Solitary Confinement Cell Number 3, Block C.
The atmosphere inside the concrete cube was oppressive. The thick layers of reinforced concrete isolated the space from any sound of the outside world, creating an acoustic vacuum where only the hum of the lamp on the ceiling and the breathing of the girl on the bed were heard.
The only solid steel door was hermetically sealed from the outside, turning the room into an impenetrable safe.
Normally, this hole was reserved to contain the most violent and deranged criminals, but tonight, its purpose had changed.
An iron bed bolted to the floor and a metal chair.
Nancy was lying on the thin mattress, covered up to her chin with a rough gray wool blanket. Under the pale light, her face looked ghostly, and her eyes moved nervously scanning the dark corners of the room.
Lief was sitting in the chair next to the headboard and in his right hand he held a syringe, full of a clear liquid.
"Listen to me well, Nancy," he began with his voice resonating with a magnetic tranquility. "I need you to burn this into your head. When you cross to the other side, you cannot afford the luxury of panic. Fear is his fuel, the more terrified you get, the more omnipotent he will become."
He captured Nancy's gaze.
"Treat him like what he really is: an old, pathetic, and burned man. Take away his mystique."
Nancy nodded slightly, swallowing.
"Your mission there isn't to defeat him, not even to fight him on his own terms," continued Lief, emphasizing every syllable to make sure the strategy was clear. "Your only objective is to enrage him. You have to make him get overconfident and attack you physically, and at the exact moment you feel real pain... that will be my signal."
He raised the syringe slightly, letting the needle catch the light.
"I will inject this directly into your heart. The adrenaline will act as a biological alarm clock that you won't be able to ignore. It will rip you out of the dream absolutely."
Nancy took a deep breath, the trembling in her hands didn't disappear, but a spark of determination lit up in her eyes.
For Tina, for Rod and also for Glen, she had to do it.
"I understand," she whispered. "I'll do it. I'm going to bring that son of a bitch into our world."
"Very well," said Lief, satisfied.
"Now, close your eyes. Relax. Don't think about the danger. Imagine that you are a patient spider waiting, knowing that we have already woven an inescapable web around the prey."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the concrete wall, in the monitoring room...
Donald remained in the monitoring room with his arms crossed, staring at the central screen. There lay his daughter, his little girl, offering herself as a voluntary sacrifice to hunt an abomination.
Behind him the silence was dense, the trusted officers, who knew the dark history of the town, were standing behind him, holding their breath.
Donald felt sweat soaking his palms. Never, in his years of service, had he felt so helpless and like such a bad father as in that moment.
"Relax, Lieutenant, you're going to burst a vein," said a mocking voice behind him.
Airam was leaning against the doorframe, giving him a calm smile.
"This is a piece of cake for him."
Donald didn't answer, unable to look away from the monitor.
Time began to drag, second by second, agonizing minute by minute.
On the screen, Nancy's figure stopped moving. Her chest began to rise and fall with a slow and deep rhythm. Her features relaxed, losing the tension of wakefulness.
Her breathing became gradually steady and long.
She had fallen asleep.
...
The air was scorching and heavy.
It smelled of rust, of burnt oil, and something more organic and rotten that she preferred not to identify.
The constant sound of the boilers vibrated through the floor, traveling up her legs and causing palpitations in her chest.
Nancy snapped her eyes open, finding herself again at the epicenter of her trauma: the boiler room.
The labyrinth extended around her, a nightmare of pipes that crisscrossed like veins, spitting violent jets of steam that enveloped the space in a suffocating and shifting mist.
"Sssscraaatch... Sssscraaatch...!"
And then the sound came. That sharp and metallic screech that made her teeth ache.
It came from somewhere beyond the curtain of smoke, approaching with deliberate slowness.
Nancy's heart beat frantically and every pore of her body screamed at her to flee, but Lief's voice resonated in her memory: 'Fear is his fuel. Treat him like an old, pathetic, and burned man.'
She clenched her fists digging her fingernails in to focus and instead of running, she turned around slowly, planted her feet on the ground, and faced the source of the noise.
The figure of Freddy Krueger materialized passing through the wall of steam like a corpse coming out of its grave.
The light of the furnaces illuminated his dirty striped sweater and that face of melted flesh contorted in the cruel smile that stalked her nights.
"Look who has come to play..." He raised the glove making the blades shine. "You are my favorite, Nancy... Did you miss me? Have you come to keep your friend company?"
The mention of that was like a punch in the stomach, but Nancy turned the pain into cold rage instantly.
"F-Freddy," Although her voice trembled, it resonated with a clarity that cut through the roar of the machinery, "You are a coward. A pathetic and old coward who only dares to play God when his victims sleep."
"..."
The smile on Freddy's face froze for a fraction of a second.
He didn't expect this.
He was used to the screams, to the pleas, to the sour smell of panic.
