The Man with the Demon Eyes (open)

That voice. Oh god.

"Um . . . Ashlyn - er, Imani, whatever one of you it is right now - could you excuse me for a teensy second?" I ask kindly. "I'll, um, answer any of your other questions when I'm done taking care of a certain . . . infestation."

You have got to be KIDDING me!

I know, I know! I had no clue he'd show up here!

Well hurry up and do something about it, before I kill him!

I grab the man from the back of his head, ripping a few hairs out of his scalp, and I begin to drag him across the ground.

"What in God's name are you doing here!?" I scream at him.

"Hey, Uzuki! Wha-OW! That Hur-OWOWOWOWOWOW!"

"What in god's name are you doing here!" screamed Uzuki.

"Uzuki, what's all this about, you know you looooooove me" I'm barely able to pronounce my words correctly or leave gaps between them which would be bad even if I was face first on the floor being dragged so my voice was also muffled.

I grab Uzuki's hand and peel off her fingers then twist around so I could look up at her.

"BWAHAHAHAHA! As if!"

"What's your favourite fast food meal in this city because I'm definitely gonna need one tomorrow morning?!" I slur.

"Mine's- shspshpslla." I just about get through the first word of the sentence and then fall asleep.

I stop dragging him when I see that he's suddenly fallen asleep. What a weird kid!

"Ugh, this guy . . . he's completely hopeless!" I exclaim to myself. Suddenly I realize I have no choice but to take him to the apartment where Elias is waiting. I walk past Imani/Ashlyn on my way back.

"Um, sorry again, but I'm just going to be . . . taking out the trash," I mutter, realizing that I'm running out of good jokes to make. "I'll be back in a quick second!"

I run up the stairs, still dragging the unconscious boy behind me. When I reach the apartment, I kick the door open, throw him into the living room where Elias is sitting, and I leave without saying another word.

I skip down the stairs, and eventually meet up with Imani again.

"Sorry about that, um . . . he's just this weird guy I met in another country, and he . . . somehow found me again," I laugh. "So, you were saying something about being a Dream Knight, right? Mind explaining what that is?"

"Its no problem," Imani said waving her hand a bit. "He must be a friend if you didn't leave him on the street.

Anyways, a Dream Knight is somebody who fights nightmares in a plane called the Dream Plane. Imaginative, I know. Anyways, it is a Dream Knights job to kill nightmares before they enter a person's subconscious.

Now there are three groups of nightmares and two groups of Dream Knights. The type of nightmare it is depends on the amount of fear collected in the ratri, a blue sphere somewhere in the nightmares body. The more fear it collects, the stronger it becomes and the larger the ratri gets. The only way to kill a nightmare is to destroy the ratri.

As I said earlier, there are three types of nightmares: night scare, nightmare and night terror. The first two are your most common ones you see lurking around. Now the last one is rare but is legions stronger then the other two. There is five levels for them. Level one is the weakest, an incredibly powerful Dream Knight typically will get clearance to kill it on its own. Level five is the absolute worst. Nobody is allowed to fight those alone.

Now on to the two different Dream Knights. There is your regular Dream Knight, your everyday foot solidier. Then there is the Special Forces Unit. These people are highly trained and powerful Dream Knights. Only they can fight Night Terrors."

"Wow, that's . . . kinda confusing, but I think I get it," I mutter, scratching my head. "So, you're a Dream Knight who tries to prevent people from getting eaten by their dreams - that's the basic meaning to it, right? Sounds like it would be a rather exciting job."

I start to snicker to myself. "Then again, all I do is eat human souls and chase crazy tentacled demons around, so I guess you have a bit of a better job than me."

"Er, not exactly. We prevent people from having bad dreams," Imani said. "And I guess-I sorta got banned for breaking taboo."

Imani grinned when she realized Ashlyn had finally started paying attention before proceeding to freak out again.

"So, what is your whole deal anyways with this demon and soul eating ♥♥♥♥?"

"Ah, so you basically broke the rules?" I snicker.

I bring my hands up and stuff them into my pockets. "Well, I don't have much of a story really. I died in a car accident, and I guess I had so much hatred in my heart that it caused me to turn into . . . well, this." Memories of that fateful day begin rushing back to me. I can almost remember how painless and quick it was when that over-sized vehicle smashed into me - my death was so quick and sudden that I didn't even feel a thing.

