For all those things I've done They keep on creeping by me And though we've changed our ways

Still all our demons are laughing

- Godsmack, Forgive Me.

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Fuck sat with his back against his bedroom door, listening to the lilting melodies of Mozart poor into his ears. Drowning out the screams was the only way he had found to survive. Where Psycho relished in the insanity, Fuck only wished to be normal.

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Psycho smiled as he wrung his hands. He shut the water off and watched the last of the bloody liquids drain to the bottom of the sink. He was enthralled by the beauty of the sight, and knew that he was born for this work. Cassie smiled as she saw her adopted son take such a pride in killing. It was a sick family activity, but it was one that she was grateful for. If it hadn't been for Elena's quick thinking 17 years earlier, Cassie would once again be alone within the darkness and she would spend the rest of eternity feeding the evil around her. She knew her time was drawing near, and that without someone to feed the darkness, the house would go into hyper consume, and probably end up destroying the world in the end.

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I cant sleep at night. I don't like the sounds the house makes when the lights go out. Psycho told me not to worry about it - I'll get used to it, I'll learn to live with it. No, I wont. If I haven't learned yet, after 17 years, I doubt I will ever learn. Something is wrong with this house. Something dark is within it. Forget the fact that the house is smaller on the outside than on the inside, and that freaky images follow me in the mirrors and windows. Anything reflective, I see the faces of thousands of people that have been consumed by this house. I wont let this house change me like Elena let it change her. I wont let it consume me. I cant.

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Psycho woke to impenetrable darkness, void of sound and movement. Standing at the foot of his bed was a girl his age with black hair and a black and white dress on. Her hair was stringy and hung down in front of her eyes. Psycho could see the glimmer of the dim

light glinting off her white teeth as she let a wicked grin slide across her face. "How sweet. Elena has left me fodder. How thoughtful." Her voice was soft, seductive, and menacing. Psycho felt a desire rise in his chest as he watched the image flicker in and out of his sight, each flash bringing her inches closer to his face. "I don't believe we have had the pleasure of meeting yet. My name is Nightmare." "Psycho." He added, his voice tight. He had never met someone as sinister as Nightmare, and he felt humbled by her power. "What what are you?" "What am I? Good question. I am not human, I am not living, I am not real." She giggled out, that evil grin plastered on her lips. "I am a nightmare, a shadow that moves without light - I am chaos, fear, and paranoia." "So, you're like a god?" "You could say that." "Psycho, who are you talking to?" Fuck's tiny voice became audible behind the doors to Psycho's bedroom. With an angry huff, Nightmare flickered out of existence and the darkness lifted from his room. Fuck opened the door and peeked in. "Can I sleep with you? I had a nightmare." Fuck was childish, young - as an infant, he was badly beaten for his existence, thus causing some mental set back with his age. Psycho sighed deeply and moved to the edge of his full-sized bed. Fuck smiled and crawled under the blankets. "Thanks." "Don't mention it, little brother. Remember what Elena said - we need to stick together. We are nothing while apart, you hear me. Nothing." Fuck was happy to hear Psycho say those words to him, even though he knew that what he meant was not what Fuck wanted. They were no more related than a hippo to a platypus. Blood, marriage, distant or current Fuck and Psycho had been adopted by the same person from complete opposite sides of the country. Psycho had been four years old and Fuck had been three years when Elena showed up. She adopted Fuck first; though he was bruised and nearly completely broken, Elena had scooped him into her arms upon first sight and fell in love with his skittish cuteness. Psycho had been another story. It wasn't her own attachment to him that had caused her

