Okay, so after I recovered from the gender-bending shock that I just received, which took nearly a whole minute of just silent gaping, I tried to ask him a question. "Wh-Who-?" I started, and suddenly blurted out, "WHAT are you!?" Immediately, I covered my mouth with my hands; that was downright rude of me. I checked to make sure my bedroom door was open… yeah. At least I can escape if he tried to rape me or steal my soul. You know, whatever came first.

Immediately, he started to yell something… well, okay, it wasn't yelling, but he was projecting his voice, and holy SHIT, when I say project, I mean, PROJECT. I thought my windows were going to rattle right out of the frames. I didn't really catch what he said only for a few words, such as 'how' and 'Wiseman' and something about a Relala or something. It took him a second, but he realized he was talking to no one and staring at my not-on TV and fell silent. Me? I was backed against the wall – I seriously didn't know what to do! Was there anything in my room like a bat? Maybe I can knock him out and place him back on that lawn.

He stared for a couple more seconds, his mouth slightly open. If it wasn't for the fact he looked really stupid and also the fact he could probably beat the living daylights out of me, I would have thought he looked cute… you know, kitten-cute. Then he turned at me, "Where is Wizeman? And Reala? They were right in front of me! And who are you anyway? Are you a mepian?"

I just sort of gaped at him; he said that all really fast and it didn't click within my mind till a few seconds of silence. Wizey-man… Reela…? I pointed at myself. Honestly, I was confused, and what on EARTH is a mepian? Realizing my mouth was still on the floor, I shut it, blushing a bit.

THAT was embarrassing.

I just stared, and moved my mouth, no words coming out. This dude just patiently stared at me; even a little bit bored too! After I tried to say something, all I said was, "What?" Now, this guy had to nerve to just explode into laughter. Not a chuckle, or a little "Tee-hee" – no, it was a full blown, belly-aching LAUGH. His laughter rang through my ears – it reminded me of a grown man, but with a little trickle of 8 year old glee in it. I spotted my Red Baron's bat under my dresser. At least I spotted a weapon.

After he calmed down, he spoke at me again, "Sorry - this must be really awkward for you. You know, me just appearing out of nowhere and you witnessing all this." I just stared, but a simple 'you think?' floated across my mind. However, instead of a "Thanks, I must be going!" or something like that, this guy just said, "Well, I better introduce myself, and maybe you'll feel a little more comfortable."

Now, whoa whoa whoa! Insane skinny guy in a purple and pink jester costume with eyelashes Jeffree Star would be proud of, and missing body parts thinks that telling me his name is going to make me feel better? I was thinking his name was going to sound feminine and exotic, like Kayleesha or LaFawnda; something of that nature.

"I am called NiGHTS. I was once the Prince of darkness and nightmares, but well, now I'm not. You are?"

My head spun. NiGHTS was a stupid name, and especially for a guy! Now, he's also claiming he was once royalty! How do you become ex-royalty?! Isn't that something born in your blood? I pushed all that out of my mind and decided to just go with the flow. I still had my bat within reach, and I think that gave me some confidence.

"I'm Steph. I'm a teenager and I'm…" I tried to make myself sound impressive, "nearly 16."

His eyes narrowed and he cocked his head, looking at me with the weirdest look. I shifted a bit, crossing my legs a little. Baggy black jeans or not, if this guy was checking me out now, I'm lunging for that wooden bat. Seriously.

"Strange. I'm a little over 100 and I'm considered a teenager. You're only 15? In nightmaren years, you'd be just a toddler."

Now he's 100 years old. Will these lies ever stop coming?! What, what are nightmaren years?

"Um-" I started, "nightmare years?"

He nodded his head and replied, "Yes. In nightmaren years, I would be the teenager. You'd pretty much be a flailing newborn just sort of lawling around."

I felt a growl in my throat. If there's one thing I cannot stand is being called young in a negative sort of way. This guy was pushing it.

"But anyway. I better explain what it is I'm doing here first of all."

I shifted my weight towards the bat, just in case.

After he took a deep breath, (He has no neck! HOW DOES THIS WORK?!) he launched into a story, and by the way he was going on, I knew better than to interrupt and ask questions.

"First off, I am what you call a Nightmaren. We are from Nightopia, or the land of dreams as you may know it. In Nightopia, there are two dimensions split, and those are the Realm of good dreams, which is the real Nightopia, and then there is Nightmare, the land of the bad dreams. The ruler of Nightmare goes by the name of Wizeman the Wicked."

I really hate to say it, but I leaned in. This was like the beginning of a campfire story.

