David had arrived back at his apartment tonight with a bit of anticipation. He hadn't been back to his home in almost five months now. David needed to check on all his belongings. He also had to get some clothes together for work tomorrow. After missing work for so long, he had decided it was best to go back on a Friday. If the day was horrible, at least he would have two days off right after to get his mind right before really starting back.

Opening up his door and flicking on the light, he was surprised to see everything looking nice and in order. His plants by the window were still green. Walking in and setting his stuff down on the table, he directly went for the fridge. He opened the door in anticipation of a horrid odor, but nothing happened. The fridge appeared to be cleaned out.

Somewhat freaked out by the orderliness of his little apartment, David called the only person he could think that would have an answer. After a few rings, she picked up the phone.

"Hello, David," came Karine's sweet teasing voice out of the cell phone,"Did you miss me so much that you had to call as soon as you got home?"

David could play the teasing game too, "Yes, I missed you a lot. How about we go get some dinner later next week? It will be my repayment for you taking good care of me."

The response seemed to catch Karine completely off guard because there was just a pause on the other end of the line. Feeling the awkwardness, David changed the subject after a few seconds wait. "Did you send someone over to my house to clean my house?"

"Huh," Karine stammered out while seeming to come out of her pause with the question.

"Did you send someone over to my house to clean?", David repeated, "Everything in my apartment is really tidy and clean."

"Oh...no, we did not send anyone to clean. It was probably Mrs. Kathy. She was worried about your apartment being a mess so we had someone drive her by with your keys the last time she was in town."

"My mom," David said, "no wonder the clothes were all washed and the bed was tidy. Thanks Karine. I'll give you a call next week to setup our first construction meeting."

"David", Karine called his name to stop him from getting off the phone with her, "I would really like to go to dinner with you. Let me check my schedule for that week and I'll will message you when I am available."

Before David could say word, Karine continued, "I have to go take care of a few things. Talk to you later. Bye." And the phone hung up.

David stood there for a second. He was just joking around with Karine. How was he supposed to know that she would treat it seriously and accept his invitation? Not that he was complaining. This was exactly what he wanted. As he sat at the table near his kitchen, he couldn't help but smile.

"Why did she get off the phone so fast?," David thought, "She sounded somewhat panicked."

David put those thoughts to the back of his mind as he walked around his little apartment to check on his stuff. After about 30 minutes of checking on things in detail, David realized it was almost 11:00 PM.

"Bedtime," David thought, "maybe tonight."

David had been anxious after the first night's sleep he had after waking up from the coma. He hasn't had a dream since he woke up. It wasn't like the dreams were necessary, but David had gotten really used to having his adventures while he was sleeping. Especially after being able to fight to his hearts content during the repeater party. After two weeks, he started to miss the nightmares that he had once hated.

"Guess, I just wore myself out with all that dreaming," David thought as he laid down to sleep.

David actually did have a dream tonight, but it didn't seem like anything special at first. He was just floating in darkness by himself. It was an odd dream that almost caused him to panic at first. What if he got stuck in this darkness forever?

After getting over the first bit of panic, David actually realized that he could think very clearly in this darkness. He decided to focus to see how he could affect this dream. After a second of focus, David realized that he could sense other people sleeping in his apartment building. They were like floating beacons in the darkness. It was an extraordinary feeling. It was similar to that daytime feeling of sensing people around him but completely different in its nature. In the daytime, he could only sense the general movement of the things and people around him. In this dream, the movement he felt was something inside each beacon of light in the darkness. The movement of fear. He could feel the level of fear in each person. Some lights were brighter than others. More fear.

Interested in this dark world, Davi drifted about and eventually drifted toward one of the brightest glowing spheres. Trying to look closer, he accidentally touched the orb and immediately disappeared from the darkness.

He was brought into another dream.