to adopt the child - it had been the fearless and angry look in his toddler eyes as he stood apart from the other children. He didn't play, he didn't speak - he just observed. Carrying Fuck in her arms, Elena had spoken with the headmistress and learned that Psycho had been dumped behind a nightclub only a few weeks earlier. And so, Psycho and Fuck ended up sharing a bed every night Fuck had a nightmare, and whenever the screams and memories of what he had done kept Psycho awake. "You are two peas in a pod - without one, the other is useless. Remember that. Always protect each other." Her words meant more to them now than they had when she first said them. "Psycho?" "Yes, F?" His voice was groggy, tired. Fuck snuggled deeper in his companions arm and wrapped his around the boys chest. "Why does Nightmare want to kill Cassie?" Psycho was taken by the question. He hadn't been aware that Fuck knew anything about what happened in the attic and behind the several doors that led to nothing but blackness. "I don't know, little brother." "Ok, goodnight." Within minutes, Psycho could hear Fuck's soft breathing as he slipped into dream land. How he wished he could find the same bliss that Fuck found.

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"I am tired of your games, Cassandra. What purpose are you to me, if you aren't even the one doing the killing?" Nightmare's voice was elegant but was in no way gentle. Jack and Charlie stood on either side of the girl, there figures no longer ghosts - solid as the wood they stood on, Jack and Charlie had regained what little reality they had left behind. "I am not asking you to keep me. I am requesting that you go easy on the kids for the first few months. Fuck isn't adjusting well to it - Psycho is a natural. But remember, without one the other is useless. You cant take one away and expect the other to function properly. Elena spent years trying to find the right souls for the job." Cassie explained, pacing in front of the Nightmare. "I see. I will keep them both alive, until they irritate me. As for you, it is your time to disappear, Cassandra." Suddenly Nightmare was standing face to face with Cassie, her hands resting on the other girls shoulders. "I've waited many years for this last stand,

Cassandra. I appreciate that you are going so easily." "You cannot completely kill me, Nightmare. We both know that. I am not even real. I have no different soul, and this body lost its original long ago. Killing me will only set my power free - and you know where it will go." "Those boys are going to be rather annoying, you know that?" "I suppose so. But they are perfect for the job. Trust me. They wont disappoint." Cassie said as she leaned into Nightmare's embrace and felt the rush of cold over her body. Within seconds, the body Cassie had inhabited was drained of life and lay limp on the attic floor. Stepping over the body and wiping her face, Nightmare sat back down and gestured for Jack to lean his head down. "Bring me the children." "Uh-huh." Jack muttered, disappearing into the house to find the two boys.

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Nightmare stood in the centre of the attic as Fuck and Psycho entered. Though her skin was a milky pale, black veins stretched along every visible surface, like the veins in marble. As she spoke to the boys before her, they nodded to her every request. They did not want to offend and possibly be killed. "You are on your own. No one will help you. You are safe from my temper for now, but trust me. In the future I will find a way to dispose of the weaker of you two." She made it a point to glare at Fuck as she finished her speech.

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"Listen to me. You need to destroy the house. You need to make sure that Nightmare is trapped within that darkness forever. If you do not, she will continue to gain power and sooner or later, she will erupt. Like a super volcano, her mind will cease to be contained and every little nightmare she has planned and plotted over the past 32 years will plague the world. Imagine Pandora's Box, only the box is someone's mind." Jacks words made sense to Psycho as he and Fuck sat on the couch, watching the man before them pace back and forth. Charlie sat opposite them, and gauged their reactions to Jack's request. "Sure. We'd like freedom from this obscene job." Psycho said after Fuck nodded. They

wouldn't chance being separated, not after becoming the others conscious. Fuck would talk Psycho out of rages that would end up in a blood bath, and Psycho talked Fuck out of suicide more times than he cared to remember. "Alright then. How do we kill something that is darkness itself" Charlie mused. She tapped her chin in thought. "Light." Fuck whispered. "Good thinking. She cant appear where there is no shadow. She disappears in direct sunlight. Hehe," Charlie giggled into her hands, "that's so clich."

