Despite its frail body, the vile homunculus leaped through the air. It flew at her, mouth wide in devilish delight. Moxie had practiced with the shield, and her brother had mixed training with play. Although all her mind could see was the horrid teeth, she swung the reinforced toy. The small man splatted against defensive blow and the strike sent it into the wall. Once she had stomped on a water balloon, and Moxie recalled it had splattered like a rotted grape. The memory made her guts turn.

Moxie's mouth turned down, tongue poked out. "Yucky," she stepped back from the little man, who still squirmed. Arcs of bruised purple light flickered over the ruin of flesh.

Gage stepped over, and other creatures crept out to glare at them. They laughed. Some repeated their father's confession and curse. Others crept closer with dark grins of blacker thoughts. More gathered before them, and they stepped back from the gathering horde. He held up the wooden sword. Moxie stepped up beside him. More of the abortions of a disturbed mind trudged out to laugh. The house trembled under the mirth.

He pulled Moxie, who braced herself to block oncoming attacks. Through the house they ran, amalgamations of flesh followed. With laughs and curses, little goblins of meat cavorted behind, and the house shifted. Ugly little teeth gleamed. Rasps oozed from limp mouths, full of curses. Bruised purple light squeezed through the walls, as it moved about the timbers.

As they ran, the menagerie of flesh homunculi frolicked in mad glee. Gage pulled his sister along. The house had a loop with the bathrooms at the center. Around and around they ran with the horde of misshapen homunculi in pursuit. It is longer, he swore. Hallways stretched, as the house dreamed. Brain's mind was consumed, yet pieces clung on like scum about a drain. Every angle bent before the eye. Whispers dug into the ear, burrowed in the mind. Inside the nightmare of a dead man, the world between conscious and unconscious blurred to nothing. Each lap took them a step farther from the world.

Down upon them blazed a bruised purple light, which crawled over the flesh. Gage kicked a rock, which bounced and jumped across stones. Sand choked the earth. Gage pulled his sister. Walls of the house were separated by the force of Brian's nightmare. Outside, the dimensions remained the same; yet, inside, it had begun to expand. Dreams had no measurable restraints, guided only by the dreamer. Dead brain matter still clung to pseudo life, feed by arcs of purple. Part of him never left the desert, and it seemed reluctant to release in his half death. Dead friends and enemies were strewn about, bodies blown to bits. All wore the horror of their last moments. Among a pile of bones, throne made of skeleton, sat Corporal Farley. His empty stare swept over the ruin of life, and Gage's family home. Inside of his eyes, flames swirled from alien stars out of insane dimensions.

"Where are we?!" Moxie wailed.

"I don't' know," he barked, eyes searched from an escape. A bottle of whiskey was in a pile of bones, next to a table. Gage recognized it from the living room, and knew a blue lighter set upon it.

Doors to other rooms in the house were strewn about, half buried, and tilted. Gage stared at the one, which led to the spare bedroom. Like a bad dream, he thought. This is like being inside Dad's rambling. He pinched himself, but the world only grew. Cast upon the nightmare of Brian, they were adrift in its broken fragments of past and present.

The knob to the spare bedroom jiggled. Both children turned. Both hoped their father would emerge, for once to save them. Gage felt his guts twist. Moxie swore she would forgive all, if only they were delivered from this madness. The door opened, slow but in little jerks. The darkness beyond the frame was the world of cruel fathers and broken mothers. Inside of shadows bathed in crimson of the alarm clock, a figure stood. Their head lolled, but something tugged it straight, before it tilted to the other side. A single tentative step was unsteady, unnatural, and the body appeared to float. Tendrils rose from the silhouette, which tugged them into motion.

Gage and Moxie stepped back. Out of the room's darkness, Sheri stalked forward, though operated like a marionette. Grotesque flesh covered her, so to move the lifeless corpse. A web of eyes covered her face from the nose up, except one sleepy eye. They stared in different directions. Shreds of skin hug from limp shoulders, which were covered in mouths. All lifted their voices in prayer to a far god. Draped over half her chest was the face of Brian, twisted in hate, and filled with an insane rage. Ribbons of flesh moved her along in a bouncy approximation of life.

Gage's eyes filled with tears. He felt his body go numb, but the puppet of ruination was all he could see. Moxie wailed though it seemed to come from a world over. Cheri trundled closer, body shifted. Whispers rose from the lips draped about her. "I killed and I killed," they assured him. From gazes of the veil of eyes came a bruised purple flame. Into his mind its light pried gentle as a sigh, undeniable as death.

"Hey," Moxie pulled him. Tears blurred the world. Her brother stared into the blaze that burned in the eyes that adorn Cheri's body. She turned to the light, but her head began to hurt. Moxie jumped onto her brother, and held up the shield to cover Gage's face.

"What," he whispered, and stared at the stickers of kittens.

"RUN," she screamed.

He stumbled away, as the corpse of Cheri followed. Gage blinked, but a word bathed in bruised purple hung in his mind. Three dimensions failed to capture its complexity. Beyond the sane constraints of reality, the single utterance tore at all within its reach. Alive in the terrorized horror of Brian's nightmare, it sought to consume them. The human form would be a riot unrestrained by the banality of normality. Meat and bone were torn asunder to be remade in the image of hateful insanity. Moxie pulled him away, as his mind reeled.