"Wizeman creates the nightmaren which roam Nightmare. He created me and all my siblings, but skipping the details that would make your dreamer head hurt, I guess you can say I was just born and that Wizeman was technically my father figure. Now, bear in mind that when I say sibling, I mean hundreds and thousands of us in all different sizes and all for different functions. I came later than most of my siblings, and I had a twin created at the same time as well, Reala. I was created to look innocent; to pull in the dreamers, then Reala would jump in and take care of them."

Made sense since he looked like a fruitcake with fangs.

"Reala and I soared through the nightmare ranks till we both reached the first class, where we were pretty much on the right side of Wizeman, and doing very important tasks. Instead of horrifying dreamers, we were to rape them of all their Ideya-"

I opened my mouth to ask something…

"-which is the energy you always have and is responsible for you to dream. So, dream energy."

I shut my mouth, question answered. NiGHTS smirked a little mischievous smirk, and continued.

"Now, this whole Ideya stealing was fun, I totally admit it. There was something really funny about watching dreamers nearly wet themselves…" He stopped, that smirk still there and his eyes misting over in what seemed like relish from those memories. That bat was still looking good. He shook his head, blushed a bit, and got on with it.

"After a while though, I started to gain a sense of realization. What we were actually doing was keeping them from dreaming in color – even to keep them from dreaming anything ever again. I lived in the land of dreams, and I have seen some of the waking side from some of their minds, and I think that the dreamland is a place of sanctuary for you dreamers. I began to feel guilt; that was something I wasn't supposed to have."

"I started to slack on purpose, my brothers and sisters doing better than me in their duties. Instead of putting the dreamers and their Ideya in Jeopardy, I sat around and played with tiny Nightopians, or Pians, and learned to compress air within my hands to make something that sounded like a flute. I noticed that overtime, some of my nightmarish qualities, such as claws, began to disappear-"

"But you still have fangs!" I pointed out suddenly.

He smiled at me, making sure to show me just how razor sharp they actually were. "Yeah, well, I didn't loose all my devilish qualities."

"Why is that?"
He just rolled his eyes. "You can take the 'maren out of Nightmare, but you cannot take the Nightmare out of a 'maren… well, not totally."

"Oh. Mmkay." I just shrugged it off. I didn't care; actually, I think fangs are pretty hardcore. "Sorry, please continue. I won't interrupt again, I promise!" I did that 'cross my heart' thing. So, he continued.

"Eventually, I stopped returning to Nightmare, and I stopped reporting to Wizeman. I would lure dreamers away from my previous cohorts, and keep them in a safe area. After a while, Wizeman started to send out Reala and all the other high-leveled maren after the defenseless dreamers. I started to rebel totally against Nightmare, defeating and making my brethren retreat. You see, Wizeman created me and Reala to have amazing flight abilities to complete our tasks, but I always thought my flying was better than his anyway."

Again, another little smirk from the jester.

"So, after a while, I decided to stand up against Wizeman and try to take him down myself to end this horrible rein of terror. I… failed."

He made a weird face for a brief second, and it sort of looked like embarrassment.

"He sentenced me to death, but he changed his mind at the last minute before he ripped my body into pieces and thought that if he figured out a way to make me suffer a fate worse than death that he would. Peering into my mind, something I cannot help as he did create me, he saw what I've become. He ordered to have me imprisoned into an Ideya palace, a place used for us maren to open up a portal to a different place when Ideya was put into each of the five holding pedestals. However, without Ideya, all it is is a prison with invisible walls."

"At least you had room to move around, right?" I know I said I wouldn't interrupt, but I had to know that he was okay. I was getting into this, mmkay?"

"Um… I'd say it was about as big as this closet here." He pointed at it. I gasped – My closet is small. I would DIE.

"Anyway," he continued, "I spent a lot of time trapped in that, and I would see my brethren torture dreamers, even some that I fought to protect once before, be destroyed and raped of their dreams and sanctuaries right before my eyes. It infuriated me, causing me to go mad, being trapped inside this building. I wanted to end my life, but Wizeman was smart, and gave me nothing but myself inside there, so I couldn't destroy myself. My siblings would come over and mock me, egging me on, causing me to grow even angrier than I've ever been before."

"One day, a few years after I was used to being in this predicament, I was just doing nothing, as I've done for a very long time now, when I heard a voice a little far off from where I was. There was a boy by the name of Elliot who had possessed the five Ideya. Now, before I continue, let me educate you on the meanings of them."

I nodded. This would be awesome to write in a story someday.