"You see, Reapers have a kind of code . . . to ensure that we don't go killing every single person alive, we're only allowed to kill a certain amount of people at a time. It keeps the balance between your world and ours, you know? As for the Fairy Tree Man, he has nothing to do with Reapers, but I kinda live on my own code - you could say it's almost like how you broke taboo."

"Either way, this man that has the demon inside of him was once obsessed with the Fairy Tree Man - like I said earlier - and he was extremely unlucky enough to get possessed by the damn monster. I doubt it's a coincidence though - chances are the Fairy Tree Man knew he was obsessed, and decided to start allowing the man to finally start playing his little game."

"The man that was possessed is . . . an old friend of mine. Him and I were classmates, both obsessed with finding the truth of the Fairy Tree Man. It was a fifty-fifty between the both of us, and he got picked. Then again, I guess I died before he was possessed, so the Fairy Tree Man really had no choice but to pick him. Either way, we're both possessed by demons now - so we're both kind of stuck in our own personal Hell."

I start to look around. "I don't see him here, and I can't feel his aura waves. I think we might be-"

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a tentacle lashes out, slashing through my arm, leaving a deep cut.

"Gah . . . !" I gasp out loud, staring down at the river of blood that's started to trickle from my wound.

"Imani!" I scream. "Get out of here! Don't let him see you!"

Imani was not one to run from a fight. In fact she did the exact opposite; she ran right into the danger. It wasn't like she was suicidal. She just didn't believe she would die. (That is if Ashlyn didn't ♥♥♥♥ up and interfere. Alas, that was her favorite game, so there has been more close calls then necessary.)

So, instead of listening to Uzuki, she took her crowbar out, and brandished it like a sword, looking for the monster.

OoC: Juuust thought I should point out, you've been spelling my name wrong . . . It's Uzuki, with a "U", not an "A" . . . LOL just thought I should point that out . . .

BiC: "Don't be crazy!" I exclaim in fear. "If you let see you, you'll never be able to escape him again!"

I realize that she's not going to listen to me no matter what I say, because she already looks ready to fight. I sigh in defeat, and summon my scythe to me side, releasing the bandages from it's blade while I'm at it.

"Imani!" I hiss as we circle the area, looking for the demon. "At least let me give you sone first time advice! If he looks at you, don't make any sudden movements! Just stare back at him and he won't attack! If he starts ro attack, don't let him hit you with his tentacles! And most importantly, whatever you do, do NOT touch him! If you touch him, you won't wake up for days!"

I don't know if she's paying attention to me or not, but as long as she knows at least a little bit about the demon we're dealing with, this battle may actually end in our favor.

Imani hummed to let Uzuki know she had heard her. She frowned a bit. She didn't even know what this person, or demon for that matter, she was fighting looked like.

Besides the fact he has tentacles. But if he keeps them hidden and uses them discretely, this could be more problematic. Still, nothing I can't handle.

"So, what exactly does the host and the demon look like?" Imani asked, her eyes darting each way. "Just so I know who to attack."

"A real fatass with brown hair. He has an Operator Symbol - a circle with an "X" through it - pasted on his tongue, and I think on his shoulder too," I explain. "The real demon is too horrifying to describe. Hopefully the demon won't come out."

My eyes scan the area, trying to locate the man who the demon is living in. What used to be a sweet, kind boy is now a disturbed, psychotic monster - it's too bad, really.

C.A.N. didn't move from his spot on the chair when the man came flying through the doorway. His heightened senses had told him what was going on. After a few minutes in the room with the drunk man, C.A.N. stood, walking out the door to track the ladies.

He followed their obvious path down the stairs, and outside. He started to look around for any sign of where they went, then heard Uzuki cry out in pain. Great. What trouble are they in now? He thought, starting to run down the sidewalk.

C.A.N. ran no faster than a normal human would.l, though he could have gone faster if he had wanted to. He followed the direction the scream came from, and wound up in the local park.Could they have picked a better place to be ambushed? C.A.N. wondered, picking up more speed, little faster than a normal human sprint.

C.A.N. sprints towards the two ladies, dodging a tentacle that came out of nowhere. "I couldn't let you girls have all the fun, could I? Or face a demon hy themselves.. That wouldn't be very gentlemanly of me at all, would it?"

C.A.N. switched to thermal vision, to look around for the demon. He saw a hotspot in a grove of trees to their left, quickly moving towards them. The girls in particular. "Look out!" C.A.N. yelled, tackling the demon before it could reach the two of them. He wrestled with it, the tentacles trying to piece him or push him off, but it wasn't working.

