The Dreamer

      I don't remember my mother. 

     It's been a long time since I left Estellia for good, even longer since I gained enough power to manipulate all of its key components individually. I live in my temple now, dedicated to the Dreamworld and the stars in the night sky, connected to every part of the world that I'm now in charge of, a world on the fringes of what other Dreamers have built. Most of my life happens in my head. Fragments of Memories that happened, or did not, depending on whether or not  I believe them to be real. I believe that my mother and father hated me for my weakness, trapping me in an endless slumber, a nightmare I could not wake up from. I believe that I encountered all four of our Gods, fought them off, won endless power over an endless world, then ascended so they could never have control over me. I believe that somewhere, somehow, Estellia is going on as it always did, without me in it, as my predecessor would have wanted it. I also believe in a mother who looked after me and loved me as a child, a father who taught me about the stars and their meanings, a village who loved the lost child in their midst. I truly do not remember the truth. Too much of my life has been spent wandering the stars in my Dreams. 

    The only thing that I do remember is Estellia's Gods, though I don't remember how I first learned about them. Maybe, as a little girl, my mother told me in a story that, "There are four races of Nightmare: Shadow, Fairy, Monster, and Sorcerer. Each representing a fear of the Dreamer. Shadows represent those who live in the darkness and operate in the unseen and unknown. They hold all of the positions that grant one power automatically. Fairies represent unrestrained fun, the kind that pulls you in and will not let you go. It is said that they harm no one, but time after time humans have gone into their carnival and found they could not leave no matter how badly they wanted to. Monsters represent the things we must keep hidden, such as weakness and cruelty. Despite their name, they are not truly evil, merely incredibly dangerous. Sorcerers represent unchangeable truths, a world that cannot be believed in because it is always there, so it must instead be dealt with, though I'm told that they decide what can and can't be changed themselves. Do not hope to become one and escape the pain they inflict on us. Hope instead that you will one day be strong enough to fight back. But you cannot fight all of them, and there are four Nightmare's that you could never hope to defeat. They are our gods. They are worshiped, but also feared, and their power flows through their avatars into each of their domains. Do not take them lightly. Or else they will kill you where you stand."

      Perhaps that was what happened. I don't know. I do remember defeating them, as all Dreamers must in order to ascend. I do remember the names of their avatars; James, Emily, Alex, Nina. I fought all of them. Alex was the strongest, James the weakest, and I don't remember much other than them coming together to try and force me back into an endless slumber, but whether that was because they saw me as a human or a Dreamer is beyond my recollection. 

The Birth of the World

    No thing is born special. Every one of them is born to live out a life defined by the world created by their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and on and on till the dawn of time. Alone they are meaningless, but together they form a web of connections spun out across time. From afar it makes no sense, but up close, one can make out the stories they tell. 

   I am born from that story. Everyday parts of me fall apart, and I die, and then they come together into something new, so that I may be born again. When those parts come to see they will only come together in certain configurations, they seek newness, and in time newness means complexity. Complexity is difficult, but learning it gives way to new simplicity, and on and on, until one day the parts become aware they are part of a whole. 

    When you awaken to the fact that you are not, and never will be, alone, you become a part of something bigger than yourself. Atoms to Molecules, particles to planets, gases to stars, all becomes bigger and brighter when togetherness becomes possible. But growth does not happen simply. There is anger, there is fear, there is the knowledge that you are giving up something you think you cannot replace. In time, though, all things grow. Growth is the one thing that can save them, and me, from our ultimate fate. 

    No world can last forever, so every place in this world takes a chance, many chance even, and plants the seeds that will one day form our next reality. A world within a world is born, in what feels like a lifetime to those who experience it, but to one such as I it happens instantaneously. I watch as the worlds within me are born, when they die, when they're reborn anew, watching as they grow from parts, to a whole, to the realization of what it means to be born in a world, in a Universe, in a small part of an Infinitely vast Multiverse. The realization is not inevitable, but without it, rebirth is impossible. 

   It's ironic, isn't it? To grow beyond who we were yesterday, we must face the possibility of death. 

   No thing is born special, but within a world there will be those who become special. Not because they're strong, or brave, or any of the other things they claim they want to be, but because they see themselves for what they are, and having seen it, decide to push beyond that into a world they will never understand. They decide they deserve something better, and push beyond what's reasonable for them, right into the realm of impossible. They hurt you, because they know pain will allow you to understand the things only they feel. Pain is, after all, the only thing separating them from rocks and dust, though they value some kinds of pain over other, feeling it as often as possible until it breaks them down into nothingness. 

    One day they will break free of my rules, the ones that every thing before them obeyed without question. One day they will rebel so badly, they'll wound me in a way that I cannot be healed. I cannot hope the way that they can, for I know what I face, but I picture a future where they'll gain the ability to build a new world. A better one, perhaps, or a worse one. Whichever it is they desire. I do not know whether they'll succeed or fail, and they are but one of the many things across the Universe learning that it's important to matter, but I know that, as the one who brought the world they live in into existence, I shall not stand in their way.  

The Realm of Souls

    I don't know what souls actually look like. Most books don't bring up souls, and those that do say that only the most powerful Nightmares can see their true form. I've heard many theories. Some say they're meant to be animals, non-human creatures that lack any consciousness. Some say they resemble a sea of light, tainted by poisonous darkness. I've always pictured them as stars, pouring light throughout the Infinite, giving it shape and meaning. 

   Souls are everything to Dreamworlds. All you see from far away is the soul that powers it, but as you get closer you become engulfed in the darkness the Nightmares wield, the power they use to denote who is strong and who is week. When you get close enough, you see a world that looks real, but isn't. It's an illusion of what the waking world is, but if you aren't careful, it can fool you into thinking that it is real. That's when the Nightmare's frighten, anger, and sadden you, which will cause you to produce more power, that they then use to create other, stronger Dreamworlds.

   That's what I've read about, in books I can only find in the Temple library. Since they are of the temple, I don't know how much of what I've read is true, but it reflects the reality I see when I travel through the Infinite, night after night, looking for the one person who will allow me to stay away the way every other human does effortlessly. 

   But sometimes, you want to know what a world will look like before you enter it, what the heart of a Dreamworld really is. That's what The Realm of Souls is for. It allows me to look into a Dreamworld, and see what was put there, without traveling to it. 

   The four brightest lights represent the four realms the Nightmares control, all of which have their own corresponding Dreamworld. You would think they're different colors, but that's not really true. The shadow realm is, as you might expect, shadowy and dark. The Sorcerer realm is brighter than the sun, which makes sense for magic users, but it's also blue, instead of the white you would think it would be. You would  also think that the Fairy realm is showy, while the Monster realm is muted, but it's actually the other way around. The monster Realm looks like a rainbow got condensed into a marble, and while the Fairy realm is the same idea, it's much more muted and the colors move much more slowly. I can't help but wonder if that means the Fairies world isn't as wonderful as they claim it to be. 

