Nightmare felt a tug on her skirt. She whirled around to see a young girl, perhaps seven years old. The girl offered out a signature pad. “Can I have your signature for my collection?” She asked.
Nightmare rolled her eyes, picking up the pen and signing quickly. “Fine, but be careful. I could have trapped you in a nightmare.”
The girl smiled up at her, obliviously innocent to the danger she had put herself in. “It’s ok, you would have found me. Thanks for the signature!” She said, running off with her new prize.
Nightmare knew better than that, she could find most of the people who got lost in the nightmare realm she was the portal to, but not all of them. Some had physically entered the nightmare realm and never returned despite her best efforts to find them. “Right, kid. You have more faith in me than I do.” She breathed out softly.
The smartwatch on her wrist beeped with a familiar alarm. It was time for work, she reached out into the realm of dreamers, a close cousin to her own. She found someone who was already having a nightmare about falling endlessly. She tapped into the energy his fear of falling generated for her and floated upwards. It was a relatively cheap way to gain flight, and the sleeper would just remember an incredibly vivid nightmare of falling that would go away in time.
She followed the GPS coordinates, landing just outside the doors to the bank, she threw them open and strode inside. A pair bank robbers were in the process of grabbing everything they could out of the vault. “Gentlemen, if you will please stop and wait for the police to arrive, I think we can work this out peacefully.” She suggested.
They turned towards her with guns, “Fine, we can do this the hard way.” She said, dropping the human like appearance and revealed her true form, a crack in the universe that led to the nightmare realm. She moved quickly, expanding and swallowing the two criminals whole, and in her haste also grabbing a bank teller.
Nightmare sighed, she hated using her powers like this, the portal often grabbed people who she hadn’t wanted to grab. She sent her mind into the nightmare realm. It was a dark and ever shifting realm. She went for the teller first, as they were the innocent in all this. She was on top of the highest building in the city, stuck outside far from any entrance. Nightmare stepped out onto the ledge with her and reached out her hand to take the old lady back. However, as she did so, the distance between them seemed to stretch and grow. Such was the nature of the nightmare realm. She didn’t have much power over it.
“You got swept into the nightmare realm. I’m a portal out of here, but I can’t reach you where you are. You need to step towards me.” She called out to the frightened teller.
“I… I can’t. It’s so high up, I’ll fall.” The teller trembled, looking down.
“Look at me.” Nightmare told her, and the teller did. “Keep your eyes on me, and you won’t fall. I promise.” She said, sounding more confident than she actually was.
“Oh… ok.” The lady said uncertainly and stepped forwards to where Nightmare could touch her hand. Then they were back in the bank. “Sorry about that, my power can be unpredictable.” Nightmare admitted.
The teller clearly didn’t know what to say, “Thank you?” She asked.
Nightmare wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “Your welcome,” Nightmare responded before diving back into the nightmare side to find the two would be robbers. She grabbed them, allowing her to pull them back out disarmed of their pistols back into the real world and the hands of the police. The police thanked her and a reporter snapped a picture. She felt a touch on the back of her elbow. She whirled to see the old teller.
“I need to thank you. I don’t know what you did. I hate heights, always had to live on the first floor because of it. The fear never felt so real. I think I feel better about heights now. Thank you for helping me face my fear.” The teller said.
Nightmare wasn’t sure what to say, but she smiled at the teller. “Your welcome.” She said, feeling just a tiny bit more confident about rescuing people who fell into the nightmare realm.