I'm baaaaaaaack! Sorry to those of you who wanted Julian - he'll be back next chapter, I swear!

I'd also like to take this moment to thank all of you guys who review. I didn't actually think I would get such a warm welcome on my first fanfic, and reading what you guys have to say makes me really happy c: Thanks you guys

Anyhow, on to the fun stuff:


The shadow flickered over the snow covered ground at an unnatural pace for a shadow... that moved - if one could say that that in itself was a normal thing. Normally, he would have just moved across the ground in a solid form - it took less energy and he really did enjoy looking at the scenery- but late last night, the normally constant storms had cleared, and with the snow reflecting the unusual amount of the sunshine, it was just too bright out for his taste. Of course, he had seen the Human World before, and it was still very dark here by comparison... But it was definitely still too bright out.

He was on his way to find the others, who had left him alone last night. He wasn't particularly happy that he had to catch up, but it had to be done. They had business to attend to, after all.

However, that business was bumped down in importance when the shadow came across something that was certainly not snow. No, it was something very very different, and it made him very very happy. The shadow had come across blood - human blood inside a human handprint. And whoever was injured had left it recently. Maybe yesterday, before the storm had cleared.

The shadow quickly took shape into the human form he had created for himself. Brilliant silver eyes squinted in delight at the blood, though partially blocked by auburn hair. He grinned, showing still very pointed teeth. He had every reason to grin, too. All around him were indents where bodies and feet had landed, and while the marks weren't very clear, it still told him that there were now quite a few humans in the Shadow World. He looked up towards a huge, rocky spire in the distance. Those indents also told him where they had headed.


"We brought breakfast!" Jenny held up the load in her arms sheepishly.

When she and Tom had returned from upstairs, their friends had been in a panic. They were immediately yelled at, even called stupid, for leaving the group and doing so without telling the others. Only after that had happened did Michael notice what Tom and Jenny were holding.

"We spent all night rummaging through the nightmares for this - thankfully there is more, so dig in." Tom said as he dumped his arm full onto a nearby table. The vase that had been previously occupying the space was moved to sit shamefully upon the floor.

"Wow! This is incredible! Thanks, you guys!" Summer cried with delight.

Dee eyed it with a little more suspicion, "Which nightmare did you find it in?"

"Well most of this is from your nightmare," Jenny set her load down where Tom had put his food, "But we did find some in Summer, Zach and Michael's nightmares too. The rest should probably be fall back food, though. Summer's didn't look like it was rotten, but with a nightmare like that, you never know - we would have to hope Julian wasn't that detail oriented. Zach's only has a little - some of his masterpieces have pieces of food in them. Michael's is... well, the plants."

The others crinkled their noses at that. The memory of Michael's nightmare was all too clear in their minds - those plants as a food source would be saved for if they desperately needed them.

"Well let's see what you've got." Michael murmured, shrugging off the last thought.

Tom and Jenny started taking off items from the small table and tossing them to their friends.

"We've got some jerky we found in one of the caves," Tom said as he passed it out, "And some veggies and berries we found in the woods."

"And we even managed to catch and cook a couple fish." Jenny unwrapped the pieces of fish they had wrapped in a dirty pillow cover they had found in her nightmare.

"Man, this is a feast. Thanks you guys!" Summer cried happily.

"You're welcome." Tom sat down with his ration quite happily.

Jenny was a little more hesitant, staring at her food, "Thank Julian." Why would he leave this sort of thing laying around? Had he cared enough back then to feed them if they had really looked for it? If he had, they obviously hadn't noticed - unsurprising, seeing as they had been dealing with their worst nightmares.

At the silence that followed, she looked up. Her friends were staring at her incredulously, and she realized what she had just said probably sounded like. "I mean, he was the one who created all of this food. In the nightmares. For us to find." She quickly backtracked. Her face was painfully hot - she hoped she wasn't blushing too badly. She really needed to stop talking about Julian. She just kept digging herself a deeper and deeper pit. Soon enough, Julian really would win - if the other Shadow Men didn't find them first. After they ate, figuring out a way out of here would need to be the next line of business.


The language the Shadow Men used amongst each other was comprised of low growls and hisses. To any human ear unlucky enough to catch such a conversation, it would really just sound like something one might here amongst the static of a bad radio signal. It was almost laughable, how simple the language was - especially when compared to the complexity and power that was the Shadow Men.

