You ever wake up for absolutely no reason?
The feeling is one of the most mystifying things a person can experience. One moment you're blissfully the closest you can be to death, perfectly content with your body being unplugged from life, floating into one dream after the other, and the next you're back. You're there, present and accounted for, just lying on your mattress, eyes still shut because the idea of sleep still hovers above you. Awareness rushes in and you either embrace it with open arms or shove it away with aggressive palms; Either intent on waking up or returning back to cozy, near death.
I asked because I was experiencing that right now.
My mind clicked on soundlessly while I stared up into the underside of my eyelids. The moment made me explicitly aware of the position that I had been lying in. I was ridiculously aware of every weirdly distributed limb, where they sat and how they were angled, how my fingers had been curled and how my hands had been shaped, all the way from the bottom of my feet to the tips of my ears, and the hyperfixation of myself made me extremely uncomfortable…But I didn't want to move. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to keep sleeping.
Yet the longer I lay there, the more I tried to pretend that I couldn't feel every part of myself, that I couldn't hear the stupidly loud beating of my heart the longer I stayed like that. Still. Consciously calculating. Growing increasingly annoyed. I stayed like that until it rose to a boil and I gave in to living again.
Of course it would be just my luck for me to stupidly wake up in the middle of the night for no fucking reason. At least if my stab-happy roommates had woken me up, it would have given me them to blame for it. Instead the blame was on me.
A sigh hissed its way out of my mouth while I shuffled my arms just underneath me to prop myself up on my elbows. My legs were tangled up in my blanket from all of the tossing and turning that had placed me to lay on my stomach. I opened my eyes in that numbly irritated way that left no weakness for blinking to adjust my vision. They sliced through the darkness of my room to disregard the unfocused sight, glaring at the silhouettes of my decor until they landed on the digital clock on my desk. My head went forward to scrunch my face up to see my alarm clock.
..My…Blank alarm clock..?
My anger faltered at the sight.
Where the time should have been displayed, were only empty spaces left where the numbers should have been. There wasn't even an AM or a PM to help hint at what time it was. The screen was just…Empty. In fact, the only thing that had been left at all on the small screen was the colon that should have been separating the hours from the minutes. It stared back at me, maybe just as baffled as I was at the absence of its time.
Anger melted into bewilderment before solidifying back into anger.
Great. My alarm's broken.
My arms gave up to sink back onto my stomach, exhaling noisily into my pillow to blink at the thing. While I wasn't going to necessarily need my alarm, the thought of it broken still bothered me; Bothered me enough to want to get up to replace the batteries in it. That had to be the fix for it, right? Surely all I would need to do is pop some new batteries in it and it would be good as new. And on top of that, maybe once I came back from retrieving the batteries, the venture to and fro would reset my body to sleep again. Devices needed battery replacements. That was to be expected. Although..It had never done this before.
Also, it really couldn't be said whether or not I actually needed it. My asshole roomies had given me a bedtime. Who's to say that they wouldn't change their mind about giving me a specific time to wake up to as well?
As if that wasn't reason enough to eject myself from bed, a second reason decided to volunteer itself in the form of my stomach growling miserably. I groaned against my silk pillowcase. Fuck meeee. Right. I had never managed to actually get food in my stomach. Chucky had had his fucking sandwich. Michael had had his peanut butter. Jason had gotten his juice box. Meanwhile all I had gotten was a shitty bowl of cereal and a half finished glass of orange juice.
While I had no idea what time it was, judging from the darkness of my room, I knew it had to be stupid o'clock. Not quite late enough to be daylight, but late enough that night was still seemingly going strong.
My eyes lifted into a scheming squint. Maybe they were asleep by now? If they even slept at all..But if they did and they were, then that meant that I could scrounge up something to eat in privacy. It MEANT that I could actually enjoy food without them eyeball-fucking me senseless. Those spare blankets couldn't have been an excuse for Chucky to hear himself talk. There had to have been a reason he had asked for them. What else if not to use them?
