A/N: I didn't really re-check this before posting it, so tell me if I wrote something that sounded dumb. Thanks!
Maria had awoken to her alarm, though it was a Sunday. She groggily hit the snooze button on her alarm, and turned it off to avoid further annoyance. She laid there in bed thinking about last night's events, worrying about Twylight. She contemplated going back to sleep in order to help get her back, but she felt wide awake, even though she oh-so wanted to sleep in.
The blogger opened her laptop which was on her nightstand, and quickly checked her blog for any notifications before she got up. After that, she got up and went down to get breakfast. As she reached the kitchen, she was surprised to find her brother sitting at the table on his phone at seven in the morning, it still being dark outside.
"Good morning, Will," she greeted him as she passed him to get to the pantry to get cereal.
"'Morning, Maria," Will replied, turning his head a little in her direction, but keeping his eyes glued to his phone screen.
"Why are you up at this hour? Usually you sleep until ten," she chuckled, as she set a bowl and cereal on the table across from Will.
"Um, I had a nightmare," he muttered.
"A nightmare?" What happened in it?" she asked with concern.
"Uh, it's nothing," he replied, taking a quick glance up at his sister as she began pouring milk into her cereal.
"Oh come on! You've got to tell me!" she nagged, taking a scoop of her cereal. "You always tell me your nightmares."
"Yeah, 'cause you always force them out of me!" he complained.
"Well yeah, but you always feel better after you've told me, and I can give you advice," she reminded him.
"Fine," Will huffed. "I was chased by some monsters, and then I woke up." Maria knew that was a lie.
"Come on, Will! I know there's more than that!" she badgered. "If it's about mom, you can always tell me.'
"Well, it's sort of about mom, but sort of not," he explained. Maria waited for him to continue. "I had a strange dream, and I was in mom's perspective. In the beginning, mom met this golden demon-kind-of creature, and they became friends, but as the dream progressed, there more demon-like creatures came and attacked her. The golden one was trying to protect her, but this big, scary god dude came down and grabbed her. After that, all I remember was feeling hopeless, scared, and like I was dying. Then I woke up."
Will's eye were a little red. It was clear he was up for quite awhile. "The weird thing was about the dream, is that I feel like I recognized the scary god guy, like I've been in a similar place that mom was, but it was different for me," he explained.
"That is a little weird," Maria replied. "You should worry too much though. It was still only a dream, and dreams can't come to hurt you."
She was finished with her cereal, so she emptied her bowl and put it in the sink. She then walked over to Will who went back to playing a game on his phone. Maria peeked at the game and chuckled. "Isn't that i-pets?"
"Yeah, so what?" Will muttered.
"Oh, it's nothing," she sighed. "I just haven't seen anyone play that game in years."
Will continued to play his candy crush-like game, and she went back upstairs to her room.
Maria looked out the window of her bedroom, and decided that today would clearly be 'stay in your bedroom and only leave for food and the bathroom'-day. So, she grabbed her laptop which was fully charged, and began to write whatever came to her mind in an empty Word document.
After awhile, she became bored, and began to play mindless games to entertain herself, but as she was laying in her bed, about to drift into a nap, she heard an out-of-worldly and saw a bright light through her eyelids. She moaned as she squinted across her room, and the light finally dimmed. She remained in that position with full disbelief when she saw Twylight and some other nightmaren floating right beside her desk in a frazzled state.
"What?" she gawked at the two dream creatures.
"Where are we?" the unfamiliar red and gold nightmaren asked Twylight.
"Um, I guess somewhere weird in Maria's Nightopia I suppose," Twylight shrugged.
"Maria… That the Visitor that is looking at us weirdly from that strange chair?" the nightmaren asked.
"Uh, yeah," Twylight replied, giving a slight wave.
"Um, either I don't remember falling asleep, or you two just appeared in my bedroom," Maria stated with a yawn.
"Well, we couldn't have entered the Waking World. That is impossible. So, the answer is, you, Maria, have fallen asleep and just don't remember," the new nightmaren concluded.
"Uh, can you just wait a second as I check something?" Maria requested. "Stay put. Don't move."
