Dream A Little Nightmare

by: Laney Sanchez

Note: Thank you to everyone who reviewed! LadyApocalymon, KrazyReader, Suitcase, jmagiq, NB2000, Aliguis, Soul Eater, Aniron, Carrah Malani, Celaary, Shadow and Kayla and anyone else. I know there's more...and if I didn't mention you please don't take offense. Each and every review means so much to me and brings a smile to my face.



Disclaimer: Tim Burton owns the characters and movie itself. Not me. Man...

( \/ ) Chapter 14 ( \/ )

o A Surprise for Poe o

Nameless' absence had not gone un-noticed.

"Nameless!" Poe called upon returning from his search of the graveyard. Poe mentally cursed himself. If only he had been paying a little more attention...

Rather he had been in the middle of a heated arguement with his father. Poe grit his teeth slightly at the memory. He didn't want to feel angry or bitter towards his father, but a persistant thought nagged at him. If his father hadn't been distracting him with such pointless reprimanding-

"No..." Poe muttered. "I can't think like that..."

"Why not?"

Poe stopped in his tracks and looked behind him. There stood the old, hunched up Dante eyeing him cleverly. "You know young Skellington...it's perfectly alright to feel anger. Even if it is towards your father..."

Poe looked down. Somehow he just didn't feel right being upset at his father. Dante stepped up beside the young skeleton. "Why my dad and me use to really have some gruff scuffles!" he bellowed with a hardy laugh. "I wouldn't call you twos normal if ya didn't argue once and a while. It's apart of family!"



Poe glanced over just a little, feeling himself perk up just ever so slightly. "You...you really think so?"

"Ah yeah! I know so!" Dante said, giving Poe a rather large slap on the back of the legs which almost sent him stumbling. "Besides, yer parents love ya a lot! Why I remember being there the day they brought you home from old Finkelstein's lab-"

"What?" Poe asked, suddenly all focused on Dante. "What did you say? About Finkelstein!?"

"Er...that yer parents brought you home?"

"Why...was I at Finkelstein's?" Poe questioned. Dante shrugged. "Well cause he created ya of course! I mean yer mother bein a creation of that old coot's and all, she couldn't be having children."

Poe felt something inside of him crumble and fall away. It was as if his whole world turned inside out then just fell to pieces. Dante must've noticed by the look on his face.

"Er...ya didn't know?"

Poe could only muster a blank nod "no." Dante looked away, suddenly embarassed. "Well yah! ...I mean why do ya think yer parents never had any pictures of you as a wee one?"

Suddenly things that Poe had merely brushed off in the past came racing back to him. Everything made so much sense. Many nights Poe had laid awake in bed, trying to recall his past. He recalled memories but it was funny that he could never really recall anything past being "sixteen," if that was even his true age. Everything seemed to have lost meaning and yet it made so much sense. His past, his odd behaviour, and especially his isolation from the town. Why would the town want an artificial prince? Who would want to look up to some...thing. Some creation.

Poe stepped back and put his hands to his skull. Dante looked at him with grave worry. "Are ya okay there?"

Poe slowly shook his head, clenching his eyes shut. "I'm just ...a toy...something..." his words drifted off, though the degree of pain that filled them was vast. Dante reached out to comfortingly touch Poe but Poe shrank away. "No...!"

"I'm just a thing that was created for their amusement! I'm not even real! I don't even know who I am anymore! Am I me or just...is this my personality that was 'programmed?' I don't even know my real age!! I ..." Poe stepped back. His mind was racing and trying to piece together too many things that seem to have no fit.

"Poe! Poe Skellington!"

Poe slowly opened his eye sockets and looked over to see the Harlequin demon approaching with a rather odd figure in two. It appeared to be in the shape of a woman. Their ebony hair flowed free and low to their hips like a morbid black river. Their face was shielded by a grand, deep violet-gray hood. She wore a long black dress that somewhat reminded Poe of a swamp moss. The tail of the dress seemed to writhe and flow behind her as though it were alive. Poe knew her simply as Gothina. He only knew her of what he heard by rumors. She lived on the outskirts of town, though not too far and not too close. Her home could be found if you followed the pumpkin sun to the north. No one really bothered her and she was a town resident whom you could never really be sure what she was up to. She rarely left her home, even for Halloween (which had made some of the residents rather bitter with her). Poe may have been more surprised at her presence had he not felt so horrible.

"Poe! We found this near the town's gate!" the Harlequin announced, holding up a couple of pieces of candy corn. Poe eyed it with disinterest and didn't say anything. Dante eyed the candy as well. "Why, I couldn't tell ya I'm positive but I believe it belongs to those three little scoundrels...ah..." he put a hand to his chin in consideration. "Lock, Shock and Barrel is it?"

"Yes, that seems right!" the Harlequin said, looking thoughtfully at the candy. Poe looked as though he had snapped out of a dream. He gently took a single piece of candy from the Harlequin's hand. He held it between two bony fingers and eyes his suspiciously. "What's goin' on here?" Dante asked curiously. The Harlequin began to go into the tale until Poe suddenly took off. Dante tried to follow for a moment before calling out to Poe. "What about ya father?!"

"I don't care!" Poe snapped, and with that he was gone.