Chapter 1

"...I can't fall asleep. I won't fall asleep. I can't fall asleep. I won't..."

Despite the almost ritualistic chanting, Sandra knew she was going to fall asleep. When she dropped her purse on the train today, her pill bottle must have fallen out. Damn cheap catch. She hadn't slept for three days. Without her pills, she was going to crash hard. And when she did, she knew he was going to be there waiting.

Sandra's problems with recurring nightmares had been with her since she was a child. The nightmares had never been anything like this before, though. The last month she had gone from waking up in a cold sweat to waking up screaming for her life. In her night terrors, she'd torn three bed sheets apart trying to escape her own mind. Her psychiatrist couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. Of course he wouldn't prescribe her anything that might help because of the side effects. She was left alone to deal with her problems.

Lucky for her she kept getting spammed at work. Some of those spams were for online pharmacies. No prescription needed the ads said. It was a huge risk, but she had to do something so she ordered some strong pep pills, and they came. They even worked as promised. But no pill can work when it's rolling around a subway floor. There was no way she could get more before...

She lurched bolt upright. God, how could she have let her self drift off. She gave her head a shake. Her dark hair with the almost silver strands spotted through it was a night sky ocean. She stood up and started pacing. She wasn't a lot taller standing than sitting. Everyone refered to her appearance as elfin. She preferred the more honest short. Still, she couldn't complain. A lot of people were attracted to a small well proportioned woman.

She looked at the clock on the stove to figure out how long she'd been out. It was about 11:30 last she remembered, not the clock read 13:69. Two and half hours. At least she hadn't...

Oh god, that wasn't a proper time. She knew she wasn't awake at all now. The crash had begun, and she wouldn't wake for hours. She said a silent prayer to what ever gods would listen that this would just be a normal nightmare and not what she'd gone through the last three times she'd slept.

Scared of what she would see, but unable to keep from looking, Sandra walked over to the window and drew back the curtain.

The sky was blood red with a sun of pitch unshining overhead. The landscape was lit by a hellish light from the ground itself. People swarmed everywhere, trying to escape their torments. Great meat grinders threw out long cables and pulled helpless vitims into their maws, spewing gore out over the thronging masses. Snakes of razor wire slithered through the crowds enwrapping anyone who came near and squeezing.

A cold voice erupted behind her. It was the sound of a shovel scraping across a tombstone, or perhaps a knife raking across dry bone. "Beautiful isn't it? Don't be jealous of those below my dear. Once we are done with you, you may join them."

Sandra spun and saw the same fiendish thing that haunted her these past nights. It stood well over her head, and had the build and look of a poorly embalmed corpse. It also had a long serrated knife in each hand. It's face was a ruin. One eye was gone, while the other was covered in a cloudy white film. A deep scar ran down its face, through the missing eye socket to it's chin.

"Ah, there will be no escape for you this time my dear. Your medicines kept you from me for a while, but now it catches up with you. Your power in the Realm could be great." He pronounced Realm with a long 'e'. "But you cannot awaken yourself now. You are finally mine. The Lords of Emptiness will be so pleased."

Sandra backed away, but one of the mats on the floor writhed over her ankles and wrapped tightly. She fell to the floor, eyes up staring into the glassy, dead eye of her tormenter. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Oh, I could come up with so many reasons. You are a delicacy here, my dear. But it is my good fortune that the other Lords want your persona erased from the Realm forever, and they have asked me to do the job for them. It is, of course my pleasure." He stabbed down at Sandra with one of the wicked looking knives.

She rolled away. The slash cut through the mat that enwarpped her. It screamed in pain and split releasing her, but soaking her legs in it's blood. As the burning sensation flared in one leg, Sandra knew the blood was not all from the mat.

Sandra ran for the only door in the room. It should lead to the living room. She threw it open and found an empty closet. She slammed the door shut in frustration and dove right as a knife embedded itself in the door. She came down hard on her injured leg, and fell.

"You can't escape my dear. In the morning, or perhaps several mornings hence, someone will find your body. It will be in a coma that it will never recover from. You will be gone."

The cadaverous creature wrenched his knife out of the door. Blood fountained from the wounded wood. The creature was a bit off balance after the last tug, but Sandra couldn't take advantage of the situation. Then the door flew open, cracking the creature in the forehead and driving it back.

A man stepped out of the closet. Sandra couldn't tell what he looked like. She thought he was tall, but he was covered head to foot in a dark blue hooded cloak. The cloak billowed out behind him. It billowed and writhed in some wind that wasn't blowing.

The creature regained its compusre and glared at the cloaked man. "You are too late Wanderer. This one is mine. You have lost her." It advanced on the cloaked man, knives cutting the air, leaving trails of blood.

The cloaked man just stood his ground calmly. "Really? Tell me, do you think the Warrior will be satisfied with taking your second eye this time," His head seemed to incline downwards, towards the creature's groin. "Or do you suppose she might make things more personal." The cloak began to strech out on the man's right.

The creature's remaining eye widened and it stepped back away from the cloaked man. The man took advantage of the distraction, and spun around. He leaped at Sandra, who screamed in terror. She was engulfed in the folds of the cloak. As the darkness of the cloak covered her, she felt a bone numbing chill. She also felt that there was nothing holding her up. The floor was gone. Almost as quickly as the chill had egulfed her, it was gone, and she could feel pavement beneath her hands.