The thought of food sounded so good to me that it had me rolling onto my back with a burst of let-me-get-off-of-my-ass-and-do-something-about-it energy. I flew up into a sit soon after and kicked my legs free from the warm cocoon. Despite how pumped I suddenly was to be fed, a yawn manifested regardless. Once I got food in my stomach and some batteries for the alarm clock, it was back to bed for sure. That was, if my dumb body let me sleep.
I stretched and popped my back, giving a small murmur of relief before setting my bare feet on my floor and sliding my feet towards my door. What if they're not asleep though? The thought was a personification of my nervousness, but I carelessly shoved it away. If they weren't asleep then fuck them. I shouldn't be shocked by the possibility that they wouldn't partake in a mortal function such as rest. They weren't human, but guess who was? ME. I was human, and with that came the knowledge that humans needed both food and sleep to live. I wasn't about to starve myself just because some wackos had a staring problem. No matter how much they would cause me to deviate from my food-making, at the end of the day, the food was going to be made and I was going to fucking eat it. Every last bit of it. I'd let my sleepiness be my confidence boost.
My hand rested on my belly in thought as I cast my mind through the imaginary menu presented to me. There had to be something to eat that hadn't been touched. The pantry, from what my sleepy mind recalled, had seemed exactly that. My other hand took hold of my doorknob and turned, pulling my bedroom door wide op-hoooOOLYWHAATTHEFUUCKISTHIS!?
I leapt back, the shock of it threatening to have me stumble over my feet but thankfully I did not go down. My hand was still on the doorknob, my deathly grip being the main thing that had kept me from falling over onto the floor. Rushing to make sense of it all, my eyes darted to take it all in: What should have been fucking impossible. What should have not been there.
"Where the fuck did my house go?!"
Instead of seeing the house that should have been attached to my room and had been ever since my family had moved in, the hallway had been completely replaced with some place entirely different; As though everything beyond the door had just been an attachment that had been swapped out for something else. Someone far more religious would have sworn that they had just opened the door to Hell. And Hell seemed like a fitting name for wherever this led to.
In front of me was a dark, rusty metal catwalk. It started cleanly from the line that distinguished my room from what used to be the rest of the house, stretching and stretching out before me as a grimy, grated path to walk. Even just looking at the metal grating of its walkway hurt the soles of my feet. On either side, growing straight from the door frame were black handrails, framing the path ahead to corral me on to impending doom.
The catwalk wasn't lonely. Oh no. It had plenty of similar Hellish-looking friends to accompany it, spaced out further into the room at contrasting heights, all displaying sharp lefts and rights that I could follow. The closest left promised an ascending, metal staircase while the right offered a branching trail to go that was cut off from the framed view of my door.
Though I still remained a ways from the entry, I was not able to find a ceiling. Or a ground floor for that matter. The room visually appeared to continue all around. I couldn't even locate any windows. What filled the immense space was a horrendous wealth of pipes and machinery, jutting pathways and dilapidated staircases, dust-covered vents, wavering cranes and hooks, complimented by dark chains both unmoving and swinging. The dully shining links spilled from above like iron vines of an overgrown jungle of twisted metal. Some snaked themselves over the thin, crooked bodies of pipes. Others huddled close together with parts so infested with chains that it looked like morbid streamers hanging from the high above ceiling.
Most of what I saw was so unknown to me, it might as well have been a door to an alien planet. The scenery screamed 'FACTORY!', but this didn't look like any factory that I had ever seen. It was some unholy, nearly inconceivable amalgamation of machine parts and walkways: Industrial boilers, grinders, furnances, vats, engines, giant fans, turning gears and whatever the fuck the rest of it was supposed to be.
Titanium beams that were bigger than me were in proper, grid-like placements, giving order and structure to an otherwise orderless and structureless world. Latticework of all sorts decorated the ginormous room in tandem with varying different nozzles, fuses, switches, and weldings bolted in place. Absurdly paint chipped ladders clung to walls and machines large enough to tower multiple stories. The low, hulking shapes of countless appliances rumbled on to fill the space, their huge tubings almost playground-like in how chubby and rounded they were.
