The routine at Steve's house was practically the same every day. His wife, Martha, was always the first to wake up. She would take a bath, and the sound of flowing water would be enough to awaken Steve.
At this point, Kate was usually already waiting for her father to go into her bedroom tell her to go ready herself.
While all women in the house cleaned themselves in the two available bathrooms, it was Steve's duty to prepare the breakfast, usually just milk for everyone (Martha said that coffee damages your brain, even if she had no proof of that) and bread or toasts, depending on whether they had forgotten to transfer the bread to plastic bags or not.
After Martha was done, it was Steve's turn to take a bath, which would last way less than his wife's.
Soon, all of them were cleaned and dressed, sat around the table and enjoying the food before they got into the car and each one was delivered, like smiling packages, to their respective places.
Martha was a doctor. She worked at several public hospitals, juggling her time around to attend all of her patients. Not an easy life, but the money she gained made up for it.
Steve worked at a local private school. He taught science to kids on five different grades, from second to sixth. He was well liked, and even if his job wasn't very well paid, he enjoyed it and wouldn't change it for anything in this world.
Curiously enough, Kate didn't study in the same school her father lectured, but in a different one, that, according to her mother, was better and more respected. It was a common topic of discussion between daughter and mother, since Kate disagreed, saying that she would do better if her father was her teacher. As always, Steve didn't dare to join the discussion. He didn't want to make any of them upset. He was way too passive for that.
On his work, he was very well liked by most, with the exception of some paranoid mothers that insisted that their children had to have a woman as educator.
One of his most well-known habits was to bring a bag of candy on Fridays and distribute them, among the most well behaved students. Well, at least this was the intention, since in the end he would be too touched by all those cute pouty faces of the ones that hadn't gained any and would end up distributing them to everyone but the worse behaved students.
He was a nice natured person, no matter what. Way too soft, some said, but nice, nonetheless.
By noon, school time was over, and he left to pick up Kate. Lunch would be by two in the afternoon, usually without Martha, since she lunched at her work.
A little chicken and rice would do it, and most of the time there would be leftovers.
Steve always spent his afternoon correcting tests, formatting texts and materials for his students and so on. Unless he had way too much work, he would be done by the time his wife was home.
They would dinner together, again milk and bread, though sometimes they would mix all of the week's leftovers with rice and warm all of it. The result was tasty, thought it demanded more ingredients and time.
A seemingly little, simple, happy life that most families would envy. Steve was happy with it, of course, despite a couple discussions that popped up here and there regarding trivial things.
Maybe the fact his life was so nice was, partially, the reason why he was so disturbed by his nightmares.
It was a terrible contrast. All the children smiling and playing on the school whenever it was snack time against the creatures on his dreams, crying, screaming, whispering, licking, falling to their knees and staring, just staring with their cold eyes, full of corruption.
What if his daughter became like one of them?
This was the question that overwhelmed him this night. His wife was long asleep, exhausted from working all day, so he was free to walk around the room in circles, twisting his hands in anxiety.
It was a deeply disturbing thought, to him. He loved his daughter very much, and even the faint possibility of she becoming like his dreams was horrifying.
He could picture it, creating scenes from imagination scraps.
One of those dimly lit corridors, smelling terribly, like usually. An overwhelming silence.
Steve had to sit down.
Little, cute Kate, walking down the corridor with one of those dirty, tattered dresses zombies wore, a little too big for her size.
He had to stop thinking of those nefarious things! It wasn't going to happen, he didn't need to worry.
Standing on front of him, with their same smiles. Eyes burning in that unique cruelty characteristic of them.
Little steps, one by one, as it finishes corrupting itself.
Steve shook his head, dismissing the little scene. Kate was safe, Kate was home, near him and he would never stop protecting her.
He sighed and decided to calm down before going to sleep. Sitting on a corner, he started the computer (In fact, just a handy laptop) and connected to the internet.
Well, seeing if the school or some student had sent him something was nice, at least.
