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.”
A/N I have included a link for the Fairtale that inspired this fic incase anyone wanted a read. It was excellent idea and she has been the most amazing support all the way through this fic *hugs* Sandman info