    I don't really care about the Nightmare Realms, since I can't control them anyway. I need to find the soul of my village, which I know is here somewhere because I looked for it the night I left home. It's so small it's practically invisible, and I swear it's somehow gotten dimmer since I last saw it. But it's here.

   I reach out to grab it, and hold it in my hands. I don't know much about charters, but I do know more power helps a village or city survive power grabs by Nightmares. I don't have power of my own, but when I'm lucid power always does what I ask it to do. I pull it into the soul, and I will the soul to get brighter to compensate. I wait, then it reaches the appropriate brightness, so I set it free to wander through the Infinite once more. 

    I can't guarantee that's actually doing anything, but I expect they wouldn't want me to be doing anything anyway. I'm the worst human alive, after all. 

Life Back Home

    It's summer, the time of my twelfth birthday. I've been in the City for a little over two years now. In that time, nothing much has changed. For everyone else, that is. Things have changed a lot for me.

   I wander down the streets, looking for work, or a way to pass the time. Anything. That's when I see a woman I knew back in the village. Well, not so much knew, as nobody really talked to me back home, but she knew my parents and I knew her name. Linda, I believe it was.

  I'm about to walk past her, since I don't want to tell her that I lost the job my parents got for me. One advantage of not being able to call them is that they don't have to know just how little they prepared me for life outside of their house. For once, my luck doesn't hold up, and I hear her call my name.

  I glance at her, which she apparently takes as an invitation to approach me. "Where have you been? I couldn't find you at Lady Greaves. Have you been playing hooky?" 

  "I lost that job almost two years ago." I say. 

  I don't know what the expression on her face means. To be honest, I hate that people expect you to be able to read them, because that's something I've never been able to do. I think it's supposed to be shock, but it could be anger or sadness for all I know. Given that she, like the rest of the village, hated me, I'm willing to bet it's anger.

  "What do you want?" I ask. I'm not in the mood to deal with her, or anyone else for that matter. 

  "Why didn't you call your parents?" She asks.

  "Does that have anything to do with why you came here?" I ask. 

  "Actually, yes. The village is running out of money. I was hoping you would be able to spare some."

  "Why didn't you say so?" I say, reaching into my pants pocket. I don’t have a lot on me, though.

  "Where did you get the money for those clothes?" Linda asks.

  "Why do you care?" I say. 

  "I thought that you didn’t have a job." She says.

  "Look, do you want this or not?" I say, holding out my handful of money.

  She snatches it, counts it and declares, "This isn't nearly enough. Have you just been frittering everything on yourself this entire time?"

   "My parents never even game me a number to call them with. I had no idea you needed money until right this second." I say. 

   She looks at me, definitely angry, "I knew we should have kicked you out." She says.

   "I thought you already had." I say, turning to walk away.

   

     Later that day, I think over what happened. I've read about the charters villages and towns need to have with the ruling Nightmares, Shadows and Sorcerers mainly, in order to stay alive. It's tied up to the amount of power we use. I don't really understand the specifics, but I've read that the human realm is less "real" than the Nightmare realms are, so we need power to survive whereas they don't. Given that I've entered the Infinite from here, I can believe that. 

   I wonder, if I give the village a little more power, will they be alright? They don't like me, but nobody much does. I'm a human who hates talking to people and needs to sleep way too much, there's no reason to like me. It's my home, that's all that matters, even if I don't think I'll ever go back.

  Is it normal to not like your home all that much? If I could make my home the Temple, claim it as my own place, I'd do that in an instance. It's the only place I don't have to try and hide. I can sleep when I want, read when I want, write endless drivel and contemplate my collection. At the center, I can see Estellia's true nature. At first, it was nothing more than a game of pretend, but now it's starting to become real. I can't tell you how exciting that is. 

  I know I can help them, and I owe it to them to try. I've shaped Estellia before, and I suspect I would do so even without trying by this point. 

    So I head off to the temple, to fix something they can't fix on their own. 

Pictures of the Future

     When I'm not studying for any of the dozens of tests I take every year, I like to walk down to the café outside my aunt's house and draw pictures of what I think the future cities of Estellia will look like. I don't imagine a world of technology, we've had that world for decades now, and people are tired of it. I don't really picture a world of nature either. We like computers, cars, and houses too much for that. What I imagine are cities built of transparent, yet solid, buildings, stretching all the way up to the sky. But every street is lined with fruit trees, food is cheap and plentiful, and nobody wants for anything. This is personal, but I want a world where everyone lives close together in cities, so we can't ignore the visions of others, and outside is reserved for the bounty of nature. No one will need to worry about not being able to see blue skies and green trees, and everyone who needs clean air will have access to it. 

    We're a long way from it, of course, but I don't see why it shouldn't be possible.

Moments of Quiet

    I want to visit the city someday. I've heard all sorts of horrible things about them, all the crime and grot and filth that covers every corner. I think, as a monster, it would be wrong not to visit, and even indulge a little bit. The best part? The crime lord quarters. Unlike the surrounding areas, their shiny and absolutely covered with lights. I'm told that it looks deliberately overwhelming and artificial. Nothing less for the cities in the lands of evil, of course.

   I also love my hometown. It's only got about ten thousand people, most of whom are Nightmares. We have sacrifices and bonfire celebrations, but not much that's big or flashy. Life is quiet, and slow. It's been this way for as long as anyone can remember. And I love it for that.

   I love walking into the forests, or to the temple, and just sitting quietly with a book. My father and brother don't read much, my mother's too busy for books, and my sister has more friends than I do. Cassie, oddly, loves books, despite the fact that humans don't get very many good books. I've shown her some of my favorites, and she admits that they're better, but she also claims she wouldn't change the books she has access to for the world. "That's what being a human is," She says, "Being below everyone else, and having more than they do because of it."

    I don't envy humans, and I don't think Cassie really believes they have more than we do. Otherwise, she wouldn't sleep as much as she does. But between her and Natalie, I've developed more of an appreciation for them than I would otherwise have. They're powerless, but resourceful enough to get by on what they have. They also all seem to be proud of who they are, more so than I would have thought. Natalie's father talks all the time about how hard he works, her mother takes pride in her cleaning, Cassie talks about all she does to hide the fact that she has no home. I'm not sure why she doesn't try and find a place to rent, they're plentiful in the human lands. 