He browsed through his e-mail for half an hour, saddened by the sheer amount of ads and links to viruses piled up there. No one had sent him anything, after all, not even a silly Facebook link!
He was about to give up trying to distract himself when he noticed something new in the "trash" section. Why were the most important things the ones sent there?
This message had been sent by one of his students. . A little girl with a rebel temper and the fame of having had enormous with her parents several times and almost fleeing home once despite her young age.
It wasn't something especially interesting. Apparently, she wanted him to be her particular teacher. Being eleven years old, she was out of the typical range of students he had, but why not to give it a try? He would have to talk to her tomorrow, thought.
There was an annex to the e-mail called "If you can do it". He opened it.
It was simply a little picture of a teddy bear hugging someone, along with a big "THANK YOU!"
Written on it. A cute gesture of her part, he thought.
He didn't really have time for particular classes, and if he did, they wouldn't be all that cheap. He could talk to her parents, thought, to see how things could be done.
After this, he didn't really find anything interesting, other than a couple sales in stores in some stores.
He turned the laptop off, closing it to avoid the annoying remaining lights from it to interfere on his sleep. Well, interfere more than things normally did, at least.
Laying down on his bed, he looked at his peaceful, sleeping wife with some sadness. They had been married for a long while… it had never been exactly a relationship full of love, but he did feel attached to Martha. He always had. But now…it was as if it didn't matter so much anymore. He knew quite well that Martha had a little case with a friend from her work, mostly a thing about having fun on Sundays, and yet…he wasn't angry, upset or even surprised about it. In fact, he understood it.
Martha was a vigorous, strong woman who liked to see things done her way. She hated receiving orders and wouldn't do anything for anyone if she thought it was wrong. Like a wild bird, she hated being caged in routines.
This life surely was a hell to someone who had, long ago, run away from her own home to live the dream of freedom and free will to do whatever she wanted to. Steve knew it wouldn't take long before she decided it was time to break free from the crystal cage they had built around themselves.
What would be of Kate if Martha left? Would she take her away? No…Steve would go in justice to bring his daughter near him. He could let everything happen, but he wouldn't tolerate having Kate to be taken away from him.
And how living in an unstructured ambient would affect her? She was just a child, she needed role models! What about debts? Would he be able to pay them alone with his teacher salary? He highly doubted so.
Maybe Martha wouldn't leave, after all. Maybe she would think twice and decide for the well- being of the family. In this case, he was just stressing himself for nothing.
Steve looked at the white ceiling, yawning. He was tired. Very tired. By now, the disturbing thought about his daughter's future had vanished, replaced by plans and questions about the uncertain future of the family that had, to this day, lived the most perfect life possible.
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"Wake up, sweetie..."
Steve turned around in the bed, without wanting to open his eyes. Catherine could be very annoying by the morning...
"It is not morning, Steve, the sun is setting outside"
Her voice was so sweet it was sick. He knew her enough not to trust it, thought. Behind her kindness, there was always something else, often disgusting or painful.
Suddenly, something warm and weird against the side of his face, leaving a wet trail behind. He immediately sat up and looked around, instinctively brining his hand to his face in order to clean it with the pillow he was holding.
Catherine laughed, mouth open and tongue hanging. That stupid creeper has just licked him to get a reaction.
"Come on! That is gross…"
Catherine stopped laughing, reducing it to a big smile. She stared at Steve with her cold, demented eyes, which sent shivers down Steve's spine.
"Not like you are in conditions to judge what is gross and what is not, sweetie. We are a part of this together, don't you remember?"
He stepped back.
He didn't want to listen to her. He wasn't a part of this madness, after all! He couldn't and he shouldn't be.
The putrid wood below his feet, which had been trying its best to keep Steve upstairs, could no longer take it. With a loud noise, it broke, letting both the creeper and the human fall through a row of floorless stores that weren't there before.
Catherine giggle, twisted herself around as she fell down, uncaring to her fate, a handful meters down.
Steve screamed in shock, but no sounds ever came out. He glanced at the mad creeper, without understanding.
