** For Solitaryloner's stress-relieving contest. I hope you like it, and I hope it gets rid of stress. Eh-heh...

I DO NOT OWN VOCALOID!

The characters aren't based off Yumekui Merry. She has the same name, but that's the only resemblence they intentionally have.**

Inside dreams, you are never lost. You can be told that you are lost, but you always have some reason to keep searching. A longing to get back home, perhaps. Or maybe something is chasing you, and you need to get to safety.

Real life is different. You are always lost. You have a reason to stay hidden, where nobody can hide you. You say you know where you're going, but you really never do. There will always be something that will throw you off course.

This makes humans want to stray from life and go into a world of entirely dreams. They never think of the bad things. They never think of Nightmares, the dreams that end without an actual ending, and what happens back in real life.

I am Yumekui. Some call me the Dream eater. My entire job consists of getting rid of all the Nightmares.

The one to my right is Yumekei. She's my mortal enemy. She's also my best friend, employer, boss, employee, and assisstant. Her job is to create happy drems.

To my left is- Eh? Where'd he go? Yumekei, we have to go! We'll tell the new one the details later!

I grumbled, floating along the Path of Dreams (due to a lack of a better name), looking for Yumekuri. He's such a devil sometimes! He knows he's not supposed to run off during introductions, but he does it anyway!

"That little IDIOT!" I yelled at the air.

"Yumekui, calm down. We'll find him. You can take down any Nightmares he creates, too. We shouldn't be worried." Yumekei had caught up to me after I stormed out of the introduction room.

The moment I'd stepped out of the introduction room, my form had changed. I had heavy chain armor on, but it didn't weigh me down. It definitley wasn't pretty, but it was a pretty good defense against most of his Nightmares.

To my left, I see a kid sleeping in a bed. That was real life. In his dream, he was an adult, standing in front of a large office building, about 100 stories high. The nightmare was waiting inside, with Yumekuri sitting carefully on it's shoulder.

The adult took a step into the revolving doors. I jumped into the dream, Yumekei following closely behind.

"Yumekei, stop the time!" We were standing on the 14th floor, inside of an empty conference room.

"You don't have to yell. I'm right here." She was dragging her finger through the air, creating symbols. At the last one, all the noise from outside silenced. Except a very loud bang.

The fastest way down is out the window. I threw myself at the largest one in the room, the glass shattering, but quickly moving back in time to be in the shape of a window.

Despite being so high up, I landed safely on the ground. I quickly spun around, to see the hulking figure cracking it's knuckles. Yumekuri frowned at the man frozen in the revolving doors. I broke the glass on one of the handicapped doors with a fist and quickly stepped through.

Yumekuri looked at me, still frowning. "Oh, look. We're just gonna have to-"

I picked up a woman standing nearby, then threw it at him. "Can't you just sit still for introductions? Half of the dreamers don't know who you are!"

The Nightmare hit the woman away, sending her crashing into a wall. She still looked like she was walking, looking at her watch. She disappeared, then reappeared at my side. The wall fixed itself, too.

He scoffed at me. "It's boring. I'd rather be doing something like this. Without interruption." He jumped off the Nightmare's shoulder, who came charging at me. It was about twelve feet tall when standing straight up. It was bent over, though, so that it would fit into the crowded office space. Its frame reminded me of the hulk, except not green. It ran like a dog in a crowded space like this.

A sword materialized in my hand. It had a long blade, about three feet, but it felt like it was only the hilt. The blade itself was invisible, made of a dust-like powder that I control. I jumped out of the way of the Nightmare, to the left. In midair, I swung the sword, sending my entire body spinning. With that blow, its arm was cleanly chopped off.

It roared in pain, then turned to me, red-eyed. I widened my stance defensively, gripping the sword with two hands. "If you're so angry, come get me!" It did as I said, galloping at me awkwardly. The ground shook as it got closer. I jumped up at the last second, landing on its right shoulder.

I swung the sword quickly at it's neck, my sword getting half-way through its neck before stopping. But it was far enough, and the Nightmare fell to its left, dead. The particles of my sword dispersed around me, like they always are.

I looked to Yumekuri, grinning smugly. "Come on. Stop making these things and do what you're supposed to."

He scoffed and looked away. His dark black hair was always messily hanging on his head, halfly covering one eye. He wore a black leather jacket and a black undershirt. His jeans were, as you probably guessed it, black, and he wore black Converse shoes.

He wasn't all bad, though. He's the reason that we're not stuck in dreams call him the Dream Ender, because he ends the dreams that we're in.

I leaped to his side, grabbing the collar of his shirt and leaning close to his face. "Listen to me! You do your job right, so that I don't have to deal with Nightmares all the time! They serve no point except to create fear!" I took a step back, still glaring at him and holding his collar, though.

"It's not my fault you're still scared of them. I mean, you can beat them, so why let one loss-"

I quickly interrupted him. "Because one loss is all it takes to lose it all. I could've died. I did die." I dropped his collar and looked away. "You know what happened that day. Why I can't forgive you."

