Veser had had this dream night and night again, always unsure why. It always began with him running, for whatever reason; always in some foggy, wet place that had the feel of running on water. 'Like Jesus,' he would laugh to himself, always wanting to shake off the chilling dread he would get from the nightmare. He couldn't remember when the dream had started, only that it had been going on for a while now.

The dream scape would remain blank for a while, just fog and water, then for some reason, the image of his mother would appear in front of him, making it seem as though he was running after her. This, at least, made a bit of sense to him, since he was now searching for her. What didn't make any sense was that these images had started before his father had taken her away. Before he had...

But they had gotten worse once Lee had disappeared. While chasing after his mother, it seemed he progressively got younger, and tall, dark trees began to appear out of the water. He would remember calling after his mother as she got farther and farther away no matter how fast he ran, and his terror would grow as he realized he was then being followed as his mother faded from sight. The surrounding trees became more and more dense as he ran, swaying, almost as if the branched were reaching out to him while a growing darkness was spreading behind him. Up ahead there would always be a larger tree with a clock face imbedded in it, for reasons unknown, and for some reason, that seemed to be his salvation. He would run, and run, and run, and as soon as he began to feel as though he would make it, the darkness from behind would take him; cold, black tendrils pulling him back and...

Veser gasped, sitting up in his bed so quickly his head spun. His rapid pulse thundered in his ears as he looked around, realizing finally that he was in his dorm room, not in that terror of a dream. Standing with a shaky sigh, he peered to the top bunk and noted that, like most nights, his room mate was missing from his assigned bed. 'Don't wanna catch freak-itus,' the other boy would often say. Veser's pounding heart gave way to a light ticking as he glanced over at the clock hanging on the wall, stating it was nearing three in the morning. Something seemed weird about it, but at that moment, he couldn't place what it was.

He grabbed his keys and headed for the door, deciding now would be a good time to go to the bathroom. Once open, he glanced out into the hallway, noting it was seemingly deserted, which was a little weird for Friday night, even at three. This was a college campus, after all. Shaking his head, he walked out, closing the door behind him and walked down the hall towards the bathroom, getting a slight shiver up his spine. A slight paranoia was started to creep over him as he walked into the dimly lit bathroom, looking around and ducking to see under the stalls. "No one in here, either," he muttered quietly to himself. As quickly as he could, he relieved himself in the nearest urinal and walked to the sinks, turning on one of the faucets, telling the hot water wash over his hands,

Sighing, Veser closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down. He knew he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep otherwise. When a few minutes had passed, he cut off the water and opened his eyes, only to be greeted by the reflection of a tall man standing behind him. He jumped, whipping around to see who was there and saw no one, his heart hammering in his chest once more. No, there had definitely been someone standing behind him in the reflection. ...Right?

Glancing back in the mirror, he only saw himself and burst out into a shaky, uncertain laughter. No one there. Of course. Had that guy been wearing a suit? "Man..." he said to himself, still laughing at his own paranoia. "You need to lay off the late night munchies..." Looking around once more, he retreated from the bathroom, stalking down the hall quicker than was necessary. Retrieving his dorm key from his pocket, he fumbled to slide it in, cursing at his shaky hands before finally getting it to work. Once in, he went strait for his bed and was once again greeted by the ticking of the clock on the wall.

Veser turned his back to it and laid down on his side, still quite convinced that something was strange about it. It was only when he was about to dose off that realization hit him. That clock doesn't tick. He was about to get up and look at it again when another noise made him freeze. There was a quiet click and a much louder creak as the sound of the door being opened resonated through the small dorm room. He just lay there, petrified for what seemed like forever, but when he heard no other noise, mustered up the courage to ask, "Derrick..? Hey, Derrick, that you?" Shutting his eyes and swallowing hard, he waited, hoped to hear his room mate's mocking laughter and taunts, but got none of that.

Whirling around and off the bed, Veser shouted as if to reassure himself of his own courage and strength, ready to pounce on whoever had decided to invade his dorm and freak him out, but was again greeted by no one. Only an open door. "S-Seriously..." he managed to sputter out. "What...the hell..." Hesitantly, he walked over to the open door, gripping the handle tightly, peering out yet again into the deserted hallway. Of course no one was there.

