All characters are the property of
Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.
Thanks: To two lovely ladies megan_peta who has worked tirelessly to
beta the ten chapters I emailed in rapid succession of the last week.
She has been tireless and worked like a demon to get all of them ready.
Thank You Megan XXX
The other wonderful lady is my talented and amazing co-poster today
lmbossy who has created the most amazing artwork for this fic and was
the one who suggested I used Ole's tale as a basis for this story. From
there we developed the idea of using characters from different
fairytales and the fic evolved. She has betaed manically all the while
creating the most stunning artwork.
Whispers
of A Dream...Screams of A Nightmare - Prologue
by Schehrezade
There was a soft rustle of paper as the pages were turned with delicate
fingers. The reader devoured the familiar words with an absorption born
of love for the tales within the pages of the tome. Each sentence read
filling the young girl's mind with images and illusory diversions.
Happy feelings and thoughts, familiar and yet new with each return to
the pages that soon would be twisted and changed into darker
entertainments and gains for a being not of this world – an incubus of
sorts.
The clock ticked the seconds away as the room's only occupant slowly
nodded off to sleep. The bedside light gave a warm glow to the bedroom,
making it safe and comforting. The decoration was childish bordering on
adulthood much like its occupant. Loosely held in her hands was her
favourite book, filled with dreams and horrors that could both
entertain and offer nightmares, only something a person with a vivid
imagination could enjoy. Its battered gold tooled leather bond covers
were worn thin by constant use and the pages were dog eared in places
and well thumbed as its owner impatiently skimmed from passage to
passage, eyes devouring the familiar tales of romance, adventure and
horror.
She has no idea what was to come – in fact, she never would. Her fate
was sealed that night, irrevocably and for all time. It would be the
stuff born of nightmares and fairytales, twisted to suit only one
being's purposes.
For evil.
For beauty and youth.
For Control.
For Power.
Inexorably the innocent girl moved closer and closer to her fate as her
eyes drifted shut and her body relaxed. .
The darkness by the window moved and shifted as a form appeared out of
nowhere. His body formed out of the shadows that were his home and
haven. He was a creature of myth and legends, but very real, solid and
intent on his job. It was one that he had been doing since the dawn of
creation. One that only he was able to do. Slowly, as if floating on
air, he moved towards his quarry, his long fingered hands moving in
intricate patterns as he wove his spell.
Out of nowhere it appeared, a sack containing his magicks. Tucked under
his other arm was an umbrella furled and tightly wound shut. Ole-Lukoie
reached in and withdrew a handful of glimmering sand. He smiled down at
the young teen and then scattered it over her eyes. The fine dust
settled unerringly on his target and his sharp features were gentled
with a smile as he watched his power work its will. His purpose
accomplished, he turned and glided towards the open window. Unfurling
his umbrella, he slipped out and floated off into the night. The wind
became captured in the open brolly, it's slightly tattered edges
fluttering gently as it carried its owner higher and higher into the
clear night sky. Small eddies of air moved him easily as he progressed
through the night quickly, moving from house to house unaware of the
drama unfolding in the home of the girl he first visited.
The danger went unnoticed as the Sandman moved from house to house
through the dusk, easing his charges into their dreams.
He was unaware of the nightmares and the fractured fairytale that was
infolding in the innocuous suburban home of an unwary Californian
family, oblivious to the fact that they would soon lose their one and
only daughter to a living nightmare.
~~~~~
A soft sigh broke the silence of the room as the occupant shifted in
her sleep and curled onto her side. The soft smile on her lips was
slowly dragging down at the corners as her dreams twisted and changed
from innocence into horror.
Her dreams were warped as a magical incantation was repeated over and
over in her head. One not of her making, her mind hijacked by an entity
that was the stuff of fairytales and legends.