Of course, in their minds English, French, German, and their old favorite, Latin, were all painfully simple. A simple, stupid form of communication for simple, stupid creatures. Human filth, there was a good reason the Shadow Men hunted them for sport. The vile creatures were so weak and pathetic the Shadow Men wouldn't even dream of treating them as equals.

Even so, the Shadow Men had to admit that humans made it relatively hard to catch hold of them. They had all sorts of defenses - the foremost being the exceedingly difficult to penetrate spirit barriers around their world. It took a lot of work to pierce the veil so that they could snatch one of the pathetic creatures on the other side... It took even more work to do so with relatively little difficulty. Humans were very attached to each other. It was hard to get them into small enough groups that the Shadow Men could catch hold of them.

They watched any human they had targeted for a long time before they could catch hold of it. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, though. When they had watched a human for a while, they got to know the poor creature - the nightmares got more personal when they finally did capture the human.

It was rather dull, though. This they were currently discovering as they watched their newest piece of prey surf this thing called 'the web'. That's all this person did, and the Shadow Men were getting pretty bored with it.

One of them groaned when the human switched over to something blue and white on the computer. This was the worst part for the Shadow Men. Watching this person go through stupid 'funny pics' and read about others lives was hell. A terrible hiss escaped the same monster, 'Why can't we take him now? He is doing nothing and I am growing bored'.

'We are not strong enough to take another. You know that.'

Energy flared in the room as two pairs of narrowed eyes met. Other eyes peeked out of the mist and darkness to watch the impending squabble - but all was cut off when another Shadow Man entered the room. Tensions set aside, all eyes rested on the newcomer. He was in human form and seemingly out of breath, like he had rushed here.

'Do you bring us news, young one?' Snarled a Shadow Man from the back of the group, its crocodile eyes wide with interest.

"Humans." The air in the room suddenly grew icy as everyone froze, "There are humans in the Shadow World."

'How?' Another hissed. It glanced around the room, but as no other Shadow Men had an explanation, it was forced to question further, 'How do you know this? Surely we would have noticed if there were humans here.'

"I found human blood in some fresh tracks in the snow. There are several here." Said the silver eyed Shadow Man, quite proud that he had done something his elders had not.

The Shadow Men rushed forward so the auburn haired boy was faced with several pairs of eyes in his face, 'Show us.'


They had now spent some time in Jenny's nightmare, and she still couldn't get used to it. Just the sight of this basement sent chills up her spine. It was also exceedingly cold in here compared to the front room, but that was simply because they had warmed that room up with their body heat - Julian hadn't bothered to heat this place or anything. Or at least, not the nightmares. But the chill wasn't from the cold, Jenny was still genuinely creeped by her nightmare. And it made her feel guiltier than she cared to be, being that if what went down in this room had never happened, they would have never been in this situation in the first place. It was all her fault.

She and her friends shuffled around the basement, flipping through books of all sorts in hopes of finding something -anything- that might help them get out of here. Julian really had spared no expense in the creation of Jenny's nightmare - all of the books were exactly as they had been in her grandfather's basement. There was not a single line of fake writing or gibberish to be found.

In moving on to another bookshelf, Jenny walked past the closet door, which was wide open. It was untouched from when Julian had burst through, and she shuddered to see blood stains on the floor in front of it. In a way, though, the sheer amount of blood on the floor was a relief - perhaps that meant PC and Slug had not experienced pain before they were imprisoned in Joyland - Oh what was she talking about, of course they had. They suffered at Joyland as well. Jenny shuddered and averted her eyes from the horrible amount of blood - only for them to rest on what was on the inside of the closet.

Claw marks.

They were all over the inside of the door and the walls of the closet. Horrible, deep ones. They were made by something obviously not human. Julian had been very angry - and yet, had refrained from killing anyone when he returned (other than PC and Slug). In a way, it was charming, even surprising when compared to how deep these marks were.

Almost in a trance, Jenny walked up to the closet door to feel one of the marks. To think: that could have been her, or one of her friends. She moved her eyes to the inside of the closet again. There were even claw marks in the ceiling and the floor. Julian had been desperate. It was like facing his own nightmare. A taste of his own medicine, per say. She was sure it must have been torture to be stuck in the closet once again. She almost smirked - he deserved it. After all he put them through, no matter how she felt for him all through the ordeal, he deserved it.