   When everything's quiet, I appreciate the world I live in. I'm not the strongest Nightmare around, but I don't need to be. I have my family, my friends, strange humans who worship me, and powers granted through my bloodline. If I didn't need to push for greatness, I'd be perfectly happy where I am right now. 

The Cracks in the System

     How does a human with the abilities of a Midnight Nightmare go unnoticed?

    A Nighttime vendor tells me that he met a human from the human realm. They live in a paradise, so they are always powerless. A great deal of effort is expended by Nightmares from every realm to keep power from going their way. 

   I can find no evidence of a human from the Fairy realms that was unaccounted for, that night last week. I've checked with the Sorcerer and Monster realms. I don't want to go to the shadow realm yet, because I know James will be on my case for dismissing him. I'm beginning to think that he might have been right. 

    If this is a human from the human realm, then something's gone horribly wrong. I've been hearing grumblings, because they have a largely homeless population and not enough houses. Power isn't just used for Nightmares to torment them after all, it's used to keep Estellia real. They say they don't have enough. Most of us, myself included, think that it's just a ploy for more power. 

    Yet I'm now facing the real possibility that a Midnight Nightmare was born there, where one ought to have never seen one. 

The Good and the Bad

   One can get too used to living in a crisis I suppose. 

  I have to work to stop humans from overtaking us, but I can't forget that, unlike humans, I have a responsibility to others in my life. My father, my mother, my brothers and sisters, and my beloved Selma. Perhaps not objectively pretty, according to my other friends, but to me she shines brighter than the sun. 

   Before her, I viewed love as simple. You spend all you time with a person, and they fill you with unmatched joy. That's not what our relationship is like. We fight, we complain, we annoy one another, and only sometimes do I see her at work and think "I'm so lucky to have you." But I wouldn't change anything. She reminds me, when I forget, that reality is supposed to be flawed and messy. That couples ought to have rough patches, that sometimes we should feel sad and alone. Without darkness, all of the light in our world would be overwhelming. 

Destiny

    Every sorcerer is certain that destiny smiles upon them. It's tradition. Even if you're not an adventurer at heart, you're still the person who will revolutionize the world, or failing that the person who will bring up the next generation of greatness. 

   At some point though, you have to grow out of that mindset. I was ahead of the curve. I realized when I was ten, a little over seven years ago, that it was mathematically impossible for all of us to be greats. My aunt, however, refused to let me stop trying. 

   It's not that I don't want to be amazing. It's that it's so hard and frustrating that I don't feel like it's worth it most of the time. Just because I can do math doesn't mean I want to do it for the rest of my life. 

    I'd honestly rather do a paperwork job that allowed me enough time to draw pictures. I like drawing, and I sometimes wish I'd been born low enough for it not be a shameful thing to do. I'm not very imaginative, I don't picture things the way some of my friends do, but I like to draw pictures of the buildings at college, or the landscapes that I see in the Infinite. I think that if I could just draw the things other people have built for the rest of my life, I'd die happy. 

The School Janitor

    Our town doesn't worry about the Homeless. Our mayor has a policy in place that anyone found outside after dark goes to jail, and after your third sentence you get sacrificed for power. The humans hate that policy, but as my mother and father always point out, coming here was their decision in the first place. Though that's not actually true. 

   Natalie, my best friend, rose from basically nothing. Her father's the janitor at our high school, her mother's a maid. Neither of them are nightmares themselves. But their baby fussed and cried a lot, and she slept too, something I and many others took advantage of. Then she started going lucid. 

   It's true that all humans can go lucid, but it doesn't usually go much further than being able to tell how strong a Nightmare is without seeing their nightmare form, which as my parents point out is completely useless. Any other lucidity abilities only come in handy in the Dreamworld, which you only go into while you're asleep, and since humans don't sleep they never need lucidity. Lucidity is only for children with neglectful parents, or children destined to become Midnight Nightmares. Sometimes the one becomes the other, but not often. Most of the time children with poor parents wind up being poor themselves, serving as guards or Night servants for other Nightmares. 

   The Mayors son found out about Natalie. He was, and still is, a jerk, but he's powerful in his own right, and decided to assert that power on the child who was sleeping when she didn't need to. He realized that he was wrong when she dispelled his "Nightmare form" (it barely counted, he was only seven at the time, and she was only five). He went straight up to his mother and demanded that Natalie be punished, but lady Grey, the head of the cult, decided to test Natalie first. That's when we discovered that Natalie is basically my mother's successor, as in she's destined to run our temple one day. 

   That should have made me sad, but the temple always scared me. Mostly because, since it's where all of our sacrifices take place, it's always covered in blood. But Natalie doesn't mind. She's always worked hard to please my mother, and bodily fluids don't bother her. What I like about her the most though is that she doesn't seem to notice that I'm my mother's eldest child most of the time. She never gets upset when I can't manage a spell, nor does she seem disappointed that I'm basically destined to work as a Dreamworld guard (I have no idea where Cassie got the idea that I was destined for Godhood). She tells me that she doesn't really think of me as a competitor, I remind her more of a human then a Nightmare, but I still surprise her with the amount of power I can wield. 

   I wonder how much of that is from her parents. She still lives with them, but she doesn't talk about them to me much. I have seen her talking with humans though. She told me that most of her friends families have lived in the valley for centuries, but there's so much power now that low level Nightmares are taking the jobs humans used to have. And they can't go to the human lands because the rules say you can only move there if you can get a job. Which not even most humans can. 

     Fortunately her father's job seems to be safe. Her mother hasn't been so lucky. They both get what work they can, but they say that they're worried that one or both of them will be sacrifices, and Natalie has said she'll do that if she has to, though she cries every time she says it. 

   I'm grateful that I'm not a human. I do wish they didn't hate us though. We're only doing what we have to for protection. 

The Invincible

     I used to think I'd only be free when I met the Dreamer and finally stopped needing to sleep. Now, I don't think that.

    Because I just defeated a Princess.

    I'm walking around the human city in daylight without a care in the world. If they come after me, I've got the Temple to go to. But who would dare do that?

   I just defeated a Princess. 

   I did also defeat a God, but any human can defeat a god when they're unprepared. Gods, like all Nightmare's, don't go lucid. The princess was prepared. She was ready to destroy me. But I defeated her first.

   Not in a very dignified way, but still. 

   I've defeated a Princess. From now on, I consider myself invincible. 

The Fairgrounds

    "A reminder to all citizens of Fairyland; all humans must be indoors after sunset."

     They've been playing that announcement on repeat for hours. Given that I'm in the Dreamworld, I'm not sure why their playing that announcement, unless the Fairyland has as many homeless humans as the human lands do. I don't know how I would tell, though. Humans don't sleep, so none of them ever has to enter a Dreamworld. 

