remembered Alice, a sneer embedded on his burnt face as he hissed profanities. His fingers twitched as his body seethed with rage until he took a few deep breaths and eventually calmed down. Alice had moved away from Springwood after her child was born, so he knew he couldn’t get to her. Her last living relatives didn’t know who he was, so he couldn’t track her by using them.

After all, he had given up his revenge plan years ago and had focused on more determined prey, prey that would fight back and fuel his sadism. He loved the slow, agonizing deaths of his victims, their screams as he terrorized them… he chuckled with delight as he thought about his favorite: Tina Grey. She was easy to manipulate, and he would even say that she was easy to terrify. Tina was his first victim in his demonic life, and it had become a milestone in a way. He always kept the memory within his brain. If he ever felt worthless, he could always look back on that night with absolute happiness, reassured that he could, indeed, be terrifying.

Now, however, he had become a little bit of a jokester. At first, it was the occasional pun, but now it was just downright out of control. He had admittedly become a little bored due to the fact that his victims never fought back, but he could change that. Jason Voorhees had fought back, and that’s what made things fun for him. Taunting the big dimwit was the best part, but it had only angered Jason further. Freddy lost this fight, and he hated being humiliated… patience wasn’t his strong suit either, especially during finals week. Nobody slept! He was just a mere weakling at this point, and he used to be the king of nightmares! It was pathetic, at least to him. His ego was withering, broken, and he despised that.

As he pondered with slight annoyance and rage, something sparkled and sputtered to life. He looked and saw a flaming orb, gently floating towards him. He knew that he didn’t summon that… it confused him. He slowly extended one bladed finger, and touched the orb with one eyebrow raised. As soon as the sharp steel made contact with the flaming orb, he felt an electrical shock pulse throughout his body, which then turned into a horrid pain - a pain worse than fire.

''This can’t be… cannot be happening! I WILL RESIST! No… NO!'' Was his simple, yet final thought before everything went dark as he struggled to free himself from the static-like feeling in his body, clawing at the nearby tree as he fell. This attack on the tree had more to do with pain than resisting what could be his final death. He went limp and fell, hitting the grass with a soft thud. With a quick flash of light, it was as though he had gone through the ground and into some sort of strange, invisible tunnel. Sandy watched still, confused and a little brighter due to the fact that her tormentor had gone. She looked at the other two girls and smiled. 