Excluding the visual stimuli, there was also the sounds. Almost too many to fathom and pinpoint. The collective soundtrack of this endless space. All of it grinding, grumbling, chugging, slamming, both in and out of time with the other noises of the room: A lot of it heavy and loud enough to be imagined as a monstrous heartbeat. Things rattled, ticked, and clanked. Motors whined. Chains swung. Steam hissed. Fires crackled and spat. Liquids bubbled and water droplets plinked. Frequencies both high-pitched and insanely low echoed throughout it all. It gave the unknown location an audible boost in size.
Hell's factory was in full swing with no happy hour in sight, covered from 'floor' to 'ceiling' in Fifty Shades of Rust. And soot. And oil. And layers and layers of other gritty colorings.
All of this offered to me like a spread from Lucifer's most bountiful Thanksgiving feast, lit in the most sinister of reds, oranges, yellows, magentas, and greens. Enough as it was engulfed by this unsettling color scheme, the space was equally as covered in ominous, nightmarish shadows.
As if to prove how hot and ready it was to be served up, the room emanated enough heat to waft into my bedroom in droves, sending fogs of undulating steam in currents over the threshold and around the edges of the door frame. Hell breathed right in front of me, as alive and potent as it could possibly be-
And I slammed the door on it. Slammed it with both hands, slammed it so fucking hard it was a miracle the thing didn't drop from its hinges to crash into the floor. After I slammed the door in its figurative face, I spun around to barricade the way with myself, back flush against the wood to stare ahead. The banging and thumping of the factory-like world and all of its mechanical noises became muffled with its closing. My arms anchored themselves across the frame while my legs spread wide to brace for impact as I half expected the door behind me to move; That a force so powerful would knock me from my stance so the way could be clear, a monster coming in to get me..
But it didn't. Shockingly, it never did.
In the minutes that I spent standing there bearing the entirety of my pitiful weight against the door, nothing happened. All that did occur was an eerie gradual warmth heating the wood against my back. But aside from breathing hard and gulping down the initial panic, that was it. That didn't put a damper on the fear though. My mind raced with all sorts of reactions, all kinds of flurries of 'do's and 'don't's, 'what to do's and 'what not to do's, and 'should i's and 'should i not's: Do I go in? Get a weapon? Should I hide?
The 'get a weapon' option jumped to the front of my mind and I scanned my room through what I could see thanks to the nightlight. When my gaze fell on the broken form of my baseball bat, my heart sank. Ooh. Yeah. Shit. I had forgotten that Mr. Lucky, my only potential weapon, was presently out of commission and therefore in no shape to spar with evil. Well there goes that idea. The back of my head rested against the door to think.
Whatever that place was, it obviously hadn't been there before I had gone to sleep. Sooo, that only left me with two conclusions.
One: I was dreaming.
Two: That the interior decorating had been done by my house mates.
One was preferable, although…If I were dreaming, then that meant that I was having a nightmare. Two had much more serious repercussions, but at least with Option One I would eventually wake up.
Unless there was an Option Three: Meaning this was some sort of fucked up prank on their part. Some kind of hallucination to freak me out and deter me from leaving my room altogether.
I was startled to find Chucky's voice entering my brain;
'If you're not in your room after twelve, we're gonna know. We'll come lookin', and you're not gonna like what happens when we do.'
Motherfucker! Was that what this was? Had they put some sort of voodoo bullshit on my bedroom so I couldn't leave? What if I needed to piss?! What if my period decided to ambush me? While it wasn't exactly time for my menstrual cycle to come harass me, what if it had been? What was I meant to do? Bleed all over myself until the spell wore off? Was banishing me to the fucking shadow realm really necessary!? I reeled around to glare at the previously terrifying entrance. If this really was a trick..