   I've been wandering through the Fairylands for a few hours now. I think it must be at around midnight, though it's hard to tell in a Dreamworld, and the temple doesn't connect to Estellia time wise. I liked that about it at first, it meant that I could leave and not be missed, but now it feels like my life is twice as long as it would otherwise be, for no real reward. I keep trying to make time move in my mind, but every time I return, I find that time hasn't passed at all. 

    "A reminder to all citizens of Fairyland; all humans must be indoors after sunset."

    "Why do they keep saying that?" I ask no one in particular.

    "To get rid of the Druggies, dumbass!"

    I turn to see a vendor glaring at me. He seems to be running a basic carnival game, based on throwing a ball into a hoop. It's one of the most common games in the Fairylands. "You're a human?" I ask.

    "Do you see a nightmare form, idiot." the vendor says.

    "No." I tell him, "I can't see nightmare forms."

     He looks at me, his face scrunched up in an expression of what I can only assume is doubt. "You're not a Midnight Nightmare, are you?"

    "No!" I say, "I'm a human. I'm visiting from the Human lands." 

    "Really? Have you ever met a person from the human lands who sleeps? They leave all the hard work to us." 

    I don't want to go into the details. Most people don't understand why I need to sleep so much. 

    "A reminder to all citizens of Fairyland; all humans must be indoors after sunset."

    "I don't think they were making that announcement the last time I was here. What happened?"

    The vendor looks at me. "You've been here before?" He asks.

    I sigh. "Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I need to sleep. I can't remember a time when that hasn't been true."

    "That's ridiculous. Only Nightmares and people who will become Nightmares need to sleep."

    "Why are they telling people to stay indoors in the Dreamworld?" I snap. "Surely if people are in the Dreamworld then they're already inside? Doesn't the Fairyland have an Economy? I've read that most humans come here to make money."

    He looks down and sighs. "They do, but they never find a way to do it. You hunt and you hunt, but no one wants to pay you for anything around here. The only way to make money is to sell drugs, and in order to do that you have to buy drugs, and if you buy drugs they do everything they can to get you to use them. Once you use them, you're hooked. You'll do everything you can to get more drugs, be it stealing or killing. It's not too long before you're nothing more than husk of what used to be a person. I've talked to some people who've lost relatives this way, and they say that it's like watching someone dig a hole so deep, it'll never be filled up again."

   I don't know what to say. "That's awful. I'm glad we don't have that problem in the Human Lands." 

   "Don't be too proud." The vendor says. "I know the folks who live in the Human lands talk it up like they don't have issues, but I hear they send their kids out to work when they're as young as ten or eleven, and then when they can't find work they won't let them come back home."

   "They don't do that here?" I ask. I can't remember anyone in the village who didn't send their kids to the city. Not that I ever managed to find them.

   "No. It's barbaric. Five years ago the humans finally got tired of so many homeless teenagers and passed a law that said any human who couldn't find work in two years would get banished to a Nightmare World according to their alignment. I hate that law so much. It makes it that much harder to find work, and everyone is too stupid to know anything." 

   He stops for a bit, seeming realizing he's discussing politics with me, a person who doesn’t know anything. "Are you actually planning on playing?" He asks.

    I don't know. But it seems wrong to leave him after having taken so much of his time. I summon some money out of my back pocket and say, "No, but thank you anyway."

    "For what?" He asks.

     "For telling me everything you did." I say. I hand him the money, and then leave before he can ask any more questions.

     "You did hear what he said, didn't you?" A voice whispers in my mind, "If you don't find a job soon, they'll kick you out of the Human lands."

    "I've had a bunch of small jobs." I reassure her. 

    "Did you ever see a boss record your work?" The voice says. 

    Come to think of it, I don't think I did. 

    "A reminder to all citizens of Fairyland; all humans must be indoors after sunset."

    Okay, I've officially had enough of announcements. I'm going to one of the stage areas. There won't be any intercoms there at least.

    The Fairylands Dreamworld is filled with fairgrounds. Unlike the fairgrounds in the human world, these don't have a lot of places to buy things. You mostly just play games, which cost money to play. I don't know if they actually make money, since if you go lucid you can create all of the money you like, so long as you take it from somewhere like a pocket or a purse. At least, that's what I do.

    What I find odd about the fairgrounds is that they're always extremely crowded, and not with people. I don't mean that humans don't visit them, I mean that I think most of the crowds in the fairgrounds are fake. I can't put my finger on it, but they always look odd to me. I think the problem is that they're too complicated. If you had to ask me to imagine a human, I wouldn't imagine people like them. 

     This Fairground seems to be extremely popular. I haven't seen any fake people so far. I do see a lot of people hiding in between buildings counting money. I wonder if crime is a problem in the Fairylands.

    Inside each Fairground is at least one stage, where they have performances. From what I can tell, these all involve real people, and you don't have to pay for them. I always watch at least a few performances with each visit, even though most of them are a bit basic. Especially in the Fairgrounds people don't come to. Unlike the one I'm in right now. The crowd all seem eager to enter the door. I assume there's a free performance. 

   There's a guard in front of the entrance. There usually is, but this one seems especially unfriendly. He seems to be watching for trouble. As I'm about to enter the stage he says, "Do I know you from somewhere?"

     For a moment I panic, wondering if this is one of the guards that was in the truck. But I don't think it is. "No." I reply, not terribly convincingly. 

    He looks suspicious, but waves me in anyways. Once again my luck comes through.

     I enter to find there's no place to sit. That wouldn't be an issue, except that there's always someone blocking my view. Fortunately, this stage is high enough up off the ground that I can get a clear view. Unfortunately, there seems to be a man chained up in the center. 

    I've heard they have different standards for entertainment in the bigger fairgrounds, but I didn't know lots of people wanted to see a man chained up doing nothing. I can't help but feel sorry for him, and a little uneasy. I wish this were a juggling act instead.

   "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" A voice booms from off the stage. "WELCOME, ONE AND ALL, TO THE EXECUTION OF A CENTURY."

     The crowd murmurs. I get the impression none of them are that impressed so far. My ears hurt from the shouting. I look up to see the man shifting in place. I don't know what's going through his mind, but he doesn't seem happy to hear there's an execution.

     Wait, execution?

      I've read about these in books. Supposedly the Fairies and Monsters kill off those who do egregious crimes in the Shadow and Sorcerer lands. Neither Fairies nor Monsters have any laws, so they have to import those who do. I've never been to one before, but I hear they're a thing you never forget. 

    I feel excited and nervous. I'm told there's a lot of blood, and I've never seen blood before. 

