A/N In an earlier author's note I mentioned the various superhero origin tropes out there that could be mined to make a story. The Buffy show actually has a method that can be adapted for the creation of various types of superheroes. So Cordelia, as Valkyrie or Dawn as a version of, well all kinds of superheroes have powers similar to what Dawn might be capable of, aren't going to be the only superheros in Sunnydale as this story goes forward. 😉

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"Am I hallucinating again?" Johnathan asked out loud as that night he once again saw the weird thing with thick, sharp teeth and a top hat walk passed his hospital room door. Fortunately for him he wasn't hooked up to anything more than a vitals monitor right now that occasionally took his blood pressure and measured his pulse. He had his inhaler nearby in case he had difficulty breathing, but the fever had been coming down and his breathing was improving. The doctor had optimistically suggested he might be able to go home tomorrow.

Only now he seemed to be hallucinating again. He heard a faint cry down the hall where the younger kid's rooms were and wondered if one of them was having nightmares. Or were they hallucinating too? Feeling restless and not wanting to try sleeping and risk nightmares of his own with that nightmare image in his head, Johnathan decided to try taking a walk down the hall. He took the blood pressure cuff off and slipped out of the bed and tucked his inhaler in the pocket of the robe he put on and he slowly made his way out of the room and down the hall, he didn't want to risk a dizzy spell or fall that might keep him in the hospital longer so he held on to the railing that ran down the length of the hall. He heard another cry and feeling for the kid walked slowly toward the room he thought the cry had come from. The nurse's station was at the end of the hall, maybe he could peek in the room and tell the nurse the kid was having a nightmare or something and she should check on him or her, just in case.

Only what he saw when he did peek in the room qualified as a something out of a horror movie instead of a nightmare. The weird guy with the top hat was sitting on top of the kid, weird things were moving out of its eye sockets toward the face of the kid on the bed. Johnathan felt frozen in sheer mind numbing terror, that thing couldn't be real, could it?! When the kid cried out again Johnathan shook off his fear and charged into the room. The thing stopped and turned its head towards him, those weird things were sticking out of its eyes! Not knowing if it was real or not, Johnathan did the only thing he could think of, he grabbed his inhaler and squirted it in the thing's face.

It reacted like he'd thrown some kind of acid in its face, it started screaming, and reached for those weird things and to Johnathan's further horror and absolute disgust, it yanked them out, spraying blood on Johnathan's own face, before shoving him aside and scrambling down the hall as Johnathan frantically tried to wipe the blood off. He backpedaled out of the room and ran into a nurse.

"What are you doing out of bed?" She asked. "And why are you screaming?"

"There was a monster!" The kid in the bed sobbed. "Death, just like Ryan said. It was gonna kill me!"

"Nightmare." Johnathan gasped, swiping at the blood. "Blood on me!"

"Calm down and breath before you have an asthma attack, there's no blood." The nurse told him.

"I can see it! I can feel it!" Johnathan howled.

"Come on, let's get you back to your room." The nurse said soothingly. "Maybe a shower will help cool your temperature and make it easier to sleep." She motioned a second nurse to check on the child in the bed as she guided Johnathan back to his room and helped him take a shower, where he scrubbed the blood off of himself, insisting he could see it and feel it. All the while the nurse kept assuring him there was no blood. After he was tucked back in the bed and the nurse had consulted with a doctor he was given some medication to help him sleep.

He wasn't released the next day as he'd hoped, it was decided he needed another day of care, the day after however his parents were allowed to take him home.

It would be the day after that, that he'd discover he wasn't the same Johnathan Levinson he'd been before a weird nightmare figure that no one believed actually existed had sprayed its blood on him.