He didn't expect that the little cornered rabbit, the girl who always fled crying, would dare to show him her teeth.
But the surprise transformed instantly into a volcanic anger.
"What did you say, bitch?" he hissed taking a step forward. He dragged the steel claws against a nearby pipe, sending a shower of dazzling sparks flying.
"I said you are a coward and a fraud!" Nancy gathered all the courage she had accumulated in her short life and screamed: "Look at you! Here you think you're very strong, but out there, in reality... you are just burnt trash! A disgusting old man who can't touch anyone! If you have guts, come to the real world and face me!"
The words hit Freddy.
What he hated most, more than light or hope, was being reminded of his mortality.
Being reminded of his past, the smell of gasoline, the fire that consumed him, the shame of having been defeated by a group of parents.
"Shut your mouth!" He screamed, losing all composure.
His figure flickered, crossing the distance that separated them, lunging at Nancy.
"I'm going to teach you what pain is!"
Nancy didn't have time to dodge, when an immense force knocked her down knocking the wind out of her and Freddy pinned her with his dead weight, bringing his burned face close to hers with a smile of absolute madness while he raised the four steel blades.
"I'm going to open you up, Nancy! I'm going to rip that pretty face into strips!"
Slash
The claws came down violently seeking flesh, but Nancy ignored the instinct to close her eyes and looked death straight in the face...
Just when the metal was about to tear her face... she abruptly raised her left hand and thrust it in the path of the cut!
Schk
The sharp claw pierced the palm of her hand.
"AHHHHH!"
Pain exploded like lightning arching her body while hot blood gushed in spurts over her face.
But amidst the agony, her mind clung to a single thought: It's now!
Ignoring the fire in her hand, she closed her fingers over the blades, using her own broken bones as a trap to catch him without escape.
"I got you, son of a bitch!"
…
At the same time, in the real world…
Nancy's body, motionless on the mattress, suffered a sudden spasm and her left hand, which was closed in a tight fist over her chest, trembled.
And then, it happened.
The skin on the back of her hand tore by itself. Four parallel and deep lines opened out of nowhere. Blood gushed instantly, staining everything.
!
Lief didn't lose a fraction of a second and the instant the first drop of blood touched the fabric, his hand had already moved.
He grabbed the syringe and stabbed it directly into Nancy's chest, through her clothes, looking for the heart.
He pressed the plunger hard, emptying the entire tube of epinephrine into her circulatory system at once.
…
In the dream…
Nancy felt a seismic jolt run through her body from the inside, burning her veins and accelerating her heart to a thousand revolutions per second.
Everything around her began to tremble violently and collapse, dissolving like smoke in a hurricane.
Freddy, trapped by the girl's hand, felt the pull.
An irresistible suction that threatened to rip him from his throne. His eyes bulged with genuine panic upon understanding what was happening.
"No! Let me go!" he roared, his voice losing the mockery and filling with desperation. "This is my world! Mine!"
He tried to break free, clawing the air with his free claw, but Nancy's hand had turned into a steel trap. Her bloody fingers had closed around his glove with the force of pure will, welding themselves to him.
"You're coming with me!"
"NOOOOO!"
Freddy's howl was absorbed by the vortex.
…
"HAH!"
In reality, Nancy sat up abruptly in bed, her eyes wide open. She sucked in a desperate breath of air, gasping as if she had been submerged underwater for hours.
And with her waking, the barrier between realities tore open.
The air above the bed distorted and spat something out.
A figure fell heavily onto the mattress, rolling off and hitting the floor.
It was a thin and dirty man. He wore a red and green striped sweater, a hat, and his face was a mass of burns.
Freddy Krueger had been dragged into the real world.
"..."
The killer got up clumsily, disoriented, shaking his head. He looked around with disbelief.
He saw the solid concrete walls of the cell, the cold light that left no shadows to hide in.
He saw Nancy on the bed and saw the young man with a calm expression standing next to her, blocking the exit.
"What is this shit...?" he croaked, his voice sounding pathetically human. He looked at his hands. "Where am I?"
He tried to invoke his power, tried to dissolve into the shadows or stretch his arms, but nothing happened. He only felt the cold of the floor and the beating of his own heart.
"Heh..."
A mocking laugh resonated in his ear.
?
Freddy turned his head by instinct, finding himself face to face with Lief, who was watching him with a smile.
"Welcome to the real world, bitch."
Before Freddy could even raise his glove to defend himself, Lief's fist moved.
BANG
Lief's knuckles sank into Freddy's burned face.
The killer's body was sent flying backward as if he had been hit by a train, crossing the cell until crashing against the concrete wall with such violence that it cracked the cement.
…
"...."
In the monitoring room, the silence was absolute. Donald and his team watched the screen slack-jawed, watching a monster appear out of nowhere on the screen and then get sent flying by a punch.
________
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