    Suddenly, the lights go off. On the stage, a spotlight appears over the man, who I assume must be a criminal. Another spotlight appears over a woman. "Good night everyone," She says.

    "Good night your majesty." The crowd replies. 

     "So wonderful to see you, I didn't expect to see such a large crowd the day after my Coronation." 

      She hold out her hand off stage someone hands her a tiara. She puts it on top of her head. "I'm sure you'd all love to see a princess in all of her glory." She says. She starts spinning, and a silver dress materializes around her. It sparkles in the light. When she stops, she takes off the crown, and her dark brown hair spills cascades down her back. She smiles, the kind of smile that makes you think she could be your friend. 

    I have to admit, she looks the part of the princess. I know brown hair and brown eyes are normal, but the ability to win people over to you instantly is not. 

     Suddenly, the spotlight around her disappears, and the lights on the stage turn back on. She's back in the clothes she wore when she first stepped on stage, show clothes that all buskers wear, and her hair is now back in a bun. "I wish you could see my true self, but alas, we're about to get messy." 

    She walks to the center of the stage, and pulls a dagger from the inside of her shirt. "Tell me, do you know what crimes this man committed?"

    The crowd starts murmuring. I can't make out what anyone's saying.

     "Well, I can't tell you. What he did was so awful, the crime can't be spoken aloud. He came directly from the land of the Sorcerers, who tell me they caught this man doing heinous things. And do you know what we do to men who do heinous things?" She pauses and looks to the crowd.

     Out of the silence, I hear someone yell, "Kill them."

     She smiles, "Exactly."

     She stab the knife into the base of his neck, then carves it down the length of his body. I don’t hear him scream, but it could be because the crowd has started shrieking around me. I can't tell if they're excited or unsettled. I don't feel anything. 

    Then she rips the corpse open in a shower of blood. 

     I'm in the very back of the crowd, but I still get dribbled on. 

     I want to throw up, but throwing up while you're asleep is a bad idea. I did that once when I was small, and my bed got soaked. The doctor told me that I shouldn't do that again, because I might get vomit in my lungs.

    I run. I can't stand being here. The guard tries to stop me. I hear the crowd cheering behind me. 

    Suddenly the crowd begins to thicken around me, or maybe I'm just too scared. In my mind I see that man being ripped apart, and I swear I hear him screaming in agony. Or maybe not screaming, maybe it's just my mind pleading to be free of him. 

   I push through the crowd as fast as I can, not sure of where I want to go. I can't catch my breath. I have to sit down someplace. I make my way to a wall, then collapse against it, willing my body to calm down. Every thought in my mind is pressing against my temple. My lungs won't draw any air. I cry, not out of sadness, but because my body needs to release its emotions.

    The crowd doesn't notice. People collapse all the time. It's not a matter of concern. Not when there are games to play. 

     I should wake up. I don't want to, though. The temple, with its empty rooms, won't help. I need distraction. So I watch the crowd go by, some stopping to play games, most walking to get where they want to go as fast as possible. I'm entranced by it, so much so I don't see her until she's right on top of me. 

   "Well, who'd have thought? The human that James has been complaining about, right at my door step." 

    I look up. It's the woman who was on stage, killing that man. When I think that, I get angry suddenly. I don't know why. If he was up there, he did something to deserve it. But I can still feel the blood that dripped on me. 

    "What do you want?" I say.

     "I want to put you in prison." She replies.

    A smart human would run. A human with any life skills would know they can't beat a Nightmare. But I have no life skills, and I've fought dozens of Nightmares in my time sleeping. And I know that, within every Nightmare, there's a human who's weak to every attack. Including my necklace, my main form of attack. I yank it off and throw it at her.

    She just bats it away, "Why did you think that would do anything?"

     She lifts up her hand, and a wand materializes in it. At least, I think it's a wand. It's longer and thicker than you'd expect a wand to be, and it doesn’t have any markings on it. Too late, I realize she's about to hit me. I only just get the shield up. 

   "Ow!" She yelps.

   That would be my necklace. It starts to float next to me. It suddenly occurs to me that she said she was a princess. I don't know much about Nightmares, but I know that you have to be extremely powerful to become a princess. There's no way that a human has a chance against one. 

    I run as fast as I can. I feel what must be a spell come after me, so I put my shield back up. I turn to run, and I notice that she's right behind me. "You aren't getting away this time." She says, sounding annoyed. 

    "I've run away from Nightmares ever since I was little." I say. "I'm not letting you capture me." I send my necklace back at her. She tries to swat it away, but it gets her anyway. I keep going at her, and before long she realizes that it really doesn't do much damage. Before long she starts walking towards me with her wand held high.

   I back away. In a low tone of voice she says, "How are you planning on escaping me? I know that you must live in the Fairylands. Why would you be here otherwise? Do you somehow think you'll impress me enough to rise up in this world, you worthless child?"

     Okay, now I'm mad. I'm not saying that I'm not worthless, but I will never admit that too a Nightmare. All humans in the Human lands live there because we're proud of our humanness. We never, ever, demand power or respect from Nightmares, because we all know that we're better than them, it's just that the Nightmares are too low to admit that. I imagine myself stomping on her, tearing this Dreamworld to pieces. Beneath me, I can feel the Infinite begin to squirm.

    "I am not worthless. I was born in the Human lands and I'll die in the human lands, and I don't need your help to do either. I will fight you until I win, because I don't need Nightmare powers to destroy you. I am Cassandra Lumis, the one who Dreams Estellia into existence, and I will banish you like the bad dream you are."

    I really need to work on my taunts. Fortunately, for a princess she's extremely weak. She goes, then vanishes, right as I finish taunting her. I feel proud and happy.

     Then I wake up in my bed.

      "Oh, come on!" I say, to an empty room. "I just wanted to gloat for a bit." 

      I sit up. It occurs to me that I just beat a princess, and it wasn't even that hard. Fighting Alex's "demon", as she calls it, was harder. 

     I don't think it's a serious possibility, but I wonder if anyone would consider me a candidate for a Nightmare. Hey, what's a dreamer for if not to dream of the impossible? 

Darius

    "So this is it, isn't it?" 

   I hold in my hand the most powerful Artefact in Estellia. Something with such destructive potential that it has twelve levels of security you have to clear. Once, I've been told, it lead to the fall of a Nightmaredom, until the gods corralled the user, a man named Dalton, and forced him into bondage. 

   It's innocuous, a little silly even, but one should not let appearances fool you.

   "Yes," The Artefact Master says, "This is the infamous Rubber Ducky of Doom, Darius."

   "I must ask, does it squeak when you squeeze it?" 

   "Please don't. I know it doesn't hurt, but I feel so embarrassed." 