I grabbed the doorknob and ignored how uncomfortably warm it was in my hand. Turning it and pulling my bedroom door open, I gave Hell another good look. A wall of radiance washed over me, causing me to close my eyes briefly through the wave of heat. Blinking them open again, I leaned from left to right to look deeper. The view seemed the same. Some new details from my leaning perspective had been jotted down, but the overall look hadn't changed. The place seemed just as real as it had before. All five senses were convinced that the room in front of me actually existed.
Setting a hard stare on the scenery, I slowly closed the door all the way and re-opened it. Closed it a second time and opened it again. Did so for a third: Essentially testing if the devilish mirage were a glitch of some kind, an incredibly impressive optical illusion that had my brain hopelessly fooled. And admittedly, trying to urge my house to come back.
Close. Open.
Still there.
Close. Open.
STILL THERE.
Close. Open.
After a good minute of the mindless repetition, it became painfully conclusive that the nefarious illusion was here to stay. As frightening as the place was, the fact that nothing bad had happened thus far had me relaxing. What if I just walk through? Was that all it would take? Just a few steps to push through the joke-barrier? Would that be all I needed to do to see my house? Have it all be normal again? To have some much needed ramen noodles? There wasn't a snowball's chance in Hell that I was going to be able to go back to sleep after this. It was worth a try. If this really was just a stupid gimmick, then the worst I'd end up suffering would be their laughter.
Cautiously at first, though progressively gaining confidence, I let go of the knob and stretched my hand towards the space. The interior lighting of the Hell world fell along and coated my skin. I tensed as my hand went further and further, but my fingers never sank into a mirror-like sludge. I never felt a wall or the breaking of another plane or dimension. They just reached into the room, sank into its hotter temperature, and brushed against nothing.
I inched my way closer to the threshold, giving my arm more room to reach out, and kept moving forward until only my feet remained in my room. Disappointed that I hadn't shattered the illusion immediately, my arm slapped down at my side. Glancing at the handrails on either side of the doorway, I tentatively placed my hands onto the railings and shifted forward to look all around. My head lifted left, up, right, and down to see the enormous room.
Oohhkay..? Needless to say I was stumped.
Well. If this wasn't an illusion or a nightmare, then that meant that my stupid roommates had to be responsible for this. And I wasn't going to be able to find them and confront them about it if I stood here all night.
I ventured a look down at the grating before me and delicately put my big toe onto the catwalk. Please don't collapse. Please don't collapse. I eased the rest of my foot down and beared my weight to follow. The metal didn't so much as groan underneath me. It supported me. It was just as sturdy as the handrails. Just as oddly warm as everything else seemed to be. I then decided to test its reliance with both feet. When it still didn't collapse underneath me, I did something reckless. I jumped. Lightly. Then again and again, higher and higher. Giving one last deep squat of a jump, I landed on both feet safe and sound.
"Huh." I was expecting more death..
Striding forth on an adventurous wind, I wandered further down the walkway with my hands trailing over the rails. They felt awful. Rough. Calloused by rust and the ruin of time, but they held. After a bold enough distance, I turned to see my door.
"Whoa.." Half of the word emerged as a laugh of disbelief. It was so freaky! My bedroom door was just there, all by itself, sticking out like a life-depending sore thumb. The rest of the factory proceeded on behind it, and seeing this finally had me looking up, and up, anndd uup..
Hhooohh my God.. It reached a point where my head could no longer crane back to keep looking. The ceiling was nowhere in sight. The mystery place ascended leagues above my head, the view cluttered with different levels of the factory and the criss-cross intersections of various other catwalks and platforms. In that moment fear began to court wonder. A morbid curiosity bloomed inside me as I planted both hands on one rail to look down.
The breath left me. The mind-numbing height stole it from me with the finesse of a world renowned thief while my eyes wandered ever lower, and lower, and..
My hands trembled as my palms dug into the harshly textured railings. This was almost as bad as the flight I had had on Creepy Airlines. Thousands and thousands of feet below, I could not for the life of me make out any semblance of a ground floor. I felt myself teeter ever so slightly. My head swam with a sudden lightheadedness and I had to force myself backwards to cut off the view of the fall. My breath returned to me in a rush; "Fffuck.."
