** ONCE AGAIN I don't own Freddy or that house on Elm Street or anything I don't own and Saphy and TJ are (loosely) based on peoples and Mei and Ginny belong to me and welcome to chapter three! =D
Ginny's breath caught in her throat.
"What do you mean 'your playground'?" Ginny forced out. Her voice came strained and rather hoarse; like an uber bad case of a soar throat.
Kruger didn't answer. He jumped up off her bed, his heavy shoes causing a loud thud as they hit the ground. Ginny cringed and inched backwards until she felt the cool metal of TJ and Saphy's bunk bed against her hot back.
Freddy shot an odd glance behind him, at Mei's bunk, but quickly turned back to Ginny. He walks towards her. She pressed her back even harder against Saphy's bottom bunk... whimper, kicking at the ground in a vein attempt to push herself farther back, farther away from the Nightmare King.
Freddy continued forward until he towered over her, then raised his clawed hand. Ginny cringed and closed her eyes shut tight – as tight as they would shut – expecting pain... and then she felt the ruff leather of the gloved as his hand rapped around her wrist. Her flesh; untouched by the blades.
She opened her eyes. Kruger gave her wrist an impatient tug. He pulled her away from Saphy and TJ's bunk. Ginny struggled to stand up using only one hand while he was already pulling her... she, eventually, succeeded and carried on; walking and tripping up every few steps.
She watched, dumbfounded, as Freddy walked up to the full-body mirror she loved so much, stopping for only a moment, and then stepped right through the glass, almost careful not to bother the frame.
He stepped right through the mirror.
Ginny's mouth had come agar, somewhere along the way, and she was only brought back from her mind when, after a moment of failure to comply, Freddy jerked her wrist again, pulling her towards the mirror.
She tried to resist... so he gave her arm a good strong tug, yanking her right through the glass. She closed her eyes an inch or less away from the glass and felt the strangest feeling of weightlessness as she passed through it with ease... and then, when she opened them again, she was in the boiler room...
Freddy's boiler room. Freddy's playground. Now she understood.
The nightmare king dropped her wrist once they were inside his playground. Her arm fell limply back to her side. Her face had fallen into a quiet fascination resulting from confusion... she was forgetting the difference between a dream and reality... it was all beginning to mix together... but she'd be better, later.
She felt strangely naked; even though the over sized blue plaid men's button-up shirt she wore as a jamy covered up anything important and more. Her hands gripped the sleeves that covered to her middle knuckles tightly against the palms; cushioning the nails that, otherwise, would have dug into the skin of the palms of her hands.
She was standing up, standing still. He moved away from her, to the other side of the walk way they were standing on, and scrapped his knifey finger nails against a metal pipe. The noise was horrible; far worse then normal nails against chalk board. Ginny lifted her hands, still gripping the sleeves, to her ears and covered them tight, cringing.
What was he doing that for? Was it like a call... a calling for who ever had set foot in his territory to show themselves? Or was it a warning... a warning of his murderous intent upon them?
She blinked once and then decided not to do it again... suddenly, terror hit her like a strong gust of wind... she didn't know who had entered his 'playground'... it could have been anyone! Or, even worse, it could have been TJ or Mei or Saphy!
She shivered. She wanted to say something – anything – to Kruger but she knew she couldn't... her throat felt totally closed off.
Slowly, the sharp screech of the claws against the metal faded away... it took a while because of the serous echo the boiler room had to it... as if every noise bounced off every nook and cranny the metal offered.
Freddy watched, carefully... like a hunter stalking pray. He waited. He watched. He stalk; the Night Stalker in action.
Slowly, Ginny identified a soft sound that was creeping along the metal, coming down a corridor at the far end of the one they stood in. Foot steps... gentle footsteps... like that of a little girl's.
No!, Ginny pleaded, silently. No! You're heading right for us! Go back! RUN!