Maria got up out of her bed, and went to her door. She slowly opened it expecting to see Nightopia on the other side, but she was genuinely puzzled when she opened the door to see the upstairs hallway of her house, like, her actual house without any weird distortions you experience in dreams. She looked back, and saw Twylight and the other nightmaren just hovering there in her bedroom and just shook her head, to make her stop imagining things.
Awhile ago, Maria had heard Will come back up the stairs to his bedroom, so she quietly knocked on the bedroom door, and called, "Will, are you in there?"
She heard a moan and some lazy footsteps before Will opened his door and asked, "What do you want."
Maria just stared at him like she had seen a ghost, and Will slowly extended his hand and poked her. "Maria, are you in there? I asked you…"
The writer shook her head, and replied, "Yeah. I just got lost in thought for a moment."
"So, what do you want?" Will repeated.
"Uh, nothing. I was just checking to see how you were," Maria responded with a shrug.
"I'm fine. Please don't bother me again," Will muttered as he closed his door in Maria's face.
Maria then walked a few steps back to her room, and opened the door to see Twylight laying in the air above her bed, chatting with the other nightmaren who was sitting in the air above her desk.
"Well, it seems you two have made it the Awake World, or whatever you call my world," the human informed them.
"How is that possible!" the other nightmaren exclaimed as Maria shushed him.
"I didn't really pay attention to where I made a portal to," Twylight confessed. "I guess I was just remembering the event with Maria running away from Reala, and I accidentally made a portal right to where Maria was at the moment."
"What were you doing, and where where you? The last I heard was that Reala might have sent you to a really bad place. What happened?!" Maria exclaimed loudly, and in return from the next room over, was Will yelling, "Maria? Can you please talk quieter with your friend? I'm trying to nap!"
Maria suddenly questioned if Will knew there were people, or well, creatures in her room, but she resolved by thinking her brother probably just thought she was talking with Raya or Abby over the phone.
"Uh, hey, could you two turn into dreamers?" she inquired quietly.
"Uh, sure," Twylight complied. They both looked at the other nightmaren, but he shrugged, indicating he couldn't transform.
"Here, try this." Twylight took off her necklace, and handed it over to Teim.
He looked at the necklace in awe, and looked back at Twylight with hesitation.
"This is your gem. Would using it hurt you?" he asked. Twilin shrugged.
The red and gold 2nd level tentatively clasped the necklace, and with a silver glow, he transformed into a gold and red haired boy with dark brown skin, a fancy red and gold victorian outfit, and glasses that somewhat hid his glowing, nightmarish eyes.
"Perfect!" Twilin grinned as Teim handed her back her necklace and she put it back on.
"So, what's your name, and how did you two find yourselves here?" Maria questioned as she sat back on her bed, and grabbed her computer out of instinct.
"Um, I'm Teim, and failed 1st level nightmaren. I was imprisoned in the Dark Realm dungeon when Twylight found me and freed me," he explained.
"Uh, after Reala circled me, I fell into a black hole that transported me to Nightmare, and I just happened to wander down to the dungeon where there were a lot of poor, suffering nightmarens, so after I talked with Teim, I freed him. After that, Reala came down to the dungeon looking for me, so I escaped through a portal with Teim, and now we are here," the innocent dream creature explained.
"Alright. Are you able to make it back? Nyght is probably worried about you, Twylight, seeing that you've been gone longer then I've been awake," the human explained.
"Oh that's not a problem. I can just travel right back to the moment when Twylight left, and this 'Nyght' won't be worried," Teim beamed proudly, finally having a chance to use his powers.
"Well, I guess that makes sense with your name being Time," Maria smiled as she glanced at Teim and then looked down at her open laptop.
"Well, I guess we'll be going. I would want to disturb your day," Twylight smiled back at Maria as she poked the air and a portal appeared.
The two disappeared through the portal, and Maria just sat there in her bed staring at where the portal had been, and thinking, "Did that really just happen, or did I just hallucinate?"
"Maybe it's the new medicine I'm taking, or just the weather getting to me," she decided as she looked back down at her computer and continued to play mindless games, check her social media, and write down nonsense that she'd end up deleting 30 minutes later.
The rest of the day was extremely lazy, as she didn't even get up to get lunch.
That night, she went to bed early after rewatching a movie she liked, and quickly dozed off, seeing that she didn't get to take that nap.