He closed the door, shaking, and slowly becoming convinced that he was going crazy. Veser walked back to his bed and buried himself in the sheets, telling himself that he was going to ignore any other weirdness for the rest of the night.

"Veser."

Great. Now he was hearing things.

"Veser..."

Who was that? Veser sat back up, feeling the need to find out, though unsure why. There wasn't anyone else in the room, was there? He turned around, looking again at the clock, then around slightly, seeing no movement other than the shadow of tree branches from outside. But, unless the street lamps from outside were moving, or those shadows were slowly extending. Swallowing the rock that had formed in his throat, Veser slowly followed the edge of the shadow with his eyes, landing in a dark corner of the room. Just shadow. Just darkness.

No. Someone was there. Someone was watching. Veser's mind was racing as the figure in the corner became more clear and appeared identical to what he had seen in the mirror. A tall, thin man wearing a suit. But where was his face? He wanted to run, he wanted to scream, he wanted to do anything but just stand there, but he couldn't. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move a muscle in his body. Even when the limbs he had mistaken as tree shadows continued to creep closer, he couldn't bring himself to budge, as if his body was completely disobeying every screaming command in his head.

It was as though his heart was going to hammer its way out of his chest before those shadow-like limbs eventually seemed to reach him, sending a cold chill through him, causing a sharp gasp to be pulled in and his legs to give out from underneath.

"G-God damn it..!" he swore, hitting his head on the bed post and landing on the floor. His head was spinning and the thing was slowly creeping towards him, watching him with his non-existent eyes. 'Oh god...' he thought, looking up at it as it loomed over him. 'Ohgodohgodohgod... This thing is going to kill me...' He squirmed, movement once again returned to him, but didn't get far as a skeletal hand came down on his shoulder, sending another icy surge through him.

Veser shut his eyes, resisting another gasp, his mind racing. What was this thing? Yes, he'd become more accepting of various types of "monsters" since meeting Hanna, but he'd never heard of anything like this before. Why was it here? What did it want?

When none of the expected pain or killing occurred, Veser opened his eyes to once again look up at the faceless man. It seemed to just be holding him there, watching him, as if deciding what to do next. "Um..." he piped quietly, not sure what to do, but instantly regretted his small noise as the thing was broken from its thoughts and let out an agitated growl. The creature started moving again, adjusting its position and pinning Veser down with more force than before.

"A-Ah..." he cringed, struggling to move. His fears peaked again as something about the thing's hold changed, its long fingers becoming even longer, moving down his back in a snake like fashion. "What the... Stop it. Stop touching me!" Veser thrashed against the hold, its strange tendril fingers wrapping their way around his neck and arms. "Get off!" he demanded.

"Veser..."

He kicked at the thing as his panic continued to grow, though noticed, with a twinge of annoyance, that the ticking noise was getting louder.

"Veser!"

"What!"

Veser opened his eyes and was instantly met with a pair of worries gray ones. "Wha..? Ples?" The older man's hand was on his shoulder.

He frowned.

In the past week, Veser had taken to sleeping on Ples' couch instead of going back to his dorm or Conrad's endless complaints. He still partially blamed the man for Lee's death, but at least he put up with Veser's accusations with an open mind. It really wasn't his fault after all...

"Did you have another nightmare?"

The nightmare. He had forgotten about it for that moment, but the images quickly came rushing back, making him shudder. "Y-Yeah..." Veser glances at one of the many clocks on the wall, pulling in a shaky breath. Almost four...

"Oh dear..." Ples frowned, watching Veser closely while helping him back onto the couch. "It seemed particularly violent... What happened?"

"It was... It was bad... I don't really want to talk about it..."

The older man stood, nodding. "I understand." He looked down at Veser, still looking rather worried. "Y-You should probably try and get more sleep."

"Probably..."

Nodding again, Ples walked to the stairs, heading for the second floor. "Goodnight, Veser."

Veser watched as he ascended out of sight, seeing something that was most likely a trick of the light but send a chill through him anyway. Getting more sleep probably would be the best thing to do, but he doubted much more of it would come. He was meeting with Hanna and the others at the diner around ten and hoped whatever was going on with the 24-year-old would help distract Veser from his nightmare.

Though it was starting to feel more and more real.

Laying down on his side, Veser looked up to the stairs, thinking again about what he has saw.

He could have sworn Ples was smiling.