There was no way this was a trick. Nor could it be a dream. Everything felt so real! So ungodly real! But there was a certain quality about it all that struck me as familiar…Something that I could not quite put my finger on. The thought left my eyebrows sewn together, but it was quickly forgotten by the distraction of the room. I gave my bedroom another cautious glance before walking on ahead just a bit more. Leaning this way and that, dipping my head in various directions to survey the factory, I wound up doing a slow twirl to take it all in, my hands swapping from railing to railing in my rotation. The sounds echoed and rumbled, and the factory went on for miles in every direction, consisting of endless, semi dark metal. Christ, it was as menacing as it was magnificent.
An astonished smile nearly came into being, but its manifestation was rudely cut short. In my second awe-filled spin, I turned to see the way back behind me..Was empty.
Empty..?
EMPTY!
EMPTY?!
I could feel my eyes bulge. WHERE'S MY DOOR?! I spun into a stunned, goofy 360 turn. So fast my nightmarish surroundings would have blurred if this were a scary cartoon. Where the FUCK...Oh God. Oh my shit. Nononono, please! I whipped myself from side to side, jerking my head around as if to search for it; As if I had simply misplaced it, silly old me! I probably should have known better than to abandon my bedroom for that of a Hell world, but a lecture would be of no use. The decision had been made, clearly the wrong decision, probably because my roomies had managed to knock my IQ points down by a dozen notches. But this wasn't the time for jokes. This? This was a prime time to fucking panic. My bedroom door was gone. Poofed. Vanished. No more. Left in its stead was the catwalk on which I stood.
My way out had disappeared.
The darkest, most evil fucking chuckle known to man crraawwled up my spine with a malevolent leisure that was almost poetic. It slithered around the cavernous space and bounced off the far-off walls, accompanied by a voice just as sinful as it practically purred to me from a place unseen;
"Now I've got you aalll to myself.."
…
…
...
Oh I could SHIT-
And just like that, there it was. Exactly what he had been hoping to hear. Her heartbeat in his head, pounding, racing to life like a frightened little engine that might give out if it raced a little faster.
As soon as he heard it, he knew this had been the right choice.
This was exactly what he needed.
Freddy inhaled the success; Relished it from the elevated height of the catwalk he stood on. He was situated nearly twenty feet above her with both hands on the railing to watch. The metallic balcony provided him a perfect view, with first-class seats to her fear. From here he could see her spinning around to locate where his voice had come from, throwing her head and her long hair to frantically search the area for any sign of life, all to no avail. When her head threw itself to look above her, he deftly stepped back into the shadows the boiler room cast, easily blending in with the darkness. Her wide, owlish eyes didn't find him. He watched as they darted around before surveying other directions and angles. Smoothly he came back into the light, Jennifer the entirety of his focus as he did.
"H-Hello?!" Stuttering already? If she was already like this and he hadn't even touched her yet, then how was she going to be when he actually chased her? Caught her? Cut her? The others couldn't give him shit for it as long as she still drew breath. They'd get their dolly back, but only after he was done playing with her. Now it was his turn. His time to play. And he had waited far too long.
His lips peeled back into a nasty smile. Though it couldn't be understated that he had essentially rolled out the red and green carpet for her. It had been ages since the boiler room had seen a new face. Too long since it had last gotten to eat. His domain thrived off terror just as much as he did. The way the shadows of the room appeared to stretch, it gave him the feel that the factory was reaching out for her. Salivating at the thought of what was to come. Minutes before her arrival, all while she pinned herself to her bedroom door in serious debate, he had been taking the time to 'set the mood': Intensifying the smoke, perfecting the lighting, cranking the already sweltering temperature. All of it had been done to give the power plant just the right feel of 'prepare to die'.
So it was no mystery as to why she was practically hyperventilating against the catwalk. He may have gone a bit overboard, but it was her very first introduction to the boiler room. And Freddy was a big believer in 'go big or go home'. If she thought she had bad dreams before, this was really going to spice things up in the bedroom..So to speak. This was a special occasion and well..
