Page 23 of Precipitous Nightmare's Valentine Dream

What he did know was terror.

Desperation.

Heartbreak.

He’d learned of heartbreak all too well recently.

So when Precipitous coalesced into his most terrifying form in the bedroom of two dreamers that night, he did not go first for the obvious threat.

Instead, he brought dreams of loss.Gary’s house was the first stop.

The man slumbered alone in his king-size bed, with images tumbling through his dreams of the money he would soon make and the accolades he’d receive for his starring role in the new company he’d agreed to join.

“You’ve landed the big contract,” proclaimed a Dream-boss to a Dream-Gary. The odd little man threw stacks of dollar bills in the air to flutter down around them as drool dribbled from the sides of his lips and mad euphoria swirled in his eyes. “Have this money in appreciation!”

“Ridiculous,” muttered Precipitous. “To think that would bring happiness.”

In Gary’s bedroom, the Night Terror sat on the man’s chest, pressing down, not to stop his breath or paralyze him, but to send the softest tendril of nightmare into the man’s head. He planted seeds there in the man’s mind, sank the roots of fear deep into Gary’s psyche. It took but a nudge for the dreams to shift.

The Dream-boss turned to a line of nameless PR specialists coming up the ranks. Gary stepped into the line as they all rode a gleaming escalator up a forboding dark skyscraper with tarnished gilded edges. “Higher! Higher” they all chanted, and Gary joined in the cheer.

The drooling executive began to toss money wildly at each new recruit, pelting them with thick wads of cash as they passed. One struck him in the face, bruising his nose and stinging his cheek. Caught up in it all, Gary grinned.

But as the escalator rose, the new replaced the old one by one and Gary fell into irrelevance, merely a cog within the neverending roll of faceless workers.He could no longer reach the boss, catch the flying bundles of cash.

“No!” cried Dream-Gary. “That’s my money. My work. My winning.”

Everyone else ignored him as the boss cackled gleefully at all the outstretched hands demanding their share.

Dream-Gary stepped off the escalator and took an urgent phone call as he stood alone on a small platform watching others get the accolades he should have received.

“Lightstar PR had to close,” said his best friend from college, the CFO at the small PR firm they’d begun together a few years before. “You destroyed everything, running away like that. We could have grown this worldwide within two years if you hadn’t dumped your friends to pursue a job at that big-city firm. Commitment means nothing to you, I guess. You’re such a selfish jerk. Don’t ever contact me again.”

Gary tried to object, screaming into the phone for his friend to wait, to hear him out. But the noise of large gears grinding against each other, of shrieking metal in the air, drown out anything he might say. Behind him, the line of PR professionals dropped off the end of the escalator into a yawning pit to be crushed into pulp that fed the machines.

Precipitous whispered into the dark bedroom as he tugged on the strands of dreaming and shifted the story. “You’ve faced what it’s like to gain the things you think you want…” The Night Terror focused on crafting a dream from lost hopes and hidden desires. “Now see what it’s like to lose the person who is most important to you.”

Dream-Gary suddenly found himself drinking alone, staring at a wedding invitation proclaiming the upcoming nuptials of the love of his life to some random stranger. He threw the invitation against the wall. Threw the bottle. Threw a random statuette of a happy bride and groom that had somehow appeared at the dream bar.

The bartender set another drink in front of him, and Gary downed it. No one else approached him, but his pockets were full of wads of cash that he slid across the bar in payment for his unhappiness. The particular shade of liquid in his glass reminded him of Melanie’s eyes.

Back in the real, Precipitous watched the man toss and turn as he considered what it was like to lose love when one has barely experienced its first bloom. He reveled in the satisfaction of forcing Gary to face that fear. He tried to ignore the tears streaming down his own face.

Luminous did not love him.

Any chance at such a thing had been blown away like loose dream sand by his deception about why they’d begun.

“I cannot fix that now, my sweetest Dream” he murmured, knowing she’d never hear. “But I can aid you in your quest. And so I shall.”

By the time Gary woke from his nightmare, panicked and upset, Precipitous was long gone.

Chapter 19

Tearing Dreams to Pieces

Precipitous Nightmare

Across town, Melanie dreamed of a future with a stranger she’d met at a bar. Romantic walks in the park. Sultry nights spent tangled in someone else’s sheets. Forward, ever forward, abandoning any heartbreak on the path behind her, dumping her emotions in the trash can by her bedside where crumpled unsent love letters lay discarded.

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