Obviously; the possessor of the footsteps couldn't hear her mind... they just kept coming... coming closer... as if walking right into Freddy's claws.
And then... a shadow began emerged at the end. A little hint of a smile now twitched at the corners of the mouth of the Night Stalker... and the shadow grew. It grew and grew until it was a full silhouette of a human-being... and then, the girl behind the shadow began to emerge.
All Ginny needed to see was the mane of bright red hair to know who it was... the insightful green eyes, slightly unfocused for the lack of the glasses they so heavily relied on, didn't help any either... the pale skin... the long, lanky body with small, girly features... the little hands and little feet... she knew who it was.
Mei. Mei Rosenberg turned the corner... her uber pale blue and white vertically striped pajamas, too small for her so they were folded up her wrists and up off her ankles, barely wrinkled from sleep for Mei always slept like the dead.
Ginny's heart leapt up and caught in her throat. She wanted to yell for Mei to run or to get out of here or to wake up or something! But she couldn't... she couldn't.
Mei gasped – a long, shrill, piercing noise – and began to back up until her back hit the wall.
"It-it-it-it-it's... it is!" she stuttered incoherently. "It is! It is! It is! It really is! It's true! It's Fred Kruger!"
Freddy smiled and took a step towards her. "I see a little birdy," a jerk of the head gesture back at Ginny. "... told you about me."
Mei was hyperventilating too hard to answer.
"Well then," Freddy flashed up a hand full of knives. "Let the games... BEGIN!"
As if on order, Mei jerked back down the corridor she had come from. Kruger smiled... he loved a good chase. Mei was screaming like a lunatic. Instead of running after her, Freddy watched over the railing, idly, as she dashed down a flight of metal stairs and look around frantically. Suddenly, the ground below her feet turned to sticky mush that seemed to pull her into it like quicksand.
"Hey Doll," Freddy called. Mei looked up, eyes wide in terror. "You're in my playground, remember?"
Mei released a sobbing cry. Ginny could picture her; stuck in the muck, rivers of tears running down her face, terror flooding her entire body.
"Stop it!" Ginny found her voice. "Stop it, Kruger!"
Freddy looked back at her, mocking shock on his face. "Now why would I want to do that, Gabe?"
"It's wrong!"
"Its fun," Freddy turned back, looking down at Mei. "A doll," he muttered under his breath. "That's all you are, isn't it, you little bitch?" Mei sobbed loudly in reply. "Well then, Doll, let's play."
Kruger stretched out his arm, over the railing, lifted up his knives again, and spread them out like a puppeteer would... then, the ground below Mei's feet materialized again. Ginny found it, somewhere inside herself, to move again... and she came right up to the rail, only a step behind Freddy but to his side.
Mei tried to run, but something stopped her... and, instead, she seemed to dance, oddly.
The malicious smiled on Freddy's face told Ginny he knew exactly what was happening to her. She looked at his claws... when ever he moved one, Mei moved... like Mei was the puppet and there were invisible string attached to his finger claws.
Ginny jerked her eyes back to Mei, who was screaming again. Suddenly, Freddy jerked his hand up high in the air and Mei jerked up with it... high up; screaming the whole way.
"Stop it!" Ginny barked at him, fear locking her heart in its icy grasp. "Cut it out!"
"Okay," Kruger said, raising a claw from his other hand... he cut one of the invisible strings. Mei's arm fell free to her control again.
Ginny watched him carefully cut another invisible string... her other arm went free and she flipped up-side-down, screaming some more. Ginny looked down the long, long way to the ground below Mei... not only was it a long way... but there were pipes and parts of boilers and all types of things like that.
"Don't do that, Kruger..." Ginny said without looking at him... she couldn't take her eyes on the long and crowded way down.
Freddy paid her no mind. He cut another invisible string. One of Mei's legs fell free. She sobbed out a muffled scream.
"Don't do it!"
He raised his other claw again. Ginny looked around frantically... she need a way to stop him... fast!