You always remember your first.
Freddy had to bite back a chuckle.
What are you saying hello for, stupid? You already know someone's here and they KNOW you're here.
Her thoughts ran across his mind. Heartbeat aside, finding her was never going to be an issue with how nervous and overthinking she tended to be. If she wasn't an open book before, her thoughts definitely made her one now. He watched her back away into a staircase that led up.
"Guys? We-We really need to talk!" 'Talk' became a high-pitched squeal when her hip bumped into the stair railing. She jumped and instantly scowled, swatting at the railing as if it had intended to scare her before getting her breath back in a way that suggested that she was aggravated by her own fright. "Nathaniel?!"
Freddy tilted his head, the smile drawing back into a purse. The first name she called and it had to have been the genie's. Not only was that interesting, but her voice had been filled with hope; A plea for help that she expected to be answered in faith. That spoke of some level of trust. He knew he hadn't been the only one that had taken notice of their sudden closeness, but this was worth taking note of all the same. She could have called out to god, or to her loved ones, but instead..
"M-Mr. Pinhead?"
Now the smile crept back along with the will to snort. He supposed the chains around the room were bound to give her the wrong impression. Add to that with her desperate calling of their names, and it spelled out something pretty clearly for him: Jennifer had no idea he was here. She hadn't recognized his voice in the slightest in her startled, rattled state. Too overstimulated to put it together. All she knew was that she wasn't alone. She didn't know who she was alone with. Knowing that, only made this all the better.
Freddy decided to save his voice. He would get his chance to mouth off with his taunts and remarks, but for now he was going to make the most of this advantage. He was going to wait just long enough to have her think she was losing it: Just long enough to think that she had imagined the voice altogether. As if it had been nothing more than the fiction that her overworked imagination was writing. Maybe it had only been the boiler room's noises, she'd think. She'd second-guess herself into thinking it had only been a weird whisper of steam and titanium groaning. Just something that she had wanted to hear, nothing more. And when she believed the lie she told herself, he'd speak again-
Right against the shell of her ear. Straight into the hollow of her neck.
Maybe then he'd hear her scream.
He was so taken with the mental story he was weaving, that he hadn't realized she was nearly out of his view. She had moved on quicker than he had expected. Freddy perked up in time to see the leg of her gray bottoms raise out of sight to his right, disappearing around a particularly thick segment of tubing. Quietly he followed along. His steps were silent, all but swallowed due to the cacophony of the power plant, yet quick enough that in a few strides she was exposed to him again, and he walked along with her: Her below and him above, giving him a top-down view of her progress. Slow progress, but he didn't mind the pace of her timid feet.
From her right came a hissed cloud of steam from a jutting feature of valves. She ended up walking right into it only to duck and cough to wave away the attack, her thoughts wailing miserably; Whhy did I have to leave my room? I should be in bed right now, not wandering around some psycho's deathtrap! He could have laughed. If only she knew…But she'd figure it out sooner or later. They always did.
The platform he was walking on came to a stop, but that was no matter. Freddy strolled to its end and leaned his hip against the railing with his gloved hand sitting on top to rest. He waited to watch overhead. Jennifer nervously continued forward down in front of him. She took a reluctant step to head off to the right, before ultimately deciding to go left, from one walkway to another. She had no clue that he was above and behind her, watching the swing of her locks every time the boiler room coughed, hissed, and groaned. He took a moment to enjoy the imagery.
His gaze drifted over her clothing. Dressing the doll in a nightgown probably would have been too over the top, even for him. Two weeks was a long time. Longer for those that were sleep-deprived. It'd be a shame to exhaust all of the fun out of his options on night one. A white gown would've been really nice with the way he was feeling though..
Another time. His attention went back to her specifically. She was high strung and jumpy like a deer. And with him playing the role as hunter, it was ever so fitting. Hunting was exactly what he intended to do. Track her and hunt her down and reap his reward. Anything could set her off running. All she needed was some encouraging incentive to do so.