David was standing in the woods at twilight. It was almost pitch dark but somehow David could see the things around him clearly. Looking around the woods, he didn't see anything around that he recognized. But from his perspective, he felt like he was 10 feet tall and his body felt very bulky.

"Why is it that I have no idea what is going on anymore?," David questioned to himself at the realization that every one of his recent dreams was exceptional compared to those nightmares of the past.

It appeared that he was a monster of some sorts. "Bigfoot, maybe?", he chuckled. He actually thought this situation was kind of funny.

He couldn't remember ever having a dream where he wasn't himself in some form or the other. The dream world was completely different being inside another body.

He started to have fun bouncing around in the woods. The strength and movement this body gave him made running around the wilderness very enjoyable. Grabbing ahold of a small pine tree, he pulled on it roughly with his newly found massive strength. After ripping it out of the ground, David spun it around him like he was in the hammer throw and tossed it off into the woods. The tree and its root boomed through the woods as it crashed and crushed through the dark area.

In response to the loud noises, a beam of light started shining through the underbrush. It looked like a flashlight being moved around about 100 yards away. David could hear someone yelling something, but couldn't make out what it was. He decided to walk a little closer.

As he got closer, he could see what looked like a small campsite. A dimly lit fire was burning in the center and a man was scurrying about with a flashlight in his hand.

"Who's out there?", the man yelled in a panic, "I have a gun and I'll shoot."

Seeing the man scrambling around in terror, an epiphany his David all of a sudden.

"Holy shit! This must be someone else's nightmare," David thought, "and I'm the monster."

As the situation dawned on David, another thought took him, "I get to scare someone in their dream as a monster!"

Understanding that he was now going to be the thing striking fear in someone's dream, David felt a sort of vindication of all the nightmares he had been subject to over the years. The feeling was wonderful. It was better than anything David had felt before in his life.

He had the sudden urge to play the part and attack this man at the campsite. He creeped forward in the woods as quietly as he could. He had developed a plan based on his own nightmares. The anticipation of the baddies in a nightmare always made the actual scare worse. The greater the anticipation then the greater the scare.

As he was creeping forward, David picked up an handful of rocks from a pile on the forest floor. When he got about 20 yards away, he tossed one of the stones in the opposite direction. The man spun around pointing his gun at the noise. David tossed another stone off to the side of his original throw. It seemed like the man had enough and blasted his shotgun at the noise. David continued this process until the guy had shot four times. At this point the man was making all kinda of threats at whatever was hunting him at his campsite.

"One more time and he will be out of shells In the gun," David thought as the excitement of what was going to happen next was building.

With another toss of a rock, the man fired his last shot. As the man was reaching for the box of shotgun shells to reload, David charged out of the brush making a loud growling sound. David realized that he really was a Bigfoot type monster as he saw part of himself in the campfire light. The man turned around and fumbled his gun as the massive beast charged towards him.

The man just stood by the fire in fear as David's beastly form grabbed ahold of him and bit down on his face.

Unexpectedly, David felt the blood and flesh from the man's face gush into his mouth. And then the world went fuzzy and David was back in the dark world with orbs floating all around him.

After sitting in the dark for a few minutes trying to figure out which orb to touch next, he was startled awake by the sounds of sirens outside of his apartment window.

David got up out of bed to see what was going on outside. Opening his apartment door to the large hallway that connected all the apartments, he immediately saw a few of his neighbors tiredly standing by their front doors being nosy.

Some paramedics were coming out of a room three apartments down. They were carting a man out of the apartment with a crying woman in tow. As the cart passed David and the other onlookers, David couldn't help but feel a shiver as he saw the man's face through the breathing apparatus. It was the man from the dream.

As David had stood at his door in shock over what happened, he could hear two of his neighbors talking.

"Hey, do you know what happened?," one asked.

The other responded, "His wife said he had a heart attack in his sleep."

"A heart attack in his sleep. Damn, that must have been one hell of a nightmare," the first guy said making small talk.

At that comment, David closed his door and went back into his apartment.