Disclaimer: I own Anita. I don't own Dungeons and Dragons, Quantum Leap, Fullmetal Alchemist, Skulduggery Pleasant, Discworld, Death Note, Soul Eater, or Star Trek: Next Generation. I just borrow the characters to fulfill my need for amusement.

Quick Author's Note: if you can't handle gory detail and torture scenes, skip the italicized section of Anita's daymare. It's a large part of the chapter, I'll give you guys a quick summary towards the end if you don't want to read it.

Panic and Dreams

Anits laced up her wrestling shoes with shaking hands. She knew it, just knew that her coaches would say something. She took a deep breath as she put her hair into a bun and slipped the skull cap on over her hair, trapping it in.

She felt sick as she left the locker room to go into the hallway, snapping the button for her wrestling headgear closed, walking down the hall slowly. She had the pass for sports study hall clenched in a tight fist, nausea making her pause by the trash bin on her way.

"Please, please don't let me be sick," she told herself.

There was so much on the line. Yesterday she had done poorly in running, too poorly, and if she didn't do better today, she wouldn't stay on the team. And the coaches would be mad at her, for her shouting match with her gym teacher, and for being late. And she couldn't run. It had always been her weak point.

By the time she got to the mat room, her breathing was shallow and erratic, her palms sweaty. She shook and couldn't stop it, her stomach roiled as if the liquid inside boiled coldly. She couldn't think properly.

And it only got worse—within a quarter of an hour, after running up and down a set of stairs, she alternated between leaning over a mostly-empty trash can, heaving up the little lunch she had left, and sitting curled in a ball, crying out her terror.

They were coming for her. She had no idea who they were, or what they would do, but she knew it was something bad.

Practice was a terrified blur, people asking if she was alright, she responding that yes, it was ok, she was fine. She couldn't stop the tears, now, and sobbed as she lifted weights. When they went into one of the coaches rooms for the rest of practice, Anita sat in the back, huddled, managing—just barely—to quiet her sobs. Tears still fell down her face, but soon the terror quieted, and Anita shook lightly, the tears slowing to a stop.

As soon as she was released, though, she had to sprint off, feeling as if a dagger was at her back. Death followed her, his long strides allowing him to keep pace with her—barely—his cowl flowing behind him and his scythe over his shoulder.

(line break)

It was a few months later, in March, that he found her shaking in his arms as the worst daymare yet ravaged the landscape of her mind.

He started as a sudden connection between his soul and hers let him see what she saw. And, like her, he was unable to pull away, a sick fascination taking hold of his mind…

The weight dropped onto her chest, and she opened her eyes to see a demon, grotesque in all of its detail, leering at her with a dagger clenched in its fist.

She was wearing no clothes, and she couldn't move, couldn't get any clothing to appear, as the demon slipped inside her, the blackness fading in and out, until it was over. It censored the parts she would only see once she was older, ready to take it.

And the demon took its dagger, cutting deep slashes in her skin, and Anita would have screamed but couldn't. Soon the demon was bored of this game, and so started to cut squares and rectangles, pulling her skin off in patches, leaving behind red raw patches, and still Anita couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't scream…

The demon gave up on that game before long, her feet and skins almost completely skinless, cuts on her forearms, a large patch of skin missing on her abdomen. Anita didn't have the strength left for screaming anymore, didn't want to, even if she could. She just wanted to curl up and cry, but the nature of the daymare was such that she couldn't do a thing but watch as her body was mutilated, abused.

The knife went close to her toes, and it cut off paper-thin slice by paper-thin slice until her big toe was gone through the nail. Blood was everywhere, and slashes continued randomly along her body, thighs, arms, face, breasts, her crotch all opening up with a spurt of blood until it slowly faded away.

But the terror could not be shaken loose.

Death snapped out there, Anita shaking in the blank blackness of pure fright, and his grip on her tightened. She reciprocated the gesture, but didn't seem to notice anything outside of the bubble of her mind.

Her happiness always had sadness behind it, and now it broke through the thin membrane of joy too often, revealing sadness and fright.

Her happiness had shattered as Death watched. She wished to race towards his presence, and he tried to stop her, tried to make her love life again, find joy again, but to no avail.

She shook in his arms, and if he could, he would have cried for her, for her pain and her now-common wish of an easy and quick death. He shook with sadness, holding her to him, and tried to comfort her with a hand running through her hair.

When she came out of it, she felt sick, and just lay in his arms, indifferent and apathetic.

A/N: So this was a bit graphic. I think rating is now an M, yes? So…hope you guys are still alright.

And here we come towards the climax. We'll see how this goes. Anita is not having a good time of it, huh? How do you feel towards her? Like? Love? Hate? Tell me!

That's right, review…

And for those who want a summary of the daymare: Anita is basically stuck in a daydream gone wrong where she is tortured and raped. Fun, eh? Well, don't we all love demons...

Oh, and BTW, the demon, if you want a more stable image, is like the one in Soul Eater, only no longer anime and a bit more grotesque.

Bye bye now!