Then an idea came to him. Something that he hadn't used in years. But ohh, it was a classic. After all, what was a hunt without man's best friend?
Freddy quietly crouched on his share of the catwalk, easing down into the shadows. His glove stayed on the railing while his left hand descended onto the grating next to his boots. Keeping his gaze on her, he whistled a tune too high to normally hear; A high-pitched frequency that would only be picked up by his pair of well-trained hounds. Deeks and Blocker were never too far off. No matter where the dream demon went in his vast realm, the two never lagged far behind. They often watched him from the gloom with eyes glimmering in the firelight in wait. Sometimes their following got on his nerves. Other times...Like now, the closeness was appreciated. While he waited, he watched Jennifer rub and slap at the sweat that had collected on her arms from the immense heat. Some of her hair was already beginning to thin and stick to her skin he noticed. It wouldn't be too much longer before perspiration would make her flesh shine.
He didn't need to wait long. They knew better to keep him waiting.
The low clicking of nails brought his eyes to those of one of the mutts. One of them was peering at him from around the corner of the path's turn that he had taken, the human tongue feeling around its maw like a worm. Making eye contact with the canine, he patted the flooring with his left hand and gave an insistent beckon of his chin. It lifted its grotesque head and lowered it before padding over to the dream demon. Shadows and light cascaded over its body as it walked its way over. The second appeared shortly after in it, its own human face just as hideous and its pace equally as obedient.
Once both of the dogs were close enough, he grabbed one by the scruff of its malformed head just above the spiked collar and pulled it to the front of the railing so its attention could be directed accordingly. Its clumsy legs slid and scrambled to follow. Freddy leaned his mouth close to it. His glove slipped from its perch to point at Jennifer across the way, ignoring the mindless pant of its mouth to whisper to the dog's ear; "See that little piggy?"
The dog blinked slowly with vacant, human eyes. Freddy dug his seared fingers deeper into its fur to yank its bulbous head closer to listen. He spoke on while the canine stared straight ahead, tongue proceeding to prod over its lips.
"I want you to go fetch. Can ya do that?" The four-legged monstrosity trembled with a newfound excitement. Its limbs buckled and skidded as if it wanted to leap ahead off of the catwalk after her. All the while a froth of its own saliva built up into a light spew. The second canine bounced and paced behind its brother, every bit as eager, but not wanting to go forth until their master gave the word.
"Yeah?" Freddy's eyes went to the sight of Jennifer way ahead of them, progressively getting smaller the farther she roamed. With a single word, he shoved the mutt away;
"Fetch."
And off they were. Bounding down his catwalk from the way they had trotted in. Their dark bodies practically collided with one another with the reckless abandon of greed as they surged forth like a pair of race horses from the gates. The thumping of hurried paws faded quickly.
Freddy returned to a stand. His eyes drifted back to Jennifer and he grinned. The brief voyage he had taken into her mind assured him that this was going to be entertaining. She was a track star, wasn't she? All those days of track and field had surely prepared her for this so she had nothing to worry about. From what he had witnessed out of the Dream Realm, her legs worked pretty well. This was just a grand way of testing her. An inquisitive ceremony of initiation; To see what she was capable of in a pinch. A little dog breath wouldn't be her undoing, especially not with that determination she nursed underneath her anxiety-ridden exterior. Noo, she would be just fine. The stunt would get her exactly as he wanted her:
Out of breath, drunk off adrenaline, and having spent enough of her energy to shake that runner's confidence. She might be a bit worse for wear, but that was inevitable. Dogs or no, he didn't come all this way to indulge just to skimp out on shedding blood. His black heart was set on that. One way or another, blood would be spilled.
Now, he considered as he turned away, where's a good spot to sit? Somewhere high up had to be the case. Not too high up to lose out on the view, but high enough to be able to see it all unfold. He needed some place good to enjoy this, to revel in what he was getting-
And that was dinner and a show.