Park Chung-Ho was falling into the Darkness with the Yellow Eyes staring at him. The garden's light was fading away.
"WAKE UP !" He yelled in his head.
Nothing happened.
Anxiety was growing in his brain. His breath was going quicker and quicker. He wasn't prepared for this. For years, he had been able to wake up when he wanted to, but since this dark voice appeared in his sleep, this wasn't the same. Something was off.
"YOU WANT TO GET OUT, DON'T YOU ?" The dark voice echoed again. "YOU'RE MINE NOW."
This was no ordinary nightmare. This voice was giving shivers down his spine. This truly was frightening. This fear was in HIM. It entered every piece of his body.
Park Chung-Ho was trembling as much as he was falling. He needed to do something, but what? He thought about his room at the dormitory, where he should lay down his bed and where he would wake up. He tried to build this picture in his head.
"Concentrate on it, build it in your mind and go there. It's the safe place." he thought.
All of a sudden, the fall stopped as most of the darkness disappeared, but a kind of dark blurring remained everywhere. He was on his bed, the light was on, and a tall man was standing there watching him from the side of his bed.
He had long, greasy and dark hair falling without any order on the side of his head. He had angular features and was smiling with sharp teeth. The menacing and yellow eyes from the darkness were his.
"So this is where you live." his voice was calmer than in the darkness, but it was still menacing.
Park Chung-Ho tried to move, but his body wouldn't respond. Could he talk?
"Who are you ?" His lips moved, and he heard the sound of his voice.
The dark silhouette was looking at the wall and turned back to him with an evil grin on his face.
"Who am I? That's a good question, boy. A really good question."
He drew a knife out of his pocket, and Park Chung-Ho felt the blade cutting his arm, and a scream of pain came out of his mouth.
"I am a Nightmare..." he paused for a bit, maybe for a dramatic effect. "But not a regular one. You see this cut I made to your arm? It's very real. You would feel it if you could wake up."
He began to walk back and forth in the small room, playing with his knife.
"You see, that's the fun part. You can suffer in a nightmare. I think you already understood that with all this fire and smoke in your nightmares."
It seemed like a game for him. A torturing and twisted game.
Park Chung-Ho was in pain, but he had to win some time. He had to think, to find a way out of this nightmare. It didn't feel like he could move, but his brain was working hard to find a solution.
"Move your leg. Move your arm. Move a finger. MOVE !" But nothing happened. "Wake up! Wake up, Wake up WAKE UP !"
But nothing happened.
"It seems that you're trying to do something. I see your eyes moving as you concentrate. I see them filling up with despair as you can't do a single thing." The tall and dark figure was still smiling as he was pursuing his monologue. It seemed he had waited for this moment for quite some time. "You want to get out of this nightmare, but you can't move, right? You wanna wake up, but you're still here. HA HA HA HA HA HA! I told you. You're MINE now."
Park Chung-Ho felt like a bug on a Dark spider web. Powerless, unable to move. He was the prey, and the hunter was there, playing with him. His body refused to obey his orders, but his orders were coming from his mind. He could still think, and that seemed to be the way he ended up in his dormitory. He pictured it clearly. Maybe there was something he could do. It was dangerous, but it was still possible.
The Cradle.
The Wallpaper.
The Heat.
The Flames.
This was all drawing clearly in his mind. He had to go there again. There it came, the walls changed and began to burn. The flames were slowly taking control of the room. The corridor started to appear. The dark figure looked around and seemed impressed.
"So you don't like your dormitory? You prefer this place?"
This wasn't enough to scare this menacing man. Park Chung-Ho needed MORE flames. He pictured more and more flames in his mind. This was HIS nightmare, and it was high time that he took control of it.
The fire grew bigger, and the sound was deafening. Suddenly, the dark man pointed his hand at the wall, and the fire vanished where he pointed.
"Is this your best? Is this all you're capable of? HA HA HA! Nice try, boy, but useless. I told you I wasn't any ordinary Nightmare."
Park Chung-Ho pictured the top of a mountain, where only he could stand; everything else would be void. Everything went cold, the wind was blowing heavily, and his breath was really hard. There was too little oxygen here. The Dark Nightmare was floating in the air.
"I give you this, you try !"
Park Chung-Ho pictured himself as a cosmonaut, lost in space with his astronaut suit.
"Eat the void if you can." he said. He was fighting with his mind. The only thing that was still functioning. But he was exhausted, and even the void didn't seem to affect the Dark Man.
"Interesting," this man said. "You think that this is how this works, right? That picturing places in your mind will change your dream... How funny. Those are mere projections from your mind; it's not going to affect me much. It can affect your brain, though. You are persuaded that this is real, and your body suffers from what you should suffer if it were real. But you didn't really move, you know. You're still in the same place."
Everything changed again, and Park Chung-Ho was back in his dormitory. The black mist was still there, and the "Nightmare Man", this is what he was calling it in his head, was still there, his knife in hand. Park Chung-Ho let out 2 screams of pain when he felt the blade cutting him on the arm and shoulder.
"You see? This, you felt it right? You're in pain. Your heartbeat is getting faster. Your brain is telling your body to feel the pain it sees in this dream. You see? And your body will show the marks of this pain that you should be feeling. This is how things work here."
Was there really no way out of this dream? Maybe when the day would be setting, the light would wake him up. Was it coming soon, though?
Out of the dark mist that was surrounding the room, he saw a glimmer. Something was changing. Was it daylight?
The door was opening. That was the origin of this glimmer.
"Let him go." Aislinn talked calmly, but this wasn't a request; it sounded like an order.
"Finally, you came! You were lost in the dreams ?" The man laughed madly. "HA HA HA !"
Aislinn wasn't moving, nor was she talking. It seemed that she had already said it all, and there was no point in discussing it anymore. Her stare was sharp, straight in the Dark Figure's eyes; her arms were crossed. Those eyes, which seemed always smooth to Park Chung-Ho, were like weapons at this very moment. He never saw such a stare.
"So you want me to let him go... I haven't spied on you for nothing, my dear. I travelled back to this place for a thing. And I don't feel like giving up on it this easily."
While the nightmare was talking, Aislinn placed her hand on Park Chung-Ho's shoulder and whispered to his ear
"Key in my pocket. Call mom."
The nightmare drew his knife again and was ready to strike when Aislinn kissed Chung-Ho on the lips, and he felt like something was going down his throat. Like a kind wind, warm and full of hope.
It felt like he was able to move again, but she was already up again and turning her back to him, pushing the dark figure with both her hands. She looked over her shoulder and muttered
"See you."
When she looked at him, her eyes were not as light as usual, nor were they the blades that he had seen a few seconds ago. No, that time, they were sad and full of tears.
She grabbed the nightmare, absorbing all the darkness in the room. The Nightmare disappeared as she fell on the ground.