The tunnel you were standing in was completely dark. You couldn't see anything of anything, and when you reached out your arms to try and feel your way around, the walls were too far apart to touch. You considered walking until you hit one, but you didn't know where that would take you. As much as you were claustrophobic, you didn't much appreciate being lost in the dark. You chose to walk straight forward instead.

It seemed to you that you'd walked an impossibly long time when you began to hear music. The noise was incredibly faint and you couldn't pinpoint the direction from which it came, but you knew it was there and so you kept walking, hoping you'd find your way out of the darkness soon.

It was a few minutes until it was loud enough to discern what the music was. It sounded to you like a music box from when you were young; the melody was small and sweet and so innocent it almost brought tears to your eyes. The song was familiar, somehow, though despite all of your trying you couldn't place a name to the song. It twinkled merrily at you as you walked along, slowly increasing in volume until it was deafening and you could see a faint spot of light ahead of you. You started to run, and when the music rang through your head at the volume of gunshots you gave up on trying to give a name to the song and covered your ears. You knew you looked like a fool, but goodness you just needed to get into the light.

And when you did, it was blinding. You squinted your eyes and stared at the ground beneath you – wood. You would have fallen to your knees at the sensory overload had the music not suddenly shut off and the lights dimmed so you could see.

You were on a small, circular stage, no more than ten feet in diameter and a few feet off the ground, in the middle of a large room with a dirt floor. You circled around the platform to get your bearings, and when your eyes grew used to the light you looked up and saw all of the seats surrounding the pit.

It was an empty circus ring.

You stilled as you figured it out, and your hands dropped to your sides. A vicious cackle came from behind you, and you whirled around to see who it could possibly have come from in this empty room –

But you knew you already knew, and the clown did too.

"My, my, sweetheart, I thought you would have figured it out sooner! At least you're here now, I suppose. Remember next time that the early bird catches the worm!"

You didn't respond to him, but you narrowed your eyes.

He giggled at your small show of defiance. "Oh, lighten up, dolly!" And with another giggle, he vanished from his place in the stands in a puff of black smoke. Confusing and terrifying as it was to not know where the clown was, you stood stock-still, knowing he'd delight in any show of any emotion.

"Remember our agreement," came the rough whisper from so close behind you that you could feel the hotness of his breath on your ear, and you flinched away involuntarily. You hadn't known he was behind you until he'd spoken.

How does someone shaped like that stay so quiet?

"Because this is my world, birdy, just as much as it's your dream!"

I've been dreaming?

You looked down at your hands, and all seemed normal to you. Jack, however, had apparently decided that he needed very much to convince you of just how correct he was right that instant, and so with one freakishly long arm he reached around you and lifted your shirt with one long, black claw of a finger.

"Humans don't feel pain in dreams, remember. That part of your brain went beddy-bye a while ago, unfortunately for me. I've been positively aching to have some fun with you since the day we met!"

You stared down in awe at your stomach. The incision was bright red, and though it didn't look infected or even particularly angry, it looked like you shouldn't have been able to be on your feet without being doubled over in pain. Gruesome though it was, it made you trust the clown's assessment of the situation – maybe I am dreaming, and maybe he's a freak, but I have to wake up eventually.

"That's the spirit!"

He stepped in front of you with a marvelous flourish, and the music from before started up again – at a more tolerable volume, this time, but still just on the edge of awful.

"What was it that Jack owed you for?"

He cackled, but he seemed more giddy than malicious.

"I've kept him from starving several times, now. My playmates always meet their ends at some time or another, and when Jack can't leave the house because he's all tied up in something," he accentuated the last word with an exaggerated poke to your shoulder, "I save some nibbles for him."

What is he eating that needs to be stolen from dead children?

"Oh, my, my my! He never told you?"

After a pause, you stuttered out a "No."

Have I just been saying everything out loud?

"Dollie, you've seen me teleport, and you haven't figured out the mind-reading thing, yet? Anyway, I would have figured that you'd know by now. He eats organs." He leaned in as close to your face as he could get with his swirly cone-nose with the last word.

"And what I want you—" he said, poking you in the shoulder again, "to do about it, now that you seem more willing, is to convince him to get me some supplies."

"What kind of supplies?"

"Candymaking things. A boy can't whip everything out with magic, after all!"

He pulled a bright red lollipop out of what seemed -- to you – to be thin air and held it in front of your face.

"Sugar, arsenic, red dye number five, the whole nine yards! Seduce the man into giving me what I need, and I just might put you out of your misery."

He bopped you on the nose with the lollipop, and with that, you woke up.