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With one final grunt, Psycho had the LED lights plugged in and waiting to be turned on. Fuck gave him the thumbs up sign and smiled. Soon they would be free. The shadows began to gather in the centre of the attic from all corners of the house. They shaped into a young girl with black hair and long arms. She cocked her head to the side and gave the two boys a wide spread grin. Menacingly, she lifted her arms and laughed at them. "What is this? What the fuck is this? You think your little lights will destroy me? Pitiful. I thought that maybe, just maybe you would think of something original. Something that might actually work. I guess I was wrong." "This isn't your destruction, this is your distraction." Psycho flipped the switch and bright light flooded the room. Nightmare gave one horrendous shriek and dispersed into the darkness that receded into the house. As they ran from the room, Fuck turned around and locked the door completely behind him.

Psycho laugh as he saw Fuck seal the cracks in the door with red tape and splash red paint all over the door. "What? I saw it in a movie. It might work." He said in his defensive tone, eying Psycho with a speculative eye. Psycho shrugged and turned back around, whistling. Whenever Fuck came across a doorway, he would do the same thing - seal the cracks and paint it red. The curtains came off the windows, and new bulbs replaced the old in every lamp in the house. Darkness was no longer an option - if they slept, all the lights would remain on. At least until they could come up with a way to keep Nightmare within the darkness for a long while.

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Screams. And not the usual ones either - this was Nightmare screaming at the top of her lungs, her shrieks reverberating off of the walls. Fuck pulled his pillow over his head and stared at the living room ceiling. He didn't dare go outside, for fear that the shadows that were everywhere at night would take form and drag him to Hell. Psycho slept soundly on the other end of the couch, curled in on himself as he so often lay while in dreamland. Fuck smiled and moved to fit himself within Psycho's arms, pulling the blanket over them. Smiling, he felt himself drift into the sleep he had been waiting for. As he drifted, a small vein of darkness crept up the opposite wall, spreading until it created a door shaped hole. Long, graceful fingers slid out of the darkness, followed by long white arms and a horrifically disfigured pale face covered by black hair. Her eyes were wide holes the colour of blood, and a wickedly grotesque grin stretched her face. She slithered over the couch, cocking her head as she took in the two boys sleeping. Smiling to herself, she brought her right index finger up to her face - a nine inch blade extended from her nail and glinted wickedly in the bright light of the room. "Wakey, wakey." She said, her voice hollow. She ran the nail through the blanket, cutting deeply into the bodies of the boys sleeping beneath it. Expecting blood to pour forth, she stared at the cut. Nothing but white stuffing emerged from the gash. "What is this?" Fuck laughed from behind the demonic Nightmare, and tapped her on the shoulder. "Surprise!" He said as he pushed the power button on the television remote. With one last horrific scream, Nightmare lashed out and tried to grab Fuck in her claws - he took a step back and was barely out of her reach as the house toppled around them. Within seconds, the house was levelled.

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Psycho pulled rubble from the pile, searching for Fuck. He had been sifting for hours now, the dawn light pouring over the trees. Still nothing. "Psycho, what are you doing?" A weak voice called from behind him. He turned and saw the small figure of his companion wavering in the slight breeze. He looked weak and bruised from the explosion, but otherwise intact. "Looking for you." Psycho muttered as he turned to face Fuck. "C'mon, lets go get some tacos." "Sounds good to me." Fuck said, grabbing Psycho's arm for balance as he led them away from the wreckage.

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A slender white hand delicately shoved the fallen ceiling away as the entire form of Nightmare materialised out of the debris. Her face was still hideously distorted, and her body shimmered in the early morning light. Her eyes glowed a deep red, and the wicked grin that was her signature expression was permanently plastered on her face. She was no longer Nightmare Carroll, a girl taken over by the evil of her home - she was the God of Misfortune and Chaos, of Shadows and Death. She laughed under her breath as she lingered in the sight that she had been held prisoner on for so long. Many lifetimes had passed, and she had ended them all. With her demonic grin and serpentine walk, she made her way through the rubble to the street, where she turned left and began following the two boys who had tried so desperately to destroy her. She would make sure they'd never forget her. She'd make sure they never forgot the perfect nightmare.

The End