"Do you ladies want to give little old me a hand?" C.A.N. grunted loudly, popping the knife blade from the top of his wrist out and stabing the demon in the arm, causing it to screech in pain. Without the knife being seen.

OoC: Please ignore the part under this. It is posted from my kindle, which can be rather annoying. And the reason the C.A.N. isn't asleep is that he is a robot, and things that work on the brain don't work on him.

the top of his wrist out, and stabbed the demon in the arm. Uzuki and Imani couldn't see the blade.

Imani was surprised when tentacles came out of nowhere. She had to parry an attack with her crowbar and growled in frustration when another tentacle wrenched the metal stick from her hand and tried hitting her with it. She managed to duck in time, looking towards the origin of the tentacles. It was coming towards the left and when her eyes traveled that way she was shocked to see the guy from the hotel appear out of ♥♥♥♥ing nowhere and tackle this fat-ass waddling towards them at a rather impressive speed for a guy for his girth. To make it all the creeper the guy had these black tentacles coming from his body.

This had to be the demon.

What the ♥♥♥♥? What's going on? I thought that Uzuki said not to let the tentacles touch you. Is this guy not human?

"Do you ladies want to give little old me a hand?" Elias grunted loudly and Imani was snapped out of her reserve.

"Get out of the way," she instructed Elias as she raised her right hand towards the struggling men. She really didn't need to, but it helped her concentrate and aim. "Unless you want to get hurt."

I am awakened by a figure walking out the door and slamming it. I must have had waaay to much root beer for this to have happened. What is up with Hillren not being able to handle root beer anyway?

I walk downstairs to the lobby and see three people fighting a tentacled monster.

I should probably help them, I guess I could seeing as we Hillren sober up as fast as a knife fight in a phone booth.

I stroll out into the park and see two girls and a guy. I recognise the two girls: Uzuki and that girl that was in the room with Uzuki, I only got a brief glimpse but it was long enough to remember it.

I think that the dude was the guy who woke me up when he walked out of the room, but I had just woken up so everything was a bit blurry.

The girl whose name I don't know raises her hand in front of the tentacled monster just as I arrive at the back of the group.

"Hey, what's going on here?" I ask.

"God dammit, get the hell out of here, you idiot!" I yell. "If you don't get out of here, I swear to hell I'll kill you myself!" I draw my knife from its holster on my belt. "I have enough trouble on my hands right now as it is! I don't need you to interfere!"

"I can remove him from the premise," Imani said grimly. "Rather quickly and painlessly too."

"Both of you, just-"

I stop to see that Elias isn't having any trouble fighting with the demon. He isn't collapsing, he isn't bursting into guts and blood, and he isn't showing any sign of weakness.

He's actually . . . fighting the Fairy Tree Man.

That's . . . impossible!

Well, he's definitely not human. You should have seen this coming earlier.

But even Reapers fall to the Fairy Tree Man! So why isn't he . . . ?

Suddenly, a tentacle flies out and slices through my arm, leaving a very deep cut.

"Goddammit . . ." I hiss as I watch the blood trickle down my arm, all the way to my fingers.

Now's not the time to be worrying about that man! Just try to get everyone out of here alive! I tell myself.

I stretch my arm out, summoning my scythe to my side. It appears in a flash of light, the staff of the scythe placing itself in my hand.

I've had enough of this!

"Well, now that you two have had your little quarrel-" C.A.N. grunts, shoving the knife into the side of the demon again, causing it to screech. "How about getting back to the task at hand? Either run or help me kill this thing! I'll cover you either way."

C.A.N. kept getting battered by the tentacles, but nothing was showing, no blood or dents, since the tentacles had no room to pick up speed.

Imani gritted her teeth as the tentacle tried assaulting her again. With an irritated growl she used Crush to grab it before it reached her. It was the one with crowbar.

"I'm coming," she said, squeezing the arm so that it burst. She caught the crowbar before it reached the ground and beckoned it back to her hand.

It's not working . . . these things never work!

Indeed, the demon's tentacles are growing back as fast as we're getting rid of them. I've already managed to cut one, but it grew back in less than a second.

These are exactly the troubles I've been having in the past. Only now I've managed to drag three innocent people in with me.

Suddenly, I start to smell something funny. It smells like smoke.

♥♥♥♥. I think this thing is starting a fire now. Again.

I guess I forgot to mention to my new companions that he has a nasty habit of lighting everything on fire.

"Elias! Imani! Tranler!" I scream, trying to get their attention. "Forget the Fairy Tree Man! He's about to burn this place to the ground!"