"There are five different kinds. White represents Purity, while yellow is Hope. Blue is Intelligence and Green is Wisdom. Red, the rarest of all, is pure bravery and I'm sort of… attracted to it."

I had to interject, "Like a bug to a zapper?!"

He sort of re-adjusted himself on my bed, perhaps a little nervously. "Um, sure. Yeah."

"Cool." I shut up and listened again.

"Now, most dreamers have one, or two, and maybe three Ideya. Possessing all five, however, is something that hardly ever happens. So, anyway, I coaxed him over to me, and before he could help me, these lower-rank nightmare came out of nowhere and swarmed him, taking every Ideya he had and placing them in Ideya captures, waiting to be picked up by higher-level maren. I sighed, but the boy got closer to me. 'Do you need help?' he asked, seeming to understand I was in a prison. I nodded, and placed my hands on the invisible wall in front of him. He went to go do the same, and then what happened next was quite unexpected. He was dragged inside the palace – inside me! We became one, and thought with two minds. I became more than what Wizeman wanted me to be; I was almost real. I was then able to break the bonds of the palace and retrieve his dream energy with the boy's help."

"The same thing happened with a girl by the name of Claris, except I knew what to do this time. We restored all their Ideya and eventually, had to answer to Wizeman, as I did not go unnoticed. I was supposed to be entrapped and going mad, and there I was, able to soar around freely. Claris and Elliot were forced to watch me be imprisoned in a palace way beyond there reach where Wizeman promised he would deal with me after the dreamers. They were stuck in an alternant dimension of the city they lived in, Twin Seeds, both floating on opposite sides of this place on a tiny island. Wizeman, being himself, decided that it was time for them to never wake up, and blasted them off the islands to fall down into the void below them."

"They didn't give in though – since I helped save them, they were convinced they have to repay me, and learned to grow wings themselves and fly. They soared to my rescue and broke the barrier placed around the palace and they both rushed in to save me. Now, we were all transported to Wizeman himself, and I couldn't bear to see them suffer, so I fused with them at the same time. My power was split in two, so there was two of me flying around. Together, all three of us, we managed to take down Wizeman."

I threw my hands up, "Woo!!"

"Well, okay, so we thought. Apparently, he's not dead yet."

I put my hands back down. "Boo."

"There was a part of him that we didn't quite defeat and that part lived on. Being a Lord of sorts, he managed to rebuild himself and resurrect my strongest foes, and made them stronger than before. As I soared around, thinking I was truly free, I was attacked by my brother, Reala and forcefully taken to Wizeman. He was about to destroy me, my brothers laughing hysterically, especially Jackle, and I was about to cease to exist when I tried something only dreamers have done. I tried to wake myself up. Something must have happened, because the next thing I remember was seeing you."

He was silent for a few moments, obviously signaling he was done. I bit my bottom lip, trying to take in this crazy story I was just told. "I'm sorry," I started, "but I cannot believe any of this. It's too-"

"Bizarre?" He suggested, followed by a laugh. "Yeah, I don't blame you. Some of the things that happen to you dreamers, to me, is totally whacko. It'll sink in. You'll see, don't worry."

"Well, you're right though. You're no longer in…um…" I racked my brains.

"Nightopia?" Another suggestion flew by.

"yeah. There. You're in a city called Nanticoke in the middle of reality and that's it. Besides, I can't believe that, because if the beginning was true, I would have seen something like you in my dreams before and I most certainly have not."

He already had an answer. "Oh yes, you have. Have you ever had a nightmare before? One where your worst fears come to life and you wake up drenched in sweat or a scream?"

I thought. I have, indeed. "So what you're saying is that they were one of you?"

"I said before, Steph, we come in all shapes and sizes."

I nodded. I didn't want to believe this, I really didn't. I mean, how was I going to get rid of this guy? Say a simple, 'Well, the mental hospital is right down the street – I hear they're giving out ice cream!' and just let him go? No way. I decided to run with it though, "So, how do you get back to where you were?"

It was his turn to imitate a fish. He opened his mouth, thought and shut it. Then he finally responded with an, "I have NO idea."

I moved off my wall finally, and stretched a bit. "Well… what do you want to do now?"

He shrugged. "I obviously came to you for some reason, so I'll think that I'll just stay here."

I think a vein in my forehead popped. "WHAAAAAT!?" I think I beat his projecting voice, but he didn't even flinch. I breathed heavily, honestly being at a loss for words.

"You won't know I'm here, promise."

My head and the wall met each other violently for about five minutes.