Time seemed to slow down around them. Or maybe it was gravity becoming smaller, or even the air, thicker.
A whole minute passed, but they never touched the ground. Instead, some kind of fog took the whole place, filling it with unnatural hues of red, green and blue. Its smell was horrible, just like all smells in the town, and it had almost a hallucinogen effect.
Things started to appear out of nowhere, patches of grass floating in the air, water flowing around, children dancing, following the movements of the slowly disappearing Catherine, clouds spiraling around, sounds being created from nowhere…
Where was he, after all?
In the middle of a dirty excuse of a park. In fact, it was more like a public trashcan, with a couple corpses thrown in the middle of the highest garbage piles. Steve stepped back, only to almost fall to ground due to some kind of black, rancid liquid spilled there.
The sudden motion made him realize that he was still holding the pillow…what was the pillow a minute ago, at least.
It was now a plastic bag. Not any plastic bag, thought. Steve knew this one very well. The little stickers, the hole near the top, the word "REWARDS" capitalized in the middle, the big smile drawn with green permanent pen…
This was the bag he used to carry around the candy he gave around on school.
It made no sense. For a second he asked himself how he had gotten there, but he couldn't concentrate. It was like some kind of fog taking over his thoughts and disbanding any group that could let him realize what was happening.
"Are you alright, mister?"
He looked around, still confused by and trying to set a path to his thoughts, without success. This was unlike the last time, in which he had simply given up trying to fight against this world's nonsensical logic.
It took him some time to realize that, somehow, he was now mobbed by those "children" that plagued this place. These ones, thought, seemed way worse than others. Sick and injured, mostly. The creepers had lost most of their usual thick, spiky fur and had, instead, big red and purple patches. Skeletons were missing parts, and some used their arms to crawl around, seeming that they no longer had legs, along with zombies, thought the zombies naturally looked worse. Other mobs were barely recognizable due to their plain gross looks.
Steve could barely reply. It had been way too sudden and disturbing for him to digest the information. All he managed to do was to stand there, mouth open, trying to make any kind of sound, whatever it was.
Something tugged at the candy bag. He quickly pulled it away from the creature, a pathetic, rachitic ender child that could barely stand on its legs.
Something about it called his attention, thought. The eyes. They were a weird color, like a greyer version of the usual purple one, giving it a weird fragile, faded quality along with the usual cruel look.
His hand trembled as he slowly opened the bag and handed it a sweet. It was a completely unconscious thing. The dream had decided that he had been distributing sweets around on its own and he couldn't change it.
The creature hungrily opened the fragile paper surrounding its reward.
From inside, a dead, rotten silverfish revealed itself, a thick black liquid coming out of what was once its eyes. The little ender smiled and put it on its enormous mouth, licking the muddy rests of decomposition happily and even licking its broken claws.
Steve looked into the bag once again, eyes wide in fear. There, on the bottom, the same liquid accumulated, dripping into the floor and slowly forming a puddle.
The children looked at the bag full of vermin, wanting them desperately. In fact, thinking again, it wasn't the silverfish that they wanted. If it was, they could have killed Steve to get them, or simply take them from the garbage around them. What they wanted was him to give them something. Anything.
Mouths open, mutilated tongues in the air, dripping blood, saliva, puke and all sorts of horrible things. It was a wave of strange beings that were barely themselves, by now.
Steve was completely overwhelmed. Dozens of little hands and paws of all sizes pulled his shirt, his bag and his pants, begging not to be forgotten. He simply threw candy at them compulsively, eyes closed in order not to see their disfigured faces.
That didn't stop him from feeling, thought.
The texture of each individual hand, the cold, dirty liquid against his hand as he pulled out soaked, sometimes still agonizing silverfish. The smell of the air, suddenly stronger to him, simply nauseous. His stomach turning around and around, with him ready to puke. Their voices, a whispered mix of all kinds of possible and impossible sounds, barely audible until they talked to him directly.
Soon, all of this messed up dream world faded into the white bless of the end of a nasty dream.
