Chapter 2
The Dream Master's Homecoming

The disturbance was just too much for him, and he woke up, sweat all over his handsome, ashen face.

He was a handsome young man, with black hair, an inquisitive-looking face, and a good-enough mannered personality. But underneath it, he owned the power to go into dreams, take control, and even bring others into it. But sometimes it wasn't a good thing.

Even at all of 25 years old, Jacob Johnson had gone through a life that could've made James Bond's life look like that of a bank executive. He had been taken over by Krueger while he was still in the womb of the dream master before him, his own mother. Then she had died at the clawed right hand of the dream demon himself.

He somehow found the need to drag himself out of bed, his t-shirt and sweats still cold and rather moist to the touch. He must've been sweating up a storm! First he'd almost scared the wits out of the Leon character, then tried murdering the lady in the red dress, and now his home turf was a city of the undead, the damned.

'I just don't get it', he said softly. The sound of his breathing and his smooth alto voice were the only sounds in this room…until the visitation. A good spot in front of his bedside table began to wave and distort, until a human body, a woman appeared. She was in a down jacket over a light purple sweatshirt, and a light blue gown. Her face was that of a beautiful woman who had dealt with heavy struggles. Just like how she looked the last time.

"Hey, Nance", Jacob greeted sleepily, giving her his undivided attention. "How's the Beautiful Dream treatin' ya?"

"Paradise as usual", she replied, her somewhat misty, yet serious voice seeming to echo. "But I actually miss the real world sometimes…all except those places that that thing is around", she finished full of contempt. If the tone of her voice didn't give it away, the look on her face that suggested a request did.

"And lemme guess: you need me to go the city that these nightmares are taking place at, and at least try to stop them?" He'd hit the nail right on the head, and he regretted it; then again, being the master of all dreams was a heavy burden when you had the Satan of dreams, Freddy Krueger, to fight.

"The city goes by the name of Harvardville. And they've dealt with a real-life nightmare as well", Nancy countered. "There was a mutagenic virus outbreak in their airport that turned its occupants into the living dead."

Jacob considered this for just a moment. Granted, it would be a long, hard drag to have to put up with Freddy again, to say the least. But if the undead had haunted this city before Krueger came onto its dream streets, then defeating him would be a piece of cake.

"Okay, I'll do it", Jacob answered with a note of resigned finality, turning back to Nancy. Noticing she was fading away back to her dream, he said, "And I'll take Freddy down again!"

"Either that, or die trying", Nancy echoed, before she was gone, swept back into the winds of her dream.

Only 20 miles away, another nightmare had struck.

The woman with the red ponytailed hair and gray-brown eyes bolted up in her bed with a start. She looked wildly around, breathing heavily, and then focused on the other side of the bed she shared with the young, brown-haired man.

Whew…so Steve's still alive.She wiped her forehead with a sigh, her pink pajamas with the same insignia that was on her vest slightly rumpled. Claire Redfield usually didn't scare too easily, but the nightmare she'd just had was freaky beyond anything she'd been through, even…the outbreaks.

She was walking through the slightly soaked, steamy, warm room. It seemed so alive, the sounds of barely-working machinery making it sound like the room was breathing...

Moving into a seating position on her side of the bed, she looked out at the sunrise just edging over the horizon. Claire had to wonder if the nightmare had anything to do with the car accident her mother suffered when she and Chris were kids.

Suddenly, around the corner, she saw a shadow spring out of the burnt red depths. A shadow with a human shape…with a hat…and knife fingers. It kept coming toward her, an evil laugh emanating from deep within its throat. Something was dripping from the fingers.

They had said that she had died when the car had rammed into a truck trying to pass another car. But Claire then recalled something else: there had been 4 slash marks across her mother's stomach area. They had said that it had gotten slashed by the windshield, but surprisingly, no pieces of it were missing after that crash.

"Apparently, Steve-o didn't like his walk on the wild side!" The gravelly voice rang out as the shadow held out another human form, one that looked like…no….no, it wasn't possible…Steve?

Could that dream guy have had something to do with her mother's car crash? That might've explained where the claw marks came from.

No, she was just imagining things. But just to be safe…Claire slowly inched the sheets off of her boyfriend's body. His face was still as handsome as ever, his fine-toned chest showing no signs of injury or hurt, his sweatpants barely moist from her sweat. Laughing off the whole affair as just a silly nightmare, Claire left the room, fresh air awaiting her outside.

Walking through the streets of his new frontier, Freddy decided that the place couldn't be better. Oh sure, he missed the atmosphere of his good ol' boiler room, but when they came into his world the next time, who knows what would happen.

"Well, I'll get used to it soon enough", Freddy answered to himself. "Until then, let's see what kind of fun I can have with this place…"