“Freddy!” he shouts, spinning in the gloom, hands balled into fists. “I’m not afraid of you!”

I let him hear the claws first. Skrrrrrtch . Down a steel beam, slow. A sound like God tearing paper.

Back in the waking world, the nurses will find him in the morning. Eyes open. Mouth frozen in a perfect O. No cause of death. Just a single, neat line from his collarbone to his navel.

He sees me then. Stepping out from behind a broken pressure gauge. The fedora low. The sweater stripes bleeding red and green. My face—the geography of a third-degree burn—cracks into a smile.

“Not afraid?” My voice echoes from every dripping shadow. “Derek, Derek, Derek… fear is the gasoline, and you just drenched yourself in it.”

My glove finds his chest. Not cutting. Not yet. Just resting. The blades cold against his heartbeat. His eyes go wide because he feels it—the realness . In his bed back at Westin Hills, his body just stopped breathing.

His name is Derek. He’s the new one. The one who thinks he’s clever because he read a book on lucid dreaming. Thinks he can control me.