The Nightmares

Orpheus woke with a start, nearly falling out of bed. Quickly, he gathered himself up and carefully crawled over the mass of sleeping urchins, trying not to wake them. He went out to the plank connecting the two buildings, which as of late, had become one of his favorite places. He loved the feeling of being able to sit and watch the comings and goings of the city below without anyone knowing he was watching. Tonight however things were relatively  quiet.[img_assist|nid=7425|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=640|height=330]

In the weeks since he had seen that strange blue box, Orpheus had been having trouble sleeping. At first the dreams weren’t so strange, but the past few nights they were getting worse. He kept seeing visions of large one eyed creatures that screamed, smaller crablike beings, and even horrific tentacled monsters breaking forth from tears in the sky. He had never seen any of these things personally, but they seemed so much like memories he couldn’t be entirely sure. Tonight, he had been woken by the image of a scaly thing rising from beneath a carnival, a horror so grotesque that Orpheus couldn’t even describe it. He found that after his nightmares, sitting out on the ledge usually calmed him. But tonight, the vision was so horrible that he decided he needed to go somewhere.

Orpheus carefully made his way back into the lair, again making sure not to wake the urchins who were still asleep for the night, and climbed down to the quiet street below. He started walking, not sure where he was going to find himself. After a while, his stomach started to growl quite loudly. He could not remember his last meal. A few minutes later, he found himself at the Gangplank Pub.

The lateness of the hour meant that the Gangplank was practically empty when Orpheus stumbled in. He saw Emerson and Junie dancing together as a few of the late night regulars drank their beers. The owners of the bar greeted him and offered him some fresh baked pie. Excitedly, Orpheus hopped up on a bar stool and dug his grubby fingers into the pie. He shoveled fistful after fistful into his mouth, berries staining his face a dark blue, as he listened to Emerson regail the patrons with his latest (mis)adventure.  Finally, he began to feel better and the images of his nightmare began to fade. Sleepily, he hopped off the bar stool and thanked Junie for the delicious pie. He was too tired to try to make it back to the lair; so instead, he laid himself down on the couch. The moment his head hit the cushion, he was out cold.[img_assist|nid=7426|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=640|height=330]