He shivered in his jacket which was too thin for the dropping temperature of the aging night. It was still slightly damp from the soft rains that had drifted by earlier in the day. His own, lone steps reverberated off the silent, inky street's crevices and settled into the back of his mind. He paused in his step to glance behind him. His parents would be furious. He really didn't want to return home because of their anger, he hadn't wanted to stay out this late either, but the longer he held off the inevitable lecture, the worse it would probably be. (Stupid Brad's car). Suddenly pausing again, he turned around quickly so to fully face behind him, listening carefully. "Since when do cats follow you home," he breathed. A single step backwards, then two more. He gazed upwards at the waning moon, something catching his attention. After a few minutes he felt awkward in his position; it was so quiet. "A little too quiet," he joked, breaking the cold silence. He jumped to face the opposite end of the street again, gesturing with his hands, imagining breaking up a pack of gangsters with his 'guns' and making stupid noises. But the cold still stood as his laughing fit ended. Now he felt silly. What if someone was watching his antics? His hidden blush was the only source of heat he started off again just as the shadows began to crawl from their corners. Walking briskly, not from fear now, that had thoroughly melted, but the sudden thought of his warm, very warm bed put almost a skip in his step. He would be home soon, just a turn and a few houses down.

He felt himself drift, his surroundings cold and fluid. He couldn't remember what happened but something . . . did, didn't it? Sleepily, he tried to peer through the dark but couldn't focus on anything. But then again, he thought hazily, maybe there wasn't anything there . . . he reached above him and saw nothing. He tried to yell for someone but the silence stole his voice before he could even hear his own words himself. He was there, right?

"Oh-hoa!" He felt something pull him through the mists, like many small hands tugging at his clothes. His startled cry and its deafening echo stunned him. "Wha?" He reacted to the disturbing sensation. He tried to pull at the hands but he couldn't grab them. Still trapped in the blackness he fidgeted against their strong grips that weren't there when he tried to find them. He could feel them on him. Why couldn't he pull them off!

He tumbled down – at least he thought it was down. He looked "down" towards a small purple glimmer in the distance. The hands were pulling him towards it! The boy started reaching in the opposite direction. He didn't know what the purple light was but he didn't think he wanted to go towards it.

With a sudden surge of energy, he felt himself violently thrown "down." He tumbled around, flailing his limbs until the hands met his back and propelled him the rest of the way down at a speed his mind wouldn't register. He sunk through the purple spot, down towards a checkered tile floor. He had moments to look up at where he had crossed the threshold to see inky, elongated arms twisting out of a hole floating in the middle of some vast chamber before his fall was abruptly stopped by a giant hand. He scrambled to his feet. In horror, he stared down at the floor he now stood on – a huge, twitching eye staring at him, glowing a horrid color he couldn't describe, under a thin plane of what he hoped was strong enough not to break. The strange color radiated on his face and burned his eyes.

"Child."

The boy reluctantly straightened, shielding his eyes from the light below him. A massive figure towered over him and stretched far below where he could not see. Dark clouds formed a loose halo above it. The figure seemed to give a soft, deep chuckle as he continued to gawk, the long cloth of its body pulsing.

Gaining an ounce of courage, fueled by instinct to escape, he searched his surroundings. There was one wall to the chamber which formed a distorted circle. Countless stories where stacked onto each other until he could no longer see where one ended and the next began. Each level was a ring of arches and each arch framed a throbbing commotion of what seemed like strange and twisted toys.

"Heh, he hasn't fainted yet. He shows promise as the key."

"REALA!" A disembodied voice boomed over them, the sound crashing against them in waves. Cracks in the floor formed and branched into the arches causing some of the puppets to scurry over the walls.

"S-Sorr-"

Vroo –Boooom!

The boy turned to see a massive cloud of chuckling toys and smoke trailing from a hole in the line of arches far above him. Pieces of the arches drifted from their place and would suddenly plummet to the ground, dyeing black and shattering like powdery glass.

"Capture it before it can reach the human!"

As the words faded, he felt himself knocked from the giant hand, falling fast towards the floor. On instinct he twisted to face the floor as if to land on his feet and noticed another purple spot lined with sparkles that wrapped around its border and twisted out the sides. "Not again!" As he sunk through he faced the room one last time to see a small figure's silhouette, framed by the sparkles, and large, blue cat-eyes.