After Egon treated his indigestion, he became sufficiently comfortable in his sleeping bag. When it came to sleeping places, the floor was a harder place than he was used to but he was exhausted enough that any place could be a sleeping place. Egon was pretty sure that Maurice had that idea most of the time. He made sure to put his glasses on the shelf nearby.

"Everything all set, Egon?" asked Louis, "Want some chamomile tea or anything?"

"No thank you," said Egon. He yawned. "I'm ready to continue my research." Egon turned to his side and bent his knees.

"Okay. Goodnight."

Egon closed his eyes, not even caring that Winston and Ray were probably watching him closely. He let his cares go as he drifted further and further into sleep.

Egon didn't know how much time had passed between when he was conscious and when he was in his dream but he eventually made it to that stage of sleep. He looked around. Everything was unassuming. What looked like a wavy grey ocean was beneath him along with a wavy grey ocean above. With each step came a rippling effect. Everything was dry, cold. He didn't know where he was going or even how time passed in this dimension of his creation.

But then he saw someone, a figure in white. He found what would persuade him to move forward in the nothingness.

"Egon?" shouted the figure in a feminine voice.

Egon's walk turned into a run. He finally got close enough that he could make out who this person was.

It was a beautiful woman with flowing auburn hair. She wore a long, white tunic that reached her ankles. Egon didn't much pay attention to that as he did her eyes, which were emerald pools that drew him in further.

"Egon," she said in an echoey voice.

"Who are you?" asked Egon, "How do you know my name?"

"I know many people. I am Aphrodite and I have come to visit you from Mount Olympus."

Egon's heart skipped a beat. Was he really talking to a goddess? There was something about her that was human but also unmistakably alien. She radiated warmth and pleasant vibrations. She made the grey waves around Egon less scary.

"That's nice of you to come down here," said Egon.

"I have noticed that you have been working hard to run a successful business, so I have gotten you a gift." She cupped her hands and in a flash of light appeared a plant in a terracotta pot. It was a Venus flytrap, alive but motionless in its soil. It wasn't beautiful like other plants but it served as a curiosity that could potentially start a conversation when shown to a guest.

"Oh… a houseplant. Thank you."

"It's up to you whether you want to accept this gift or not. It's your choice."

Egon didn't give it much thought before making his decision. "It's just a harmless houseplant. Sure. I'll take it."

The goddess handed the plant over to Egon.

"If you don't mind, I'm going to strip down and go back to posing on that clamshell." Little by little, Aphrodite disappeared into confetti-like pieces.

Egon looked down at his new plant, admiring how healthy it looked.

Suddenly, he found himself in a room of a large brick house. The grey waves below him made way for blue carpeting. The walls had abstract paintings on them and the furniture looked a bit like the fancy furniture from Mr. Orbison's house. Egon didn't question any of this. He accepted it.

There was a large window facing a green field during the twilight hours. It looked like the perfect place to put the plant.

"You should be good here," he said as he set the plant down on the windowsill.

When Egon turned around, he noticed a wooden table that was placed against the wall. It looked ragged, used and directly out of a fairy tale. Beside the table were a pile of wooden shoes. On the table were two wooden shoes that were chunky and only half-finished, along with a carving knife. This was what he was meant to do.

He walked over to the table and sat down. He carefully carved the wooden shoes in front of him until they were the right shape and blemish-free. Once he tossed them into the pile, he picked up two more blocks of wood, beginning the process over again. He focused all his concentration on the task, mentally putting aside everything else in the room…

…including the plant.

"Egon…" whispered a little, hissing voice.

Egon stopped what he was doing and looked around. Nothing in the room could have said anything. It must have been his imagination. He went back to his work.

"Egon…"

There it was again. Once again, there was nothing in the room that could have said anything. Maybe it was the wind outside making sounds that were like his name? Oh well. Back to work.