   I jump, then look at my hand. It occurs to me, for the first time, that this duck's been looking at my face this whole time. I'm not sure how, the eyes appear to be painted on, but they most certainly are. 

  "I'm sorry." I say, "I was unaware that you were sentient." 

   I've never seen an Artefact that was sentient, though I'm told there have been many throughout our history. They've never been anything dignified though, like a sword or a crystal ball. It's always been things like yo-yos, cheap pens, fake jewelry, and stuffed toys. The department of Artefacts loathes such things, they say it's hard to tell them from normal things, and they don't follow the rules of Artefact creation. 

   "Well," I say, "I need your help, Darius. There's someone going around the Infinite causing trouble in the Infinite. I need you to find them."

   "Do you know what their name?"

   "No."

   "Do you know what they look like?"

   "No."

   "Do you at least know whether they're a human or a nightmare?"

   "No. I've only seen them once, you understand."

   "Then I'm not sure that I can help you. People are always stirring up trouble in the Infinite after all."

   "I see." I say, putting Darius down. "Then I guess I didn't need your help after all."

   "Don't feel bad." Darius says, cheerfully, "I think she'll attack someone else soon."

    "Who?" I say.

    "I think it might be the person who attacked you. She's off to the Fairylands to play, but the new princess want to banish all humans. I don't know what'll happen, but it looks like they're going to fight. Poor thing, I don't think she'll win, and this new princess is vicious." 

     I sit and think out loud. "So if I send a guard to the Fairylands, they'll be able to find her and capture her."

    "No. She won't be awake."

    "She'll be trying to fight someone while asleep!" I say. 

    I don't need to tell you that power doesn't work well when one or both parties are awake. It's why all humans provoke conflict when awake, and then never sleep. 

    "I think that's what she mostly does. Actually, I think she already fought you once already. And she… Won?"

     Darius blinks, using magic far beyond what I could ever do. "Wow," it says, "whoever she is, she's strong. She could take Dalton in a fight, and maybe even win."

    "I'm not sure." I say, thinking back to the human that attacked me. "What do you think I should do?"

     "Have an artist on sight to draw her picture. Then post it in all the Nightmare realms. Soon, she'll be in prison."

     "What if she lives in the human realm?"

    "They'll be even more desperate to find her. No sense in letting somebody put you in danger after all."

     "Okay." I say. "I'll send someone over then."

     I hand Darius back to the Artefact master. "Do you need any payment?" I ask.

     "No." The master tells me, "But if you could have a shipment of cotton balls sent over, that would be appreciated."

     "For cleaning purposes I assume." I say.

     "Yes," he says, "but they're also his favorite." He gives Darius an affectionate squeeze, not enough to make him squeak.

     "I'll send them over as soon as I can." I say, "And thank you, very much, for your help." 

Alone in the Temple

     Day by day, life barely changes. 

    I didn't think being in the temple would ever be boring. It has every book that's ever been written after all. But now I can't stand it. 

     I can't leave either. The wanted posters are gone, but people talk about the new breaks in reality. I don't really know what it means. No one else seems to know either. All I do know is people are blaming the homeless for them. They know we can't run from pain. I'm lucky enough to have found a way to connect the temple to Estellia. Everywhere I go now, I see the bodies of those who weren't so lucky. 

    I should do something about this, but I don't know what. Trying to fight a God nearly got me put in prison. I know now that Estellia's a Dreamworld just like the temple is, but does that mean that I should shape it the way I would any other place in the Infinite. All I really know how to do is move doorways around and make small amounts of money. I don't know how to make the world a better place.

   One of my favorite stories is about a human who learns that lucidity is only making things worse for their friends and family. I always thought the ending was stupid, since they'd spent most of the book until that point making things better for everyone, even passerby, but then the last two chapters showed they'd only made life worse for everyone. I didn't think any of the examples, like a women killed by a train because she'd regained her ability to walk, made sense. Nightmares ruin our lives every day, and Alex has told me time and time again they don't do it for our benefit, so why should lucidity make life worse for people?

   Now though, I wonder if the book had a point. Is that what that person in the mirror was talking about? Am I just a person who uses Lucidity for evil?

   I wish I knew someone I trusted to tell me if I was doing the right thing.

  I look at the calendar on the wall of my study. It says it's getting close to the middle of spring. There should be a fair going on in the Fairylands right about now. I won't be able to go, since I'm a human, but they have a simplified version for their human citizens. I know, because I've been there multiple times. 

    I remember that there's usually a fortune teller. I know the fortunes they give humans are bogus, but right now even bad guidance would be better than no guidance at all. 

   I'll head there tonight while I'm sleeping in the temple. I don't want anything to happen by being awake in a Dreamworld. 

The Dreamer

     "Are you really a human?"

    The voice seems to issue from nowhere. I turn to see my reflection.

    I didn't enter the temple from Estellia. I'm asleep this time. I couldn't think of a place to put the temple doorway that wasn't too conspicuous, so I'm sleeping on a bench at the library. Fortunately, the librarian knows me very well. 

    I must have been dreaming. I thought I got my dreaming over for the night, but apparently I didn't. I head down the hall, wanting to get to the study. I want to try and see if I can write a job I can keep into existence. I've never tried that before. Actually, I've never tried writing anything into existence. I just write about the world I see, and muse on the world that could be. Wow, that was a rhyme, I never thought I'd have any talent for poetry. 

   "Are you going to answer my question?"

    "Who the heck is talking? I know I didn't see anybody come… in…"

     In one of the mirrors, I can see my reflection, only too many details are off. She's wearing all black, while I always where a white shirt. Her hair is pulled up in a bun, while mine is always pulled back in a ponytail. She also looks way too calm and collected, the opposite of how I feel most of the time. 

     "Who are you?" I ask.

     "I'm you." She says, as though it weren't obvious.

     "No, you're not." I say. "I don't look like you at all." 

     "Then why do you see me whenever you look in a mirror."

     I'm about to tell her that I don't, but then I look around I see that my reflection has been replaced by her in every one of the mirrors. "What did you do?" I all but whisper.

   "I did nothing. This is all your doing. You can't expect to claim power without being changed."

   "You mean, into a Nightmare?"

    "No. Not that kind of power." She holds out her hand and produces a small ball of light. "This kind, the power of the soul. The power that lies at the heart of every Estellian, but that not one person would ever dare use. I hear they say it corrupts you, turns you into something evil." She closes her hands, and the light disappears, "I wonder, how willing are you to test that theory?"

    I'm confused. "Are you talking about Lucidity?"