He put a hand out in front of my face, palm facing the floor. "I'm opening the portal. I'd get Yumekei before it closes."

I nodded, running outside. I jumped onto the first floor's windowsill, then the second, and so on. Scaling buildings is much quicker than climbing stairs. At the fourteenth floor, I broke the window, jumped inside, grabbed Yumekei, then jumped back out the window.

She screamed the entire way down. I swear. The entire 14 stories. That girl could kill a Nightmare by screaming. I thought for sure my eardrums were bleeding when I hit the ground. But no time to check, because the portal was open. Luckily, Yumekuri hadn't left yet.

He was rubbing his temples in little circles. "Man, whoever was screaming has a death wish." He glared at Yumekei, who I was pointing at.

I sighed, breaking a window and jumping inside, Yumekei following quickly. "Time expiring in ten. Yumekuri, sync." Yumekei and the mentioned boy linked hands, the portal at our feet shrinking, then growing just enough to swallow us in. Yumekei took my hand as we fell, since I'd recently gotten lost in between dreams.

I landed gracefully on the couch with Yumekei on my left and Yumekuri in the chair on our right. Me and Yumekei were glaring at Yumekuri. She was the first one to speak. "Can't you be a little bit less apathetic? You're always messing around. Why can't you just do your job and get it over with for the day?"

He scoffed and looked away. "It's fun watching you guys fight. I mean-"

"Pervert," I interrupted. His face was still turned away, but I could tell he was blushing.

"A-Am not! If the gods think they can just force us to do everything without becoming angry, they have another thing coming!"

We don't just get our powers out of nowhere, as Yumekuri just said. Our powers have to come from a source of higher power: the gods. I've only been a Dream Master for a short while, so I haven't seen anyone get expelled. But Yumekei tells me that people like Yumekuri are essentially 'deleted,' to the point where they aren't back to dreamers, but they're not Dream Masters.

They're called duds. Their bodies soulessly move, being forced to go along with the flow of the world. It's why Yumekuri is as he is; apathetic, that is. He's slowly becoming a dud. He still shows occasional emotion, but it only comes when me and Yumekei get him worked up.

"Hey, Yumekuri. aren't you afraid of what's going to happen to you once the entire process takes hold of you?"

His attention turned back to me. "No. I knew that going into this that one day, I'd have to suffer the consequences."

"Do you ever think of how we feel? When you disappear, we'll be alone." Yumekei abruptly stood and glared at Yumekuri. "Don't you think we should stay like we were before?"

Yumekuri looked at her boredly. "We were childish and Naive then. Things have happened; stop going back there."

They argued alot; we all arged alot. This was the first time I'd heard of what happened in their past, before I met them.

"You really don't get it anymore? That's the only thing we have connecting to reality. You just want to get rid of it?"

"There's nothing else we can do! We're stuck here for God-knows-how-long! The string connecting you to reality is breaking; you won't be able to see us soon!" He stood up and got a few steps closer to Yumekei, so that he was right in front of me, and only a step away from Yumekei.

"That's why I want to cherish it! I don't want to forget us, but you appearantly do!" It was very rare that Yumekei raised her voice. Her form quickly faded, so that it was me and Yumekuri left in the room.

He put his hand out so that it rested on where her shoulder would've been. He sighed, then looked at me. "Confused?"

I nodded a couple times then rose to my feet in front of him. "Did you guys know eachother before you met here?"

He nodded grimly. The hand that was supposed to be on her shoulder opened all the way, a black dot falling out of his palm. It created an image on the floor, showing a couple in their late teens in a big box, chains around their wrists and ankles keeping them apart. They both were as far out as their chains would reach, but were still a foot from reaching eachother. They also looked like they were sleeping.

Yumekuri grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the portrait. Up close, I could tell the boy looked alot like Yumekuri: The same black hair, small face, tall. I reached out and found that I could touch his face.

His eyes slowly opened, revealing golden orbs. He quickly sat up, watching me carefully.

"I'm no longer Yumekuri. I'm Rei, nice to meet you."

The girl sat up, and, like with Yumekuri- er, Rei?- she had similar features to Yumekei: The same golden hair with white clips and a bow, and sky-blue eyes. "I'm Rin, known by you as Yumekei."

Rei chimed in, their voices mixing almost musically. "I hope you're not closterphobic." Rin smiled devilishly, while Rei gave just a twitch of the side of his mouth.

I sat on the dirt floor, waving at the two. I was appearantly out of reach out of the two, too, since neither of them extended their hands to shake. "Since we're using our old names, I'm Meiko. The pleasure is all mine."

*** As you can guess, there will be a next chapter. It should clear up some of the confusion, if there is any. I'll write it when I have the time and/or energy to do so.

Any questions, comments, or useful/less info, the big white box at the bottom tells me what you're thinking. You just have to be open with it~~***