In the shadiest corner of the closet, she found her name scratched carefully into the wall. She shuddered once again and immediately retreated from the closet. She didn't want to think anymore about Julian or the games right now - not unless it meant him getting them out of here.

"So what have we found?" Zach asked, looking at the small pile of books on the couch. Small was relative, of course. There were shelves upon shelves of books in here, but they still had a fair number, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, piled on the couch.

"Something's got to be in all of this." Michael mumbled, staring at the pile with dull eyes. "He had to have taken some sort of precaution, right? Just in case something went wrong and he got stuck here?"

"Well, he did seem pretty cautious to me." Jenny shrugged.

"Yeah, we should at least be able to find a spell to fend off the Shadow Men." Zach added.

Dee gave a bitter snort, "Why didn't he use it on the Shadow Men way back when?" She received no reply other than six angry glares.

After a tense moment, Summer gathered a few books up in her arms, "Well I'm figuring that we have some reading to do. Let's go back to where it's at least warm."

Happy to break the tension, Tom followed, "I like your idea."


Some time later, they took a break from reading to return to Audrey's nightmare for more food. When they returned, they sat down to eat, chatting happily and acting fairly comfortable for sitting in the front room of the nightmare house. Everyone was in fairly good spirits because they had quite a few dog eared pages. They had several good spells that they would soon be trying. Some were spells for piercing the veil between worlds, others were for calling specific spirits to them(Julian). One of the spells had to work - and they'd be out of here and home free without a trouble from the other Shadow Men. Everyone was willing to admit that they would much rather deal with Julian than these beasts.

The level of comfort during the meal became so extreme that at one point, they were laughing and yelling and throwing a particularly nasty piece of fruit they had found at each other. It had turned into a fun game of hot potato, and for a moment, their troubles were forgotten.

Until they heard a thump on the roof.

Everyone stopped and listened. The sound didn't come again.

"What was that?" Michael asked shakily.

"The house settling or snow falling off that big rock outside." Tom answered a little too quickly.

There was silence again as they listened for any other sound.

"It was definitely outside. Not upstairs." Zach murmured.

"Shut up. You're freaking me out." Michael hissed, his voice was starting to get uncomfortably high and strained.

Something skittered across the roof and down an outside wall. Whatever it was, it was large and sounded like it had claws.

"Julian?" Jenny whispered hopefully.

Dee shook her head slowly, "I don't think Julian spends his free time pretending to be a demon squirrel."

"Anyone afraid of squirrels?" Summer asked dryly.

Tom had retrieved a rather sharp wall sconce from the stair case and now came to the center of the room, crouched in fighting stance and ready to use it. Zach followed his lead, as well as Audrey.

"Do you think they found us?" Audrey murmured.

Michael shuddered, "Please don't even think like that."

"Someone pull out a spell, just in case." Dee growled. Jenny jumped into action.

They stood still and tense for what seemed like an eternity. Nothing further was happening outside, aside from the howling wind and the snow rocketing past. Jenny had gone through a good six spells, trying to memorize them, before everyone started to relax.

"I think whatever it was is gone." Audrey said. Her eyes shifted to the still shaking Michael and she smiled at him reassuringly. Jenny looked up for a second to glance over the windows. Seeing nothing that really bothered her, she returned to memorizing this next spell.

Dee huffed in relief and fell out of her fighting stance, "Maybe it was just a curious Shadow critter checking out the house."

"I just hope whatever it is won't come back." Michael murmured, his voice was shaky.

Tom stepped over to Jenny to read over her shoulder, "How's that going?"

"If they come, I think I can hold them off for a bit, but most of these spells are short lived. We're not going to get very far with them if we end up having to use them." Jenny explained. She was still very tense. It was unnerving to see how extensively her grandfather wrote about how these spells should not be plan A - which was exactly what they were about to be used as.

"Do you think sharp objects are going to help us much?" Zach asked, flipping the wall sconce in his hand. Jenny looked up at him sadly.

"Do you really want to get that close to a Shadow Man?" Audrey asked him incredulously.

"Well you never know what you'll have to-"

Summer screamed.

Everyone froze and looked at her. She had fallen to the floor. Her eyes were far too wide and her face was far too pale - and she was pointing at the window behind Jenny. Everyone's gaze shot to it.

A pair of silver eyes stared back at them, paired with a grin twisted enough to make a serial killer cry.