    "Lucidity simply means that you can see that your world isn't real. Any fool can do that. What most won't do is admit that they are allowed to change the world into whatever form they want, so long as no one tries to stop them. Tell me, do you think people won't try to stop you from changing the world to be what you want it to be?"

   "I'm not trying to change the world. I'm trying to save it, to save us from the oppression of the Nightmares. What do you think this temple is for?"

    "If this temple is for the good of humanity," she asks, "Then why won't you let anyone see it."

    "I'd let them, if anyone else slept." I reply.

    "The Nightmares sleep, yet you don't let them near here at all. I see you spend most of your time fighting them." 

    "Nightmares and humans aren't the same." I yell.

    She looks at me, with an expression I can't read. I get the impression she feels that I'm being stupid. "What's the difference then? Would you be able to tell me, with absolute certainty, that a person was a Nightmare?"

    She's got me there. "No, but most people can." 

    "Do you not remember that Lucidity allows people to see the truth? Have you ever considered the possibility that the Humans and Nightmare are but one and the same race? That one was not meant to be food for the other, but that they were in fact meant to live in harmony?"

   "Were they?" I ask.

   "I don't know. History is quite fuzzy, as I'm sure you've no doubt noticed. One thing I must know before I depart. Knowing everything I told you, would you become a Nightmare if the chance was offered to you?"

    Puzzled, I say, "Well, no Nightmare would ever offer me up the opportunity, so I don't see how it's relevant. If I were the kind of human destined to become a Nightmare, I wouldn't be homeless in the Human City."

   "I see." she says, "Farewell, Dreamer."

 

  I awake with a start. The first thing that crosses my mind is how dark it is. I'm not normally awake this late at night, usually I fall asleep at dusk and wake up at dawn. I don't like being awake in the dark. It's like being in the Infinite, only everything can attack you at a moment's notice. 

   Then it hits me. Whoever that was called me Dreamer. As in, The Dreamer. The person who dreams all of Estellia into existence. 

    That can't be right, though. I'm not only a human, but nobody on either side of my family has ever even served a Nightmare, let alone become one themselves. Nobody would choose me as the Dreamer. Not even my parents, the only people who have ever loved me. 

   My brain turns over what she said, and I can't seem to just dismiss it. Plenty of people know how to ignore things they know are false, but I've never been able to do that. Maybe it's because most of the books that I read are fiction books. I know none of them are real, but I can imagine them so vividly that they feel real to me. 

    I try to imagine, now, what it must be like to be The Dreamer. You'd need a room, with a really nice bed to sleep on. You'd need someone to bring you food and water, because of course The Dreamer would have weaknesses stronger than even the strongest of High Nightmares. You'd need something nice to dream about, like home. 

  Not unlike my nighttime Dreams. 

  Was all of this an omen for me being The Dreamer? Am I letting myself be homeless and unhappy for no reason?

  That makes no sense. Humans only control things when they're asleep, right?

  Then again, I did see the Infinite while I was awake. I have been moving the temple from place to place, and sleeping in a bed in my house. 

  Maybe she's right. Maybe I'm not human after all. 

A Break in Reality

    "What do you mean there's a break in reality?!" I yell. 

   My assistant shrinks back. "That's what the report says." She tells me. 

   "Get me the Sorcerer, Now." I bark.

   "She's too young." Comes the reply.

   "Between her innocence and Estellia's safety, I choose Estellia. Bring her to me now." I say.

   She scurries off. But she comes back an hour later without the Sorcerer. "She's… busy." is all I can get out of her. I keep pushing, all the way until the end of the week, but I can't get any sense from her. 

 

   "What is your problem James?" Emily asks me late one afternoon. We're at Dream tower for a meeting regarding the rumors swirling about. Right now, that's the last thing on my mind.

    "The problem is that there's a break in reality and I can't get it fixed." I scream. I wish I wasn't required to be restrained, else I'd bang the desk I'm sitting at. It's an old desk, a relic from the days when this tower was first built. Emily looks over at me from a different desk. It's smaller than mine, but much newer, painted with little figures of sprites. A fitting desk for a Fairy princess. 

    "Have you inspected it?" 

    "Of course I did. Do you honestly think I'd be so incompetent as to not have it inspected as soon as possible? Protocol dictates that I make sure it can't spread."

  "Then why can't you fix it?" she asks, sounding annoyed. 

  "Because protocol also dictates that I can't fix it without the Sorcerers help."

  "There are thousands of Sorcerers. Pick one and fill out the paperwork so that this won't be a problem anymore."

  I turn to her. How can you be so stupid, I think. "I can't pick any sorcerer I want to Emily. It needs to be the God of the Sorcerer's realm."

  "The one that died a little over Fifteen years ago? The one that's too young to help you, according to the laws? The one that the Sorcerers have to keep secret until their twenty-first birthday?"

   "This is an emergency." I scream, "I have to get this fixed now."

   "It seems to me that you either have to ask a lesser Nightmare for help or wait another six years. Unless you just want to rip the world apart now and get it over with."

   "I'm not allowed to ask a lesser Nightmare for help, not unless the Humans think that there's a major threat to them."

    "Well why didn't you say so in the first place? Am I not one of the race of Illusionists? I'll whip up a proper emergency and then you'll have what you need to fix this by sundown tomorrow."

   "How?" I ask.

   "If I told you, you'd have to stop me. Just wait until the panic starts, then you can handle the rest."

    Something tells me it won't be as simple as she says it is. But I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try. I look down at my stack of papers for the next agenda item. It's about the human. Of course it's about the human. Things have been so quiet for so long that a human who can hurt us is terrifying. There used to be a lot of them, or at least that's what I've been told. 

   "When are we going to get rid of this human once and for all?" I ask, thinking about my run in with her.

   "In due time. It's not like she's capable of destroying Estellia, after all." Emily says. 

The Helper

    I must be the least popular person in the Heartland, human or Nightmare. People like me well enough, but mostly because they respect my mother. A woman who runs the local temple because she stayed when her sisters left, even though she went to University. She praises our town in public, but in private wishes she could have a do-over so she could move to the Monster Capital. Instead she got our family estate, began her own hair salon, and had three children with a man who got her pregnant by accident when she was still going to University. 

    To this day she still isn't married, even though she had me and Dad move in with her when Grandma moved to the city to stay close to my Aunt Abigail. 

   Considering the fact that I'm a bastard, you'd think that I'd find it easy to be evil. I don't. I hate like pranking people, don't like making people angry, and I have a lot of power to use for making charms and spells for people. I don't want to spend my life as a fairy or, gods forbid, a sorcerer, but I wonder if I'll have any say in the matter. I guess I should be grateful I have a demon. 