A few minutes later, Egon was startled by the sound of cracking. He broke away from his productivity and turned around to see that the Venus flytrap had grown bigger – the size of a couch. Its head was an enormous size, as were its leaves and vines, which were multiplying faster than was natural. It was devouring the furniture around it, crushing it with its strong jaw, starting with the fancy chair and then going toward the coffee table. Then, once it had devoured half of the coffee table, it aimed its head at Egon, staring at him with eyes that were not visible.

"Egon…" it hissed louder than ever.

Egon trembled and felt his muscles turn just as wooden as the shoes that he had been carving.

"Wha… what do you want?" he asked. He wanted desperately to run away but he couldn't help but question this plant's motivation since the plant clearly had the ability to answer back.

"I want you, Egon," it said. It opened its mouth and stretched its numerous vines toward Egon.

Now was the time to run. No more questioning.

Egon opened the door to the next room, which was even larger and more spacious than the last. It took long enough to reach the other side that the plant freakishly outgrew the previous room. Leaves and vines spilled through the door where Egon had escaped and they greedily reached out for him while at the same time grabbing all the furniture it came into contact with. The sounds of chomping were loud enough to cover the sounds of Egon's rapidly-stepping feet.

"I want you, Egon!"

When Egon ran to the next room, he saw animal prints on the wall. He heard a crashing from behind him. The plant's head was large enough that it could destroy walls with a single headbutt. The plant snarled as it tried to chomp him. He felt its warm breath from behind. He had to run faster.

"Aphrodite!" he shouted, "If you can hear me, get off your clam shell and help me! Your gift is malfunctioning!"

Finally, he ended up outside. Free at last! The plant's head was no longer lurching forward. He could now run in the grass toward the forest that had similar-looking trees and strangely no underbrush.

But before he could reach the forest, something tripped him. Once he fell on his face, he looked behind him and saw a small, long-reaching vine around his ankle. This vine was thin but strong enough to drag him backwards. Since Egon had no weapons with him, all he could do was struggle.

It drew him back toward house at an increasingly faster speed. Now that he was on his back, he could see that the plant had overgrown to the point where it had completely filled the brick house. The plant's head was sticking out of a large window on the top floor, breathing heavily and salivating at its snack.

"Ssssimple man," it hissed, "You can't ignore me forever."

More of the plant's vines wrapped around Egon's body as he was brought up to its head. He could see everything – the trigger hairs, the nectar-secreting glands, the monstrous, tooth-like blades. This was Egon's last chance to reason with it since he couldn't do anything else.

"What do you want?"

"I want you, Egon!"

"Why do you want me? I already have you!"

The naked, ropey vines that were wrapped around Egon's body tightened, resulting in the air leaving his lungs.

"You chose thissssss…"

None of what it said answered his question. Egon screamed as the vines tossed him into the plant's cavernous maw. He prepared for a long, painful process of digestion.

This is, until the dream started to rewind.

Suddenly, he was out of the plant's mouth. Then the vines unwrapped from his body until the little vine around his ankle remained. And then that little vine pushed him back toward the forest, and so on and so on until he found himself in the grey abyss once more.

In the darkness of his closed eyes, there were slurping noises coming from directly above Egon's head.

"Mmmm…" said an ominous voice, "That was delicious…"

Egon woke up. He was no longer being strangled by vines but his breathing was still labored. On top of his body were a pair of glowing red eyes. The demon that preyed on dreams had finally preyed on his dream. The demon grinned and revealed a row of pointed teeth while snickering devilishly.

He did not feel victorious at finally seeing one of these demons up close. All he wanted was for it to leave so that he could move and breathe like normal.

Fortunately, Maurice the Wonder Cat showed up.

The demon turned its head before the cat sicked its claws into the demon's face.

"We got him right where we want him!" said Winston. "Weapon at the ready!"

Egon could finally turn to his side and to see Peter aiming his proton guns at the demon. If all went well, only one gun was needed to restrain the creature. The demon flew into the air and gave a bellowing screech that could probably be heard from several floors of the apartment building. Peter's proton beam fired but the demon disappeared before the beam could reach it.