The faint golden glitter of dust left on her fragile eyelids shimmered
from a faint gold and changed to a darker hue. It darkened to a deep
ochre and then darkened to an angry red. White magicks began to be
turned to suit the purposes of their wielder. The young girl's body
heaved and shuddered as a glow began to build up from inside, a burnt
umber that slowly began to fill the sleeper's body from within. It was
as if her body were glowing with an unearthly light, her sinews and
veins thrown in sharp relief as she wrestled against the horror in her
mind. A once innocent tale was now becoming tailored to suit the
occupant of the dream's ends. To facilitate her transition across from
dreams into reality the evil inside, the dream needed to feed off the
fear of her host. And there was nothing more intense than the fear of a
child suspended on the brink of puberty. It was the intense fear
combined with the charged hormones within the growing bodies of soon to
be young adults that attracted many things of evil. Be it poltergeists,
ghouls, ghost, witches and finally evil fairies.
Her body twisted and turned as her eyes flickered behind her tightly
shut eyelids. Her mind was caught in a dream that was unlike any other
ever before; for once the stuff of nightmares was becoming real. It
began to manifest itself through the power leaking from the mystical
portal to the underworld that the dreaming girl's family had moved too.
Sweat formed at the edges of her hairline as she began to toss and
turn, her mind trapped in the nightmarish world of her dreams and
imaginings.
"Mama...no— help me..." was all that escaped from her panting mouth before
her body lurched and arched in a nearly back breaking bow.
It was time for a bid for freedom.
Her victim's body railed against its invasion of the mystical forces of
magic and tried to fight off the possession one more time. Blood pooled
in the corners of her eyes as small blood vessels burst under the
strain of her battle. Her teeth cut into her tongue as her thin body
was wracked with tremors and her jaw clenched. The girl's fingers
scrabbled at her sheets and clung to them, futilely trying to anchor
herself as finally she lost the battle..
A gnarled arthritic hand erupted from her stomach, searching the air as
slowly a pallid arm pushed out. The victim's mouth opened in a
soundless scream as her mind rebelled from the reality of the danger
her nightmares had placed her in and lapsed into a waking dream. Her
body remained asleep but her mind was awake and aware of
everything--every sensation and every second that she was trapped
in-between waking and sleeping.
With one final lurch the parasite that had finally garnered enough
power--waiting and biding her time in her victim's mind, being fed her
power with the fear of her victim—she finally was able to manifest
herself. As the ancient fairy made her presence known in Sunnydale, the
being whose magicks had been used to facilitate her arrival dropped
from the sky with a startled shout; something had changed.
He tumbled in freefall, the earth coming closer and closer as he
plummeted from the heavens to the dry soil of the ground. He hit with
an almighty crash, the impact of his body causing a fissure deep in the
ground and releasing a slither of power from the active Hellmouth that
arrowed its way to the bedroom of his evenings first port of call.
His powers had been corrupted. The once benevolent face of Ole-Lukoie
began to warp and melt into a caricature of its gentle features. He
staggered to his feet and stared down at his hand that gripped the now
splintering handle of the umbrella that carried him on his journeys.
The usually black folds were now a dark red and slashed in places; the
Sandman fumbled for his bag of dust. His crabbed fingers scrabbling
through the now bright red dust, he reeled back in horror and dropped
it.
It was all over; his gentle powers had been taken and moulded into
something that sickened him. His stomach lurched as he felt her call in
his bones. He could do nothing more than obey. Ole-Lukoie began to
stagger towards the suburban clapboard, unable to resist her imperious
summons. For now he was hers to command.
And so the fairytales became reality, in a small not so sleepy town on
the mouth of Hell. He hoped there was someone who could fight against
her spells and the corruption of the innocents of this place.
Otherwise her powers would only grow and they would all be damned.
Damned to hell and beyond – once and for all lost, all because a little
girl's dreams of fairies and princesses had become too real.
He could feel all of them screaming in his mind as their bodies were
locked into her powers and began to feed her strength. Ole-Lukoie hung
his head as comprehension dawned; his dust was the reason all those
innocents were trapped in her insidious web, feeding her power with the
fear caused by their dreams.
The Sandman staggered up the porch steps and scratched at the door. It
swung open with a screech and he stepped in and dropped to his knees
and waited for instructions from the crone who stood framed in the
doorway.
"Get me more power. Make all the children suffer – I want it all." Her
frail whispering voice sounded like nails on a black board as her
command chilled him the core.
"As you wish."