A pipe! She saw a pipe not too far away from her... it was steaming, definitely scolding hot... if she hit a body part against it; she'd wake up!
Quickly, she dived... her leg towards the pipe; it missed her ankle and her calf and all that stuff.... but by the time she touched it; it caught on her thigh. Pure white burning pain shot up her hip and her side...
And she screamed... a terribly scream – so horrid; as if it came from the very throats of the damned deep in Hell – tore out of her lungs and rang through the air like a tortured bell.
Ginny woke up drenched in a cold sweat and gasping for air.
Her thigh throbbed and sting in horrible pain that brought tears to her eyes... the wound needed to be tended to ASAP... but there were more pressing matters at hands, now.
She jumped off her bed and, as quickly as her little legs would take her, she scurried up the latter to look in on Mei in the bunk above her...
Her hands grabbed and her feet kicked away bar after bar of the latter until her head poked up over the edge. She looked upon her friend, desperate, her heart weighed down far too heavy.
Mei lay in her bed... for only a split second, could she have appeared peaceful... then... then; she began to jerk around from side to side to side to God-only-knows-where... as if things were hitting her all over. Deep bruises and instantly bloody cuts began popping up all over her body... her pajamas got torn... Ginny watched, frozen in horror... it was happening to Mei, even when Ginny wasn't there!
Mei tumbled around in her bed some more, making minimal noise... the tears she had cried in her dreams were plastered on her face just as they had been there... and then, suddenly, the final blow of hitting the ground was inflicted...
Ginny watched as Mei, in her dream but appearing in real life, hit the ground of that boiler room... face first; her face was totally blown in, in an instant... her nose, her chin, all her faced, smashed inwards... bloodiness, bones sticking out, eyes untraceable, dead.
Ginny tried to scream but choked. She jumped and fell off the latter, hitting the carpeted ground with only a dull thud... ever bone in her body ached... her thigh burned as if it were on fire. She rolled over onto her back and struggled to get up to her hands and knees... panting; she tried not to throw up, but to no avail...
She did throw up... she vomited... her entire body heaving with the forced of her internal organs coming up through her throat. Everything that was inside her came out... and then; everything was still except for her... she was shaking... sticky vomit still on her mouth.
She looked up. Saphy was still in bed... she couldn't see TJ's top bunk.
"Help..." she coughed out. "... Heeeeelp..."
She heard sheets rustle in TJ's bunk... and then, TJ stuck her blue eyes, wide and suddenly alert, out... her blonde hair glowed bright; like a silky morning halo, around her head.
"Ginny?" her voice was still groggy from sleep. "What's a' matter with you?"
Ginny just watched her with soulless gray marble eyes. "... Help."
TJ scurried out of her bunk, cherry covered pajamas making her look even younger then she normally did... Ginny wondered if she really was seventeen... everything with TJ seemed such a mystery, to her.
"What happened?" TJ whisper, soothingly, setting a hand on Ginny's back.
"Mei..." Ginny couldn't manage complete sentences.
"Mei?" TJ echoed. "What about 'er? She sleeping, ain't she?"
"No exactly," Ginny coughed, again. She felt as week as a twig.
"Come on, Ginny. Come to bathroom with me... we'll clean you up, okay? T-then I'll go get Helena, okay? Okay?"
Ginny hesitated, then nodded and TJ helped her to her feet, bringing her along down the hall to the bathroom.
Once inside, after washing her face with a damp cloth and all, TJ noticed the third degree burn on Ginny's thigh.
"How did this happen?" she asked, not looking back up at Ginny.
"In a boiler room..."
"Say what?"
"In a boiler room... in the basement."
"In this basement?"
"I think so..."
TJ looked at Ginny as if she were absolutely star-craving mad... then stood all the way back up and turned towards the bathroom covert and fished out neo-sporran and some bandages, then turned back and began to bandage Ginny's thigh...
Not another word was said.