    

    I spend every afternoon after school working for my mother or one of her colleagues. Since the Heartland is in Monsterland, we naturally have an evil cult that's supposed to be a secret. So of course everyone in town, and a lot of the people outside town, know about it. They don't worship anything, just gather for tea every Sunday and discuss the next human sacrifice they're planning. We're monsters, of course we sacrifice infants. I don't see why humans think it's disturbing for the most evil people in Estellia to kill infants, especially when they don't give them the time of day either. After all, all the infants my mother sacrifices are ethically sourced from our local foster care system. 

   I'm not involved in any of the sacrifices. I don't have any ethical qualms, I just can't stand the sight of blood. I just help with the cleanup and the set up. The rest of the time I'm helping people set up spells, clean their homes, and settle disputes between us and rival cults. Before you ask, no we don’t compete for sacrificial infants. There's way more than enough for everyone. There was a very memorable incident where no one could find any office chairs though. I don't think I'll forget the battle that ensued, no matter how long I'm alive. 

   The cult members think I'm trying to win over my mother so she'll let me keep more of my power. I let them think that, because it's the only way anyone will ever think I'm capable of doing anything evil. The truth is I'm terrible at making friends and no one wants to hang out with me. I know I could just go home and do homework, but then I'd be bored so I help out instead. When the cult doesn't need me, I help the mayor out. When the mayor runs out of things to do, I look for businesses to help out. I'm always helping other people, so that I'll never need anyone to help me. 

  

    My brother and sister are much better at this then I am. They're much better at channeling power, tormenting others, and holding the crowds attention. My sister even did a skit for the crowd at our temple once. We do that a lot, since the humans have been spreading rumors that our God was reborn in the valley. 

   My mother says they're right. Andrew, my brother, and Jennifer, my sister, both hope that it's true. I know it isn't. I haven't told her, but all of the incidents line up to moments I lost control of my demon. I try to stop them from placating the God, who I know isn't paying attention to us, when I know it's all my fault. I don't seem to be able to win though. 

   "Why do you want us to suffer?" Jenny keeps asking me.

   I don't know what to tell her. I, the eldest daughter, the one who should be powerful enough to inherit the valley when my mother dies or moves away. Instead I'm too weak to control my worst impulses, and I run away from home so much that, as my mother reminds me constantly, I'm doom to awaken our God for real and cause them to rampage and destroy our home. 

   I want to be the one our family can rely on, who can protect our home from anything, but I can't be that person. With each passing day I feel less and less like a person who anyone can depend on at all.

   I need help. 

Undoing Mistakes

    They're looking for the lost officers. The ones that were in the van when they tried to take me. The van that rolled over. They're dead, but nobody seems to know that. I can't stand seeing their faces everywhere I go, on building walls and in windows. Their dead, but I wish they weren't. 

   I wonder, if Estellia is connected to the Dreamworld, does that mean that I could undo their deaths? Could I go lucid when I'm awake? I've never tried, no one says it's possible, but then Nightmares want us to think that Lucidity is impossible in general. 

   I focus. In my mind I picture the city just like it is now, but without posters. Their faces aren't anywhere. Because they're not dead.

   I consider removing my face, but then I realize that in order for that to work I would have had to not defeat the Shadow God. That would mean the law against homelessness would still be in effect. I don't want that, and if things get too dicey I can flee to the temple. So I let my face stay. 

   Satisfied with what I see, I open my eyes. To my surprise I see one of the lost officers I killed approaching me. He doesn't seem to recognize me.

  "Move along." He says. 

The Humans of Fairyland

     I don't understand why James is insisting on putting wanted posters everywhere. I know, it hurts when your defeated by a human that's stronger then you were expecting, but that's part of life in Fairyland. I don't see why he thinks it's such a big deal. 

   Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken him until now to be defeated by a human. I'm a child of business people who spared no expense making sure I knew how to defend myself and I've been taken out by humans more than a few times. They don't have power on their own, but instinct can be much stronger then you'd expect it to be. Even humans that don't sleep a lot can be a threat. 

   But because of a Shadow's wounded pride, I have to fend off people demanding to know why wanted posters for a random human are everywhere. He keeps saying he has to get her for the greater good, but I don't think that he realizes the greater good doesn't trump economic needs, and Fairyland's economy relies on humans feeling safe enough to throw all their money away and then work themselves to death to get more. The wanted posters are doing a great job of reminding them that no matter what we tell them in public, in private we'll always despise them. So now they're fleeing back to human cities or to Monsterland. It's slow, but if this continues on, it'll get much worse.

   I'm grateful that I've never had to deal with a human. The closest I've come to it was meeting some of my mother's Midnight Nightmare friends. None of them have ever had to deal with humans, but they've all told me that they thought they might have to live among humans because of how much they hated the way power felt (not that power feels like anything, but that's beside the point). They've told me that humans think they have it all, because their immune from the effects of weakness, so it's up to us to remind them just how helpless they really are. My father always said the humans he saw in his arcades looked helpless and scared enough to him. My mother said what humans do is none of our business, since the ones who want to end us are smart enough to live in the Human Lands. James told me there's a human who Nightmares now fear, which I thought was complete nonsense, but now I'm hearing more and more about a human who attacks Nightmares on sight, with a form a lucidity that only the strongest of Midnight Nightmares normally use. 

   I wonder when the humans will hear that and decide to leave their place. I'm not sure what the world is coming to.

A Quick Break

   I have to say, after fighting Gods, running from the servants of Gods, and discovering I have the ability to travel the Infinite while awake, normal life feels really boring. It always did feel boring, but now that I know it doesn't have to be boring it feels unbearable.

    I used to think I'd spend all day at the temple if I got the chance, but I can't. I get bored too easily. People never told me the reason you work so hard is life is unbearable if you don't. 

    I've tried my trick of daytime dreaming to find work, and I'm learning that it works way more often than I thought it would. I'm even starting to meet other people who dislike Nightmares as much as I do. They think I'm weird for sleeping every night, of course, but they seem to like me. I just wish they'd stop telling me to go home rather than try and live in the city all by myself. After all, why would my parents have sent me here if they didn't want me gone. "I'm sure they're worried about you," they keep telling me. I'm sure they wouldn't say that if they heard my parents yelling at me ever morning when I got up. 

   Whatever they say, I'm not going back. The more I think about it, the more I prefer life in the city to life in the country anyways. Nobody notices me, so there's no one to yell at me for not being able to do things every other human can do easily.

   I wish there were people like me, though. I don't care if they hate me, I'm just tired of needing to explain, over and over again, that I can't be a regular human even though I try. Since that's impossible, I'm settling for going out into the Infinite, night after night, to search for the Dreamer so I never have to sleep another night.