"Aw!" said Peter, "We were so close that time!"

Egon breathed heavily until his breaths slowed down and calmed to a normal pace.

"Better luck next time, I guess," he said.

Egon was hyped up enough that he wasn't sure if he could fall asleep again or not. But his uncertainty eventually cleared when the others went to bed and he fell back into his slumber, this time without nightmares.

The next morning, the guys were in their pajamas and sitting around Louis' small kitchen table. None of them felt like making conversation, they were so frazzled and sick from last night. Fortunately, Louis was busy at the stove making a healthy breakfast of scrambled egg whites, wheat toast and mixed fruit. It was the perfect meal to balance out the fatty, spicy and junky food that the guys ate last night.

"Well, we came close," said Egon, "We came so close."

"Hey, does anybody want to talk about their dreams?" asked Ray. He looked more excited than everybody else. "I'll go first! I dreamt that I was skiing down a mountain of mashed potatoes. It's the same one that I usually visit in my dreams except this time, an avalanche of gravy chased after me and I had to get down the mountain as fast as possible."

"Don't you mean a flood of gravy?" asked Winston.

"That wouldn't make sense, Winston. The mashed potatoes were the snow so it would be an avalanche, not a flood."

"Since I don't feel like arguing, I'll go next. I dreamt that I was at a day spa staffed by the ghosts that we've busted before, except instead of giving you relaxing treatments, they gave me treatments that made me feel icky, like bathing me in worms and rubbing lotion made of puss all over my body."

Egon cringed at the very thought of this. He tried desperately to hold on to his appetite after what he heard.

"What about you, Peter?"

Peter took a sip of coffee before he said anything.

"I dreamt that I was being chased by a devil-possessed Freddie Kruger who was lobbing nuclear missiles at me. Seriously, was I the only one here who had a dream that was actually related to the movies that we saw last night?"

Everyone looked at Egon. It was now his turn.

"Last night, I dreamt that the goddess Aphrodite gave me a Venus flytrap that grew bigger and bigger until it ate me. All the while, it kept telling me that it wanted me."

"Oh?" said Peter after taking another swig of coffee, "So Venus gave you a Venus flytrap?"

Egon sighed and rolled his eyes. "Sure, if that's how you perceive it."

Louis came around and gave Egon his plate of eggs, toast and fruit.

Egon looked at Louis.

"Peter insists that the Greek gods should always be referred to by their Roman names," he said, "That's the hill he's going to die on."

"C'mon, Egon!" said Peter, "It makes so much more sense to say that Venus gave you a Venus flytrap!"

"She referred to herself as Aphrodite in my dream."

"Once you love birds stop arguing, maybe we can plan what we're doing next," said Winston.

Egon had been thinking about this ever since the demon attacked. He had a pretty good idea of what to do next. "We now know enough about what the creature looks like that we can adequately identify it in a demonology book. We have a definite lead now. We could also focus on creating a better proton pack."

"A better one?" asked Ray.

"One that could catch a ghost at a lightning-fast speed, faster than what we have now."

"That's only if speed happens to be the issue here," said Winston, "It could very well be that these creatures are immune to the proton beams."

"If they were immune, they wouldn't vanish at the sight of one. I think it is a matter of speed."

Through it all, Peter was stubborn enough that he wanted to keep arguing some more.

"The Romans conquered the Greeks, Egon!" he said, "The winners are the ones who decide the names of gods!"

"I can't think of a less dignified name for a god of the underworld than Pluto," said Egon.

"He had that name before that stupid yellow dog ever did!"

"So, in this dream, did this plant ever sing?" asked Ray, "Because it sounds an awful lot like that monster plant in that movie musical starring that guy who looks an awful lot like Louis."

"Everyone says that," said Louis.

"No, it didn't sing. It was just a chaos-causing plant. Considering the nature of the dream, I'm surprised that it was Aphrodite that gave me the plant and not Eris."

"You mean Discordia," said Peter.

"Shut up, Peter."