☾✰~The Nightmare Within~✰☽ (Ray's story)

☼~Chapter 1~☀

The night was cold and damp as most nights are after a nice cool rain shower. A tall dark figure submerged from a small wooden shelter off to the side of the forest. It looks like he was waiting for the rain to cease before coming out, which was exactly right. He lifted his hand up to his face to look at a golden ring that was on his finger. The ring had a various collection of patterns engraved in its smooth golden surface. It was an odd ring he would admit, he had found it in the stream and was waiting for some worried man or woman to come by looking for it so he could kindly return it. So far nobody has come to look for it in the past three days, maybe it didn't belong to anybody, or it used to and that person was no longer alive. If that was the case, was this a sign of something good coming towards him? Something terrible? No, he was looking too deep into this, it was just a piece of gold made into a ring and he didn't want money so the gold was useless to him. Still, this ring might belong to somebody so he better keep it safe for the time being. A bird swooped down from the sky and landed on the man's shoulder. The man glanced over to the bird and smiled underneath his mask as he gently pet the bird with his left hand even though he was right handed, he never did like to use his right hand because it well, wasn't that safe. The bird had a red symbol on its chest that looked as if it was painted on, the symbol was a red circle with an X inside of it, the same symbol on his right hand. This bird was special to him because of that, they both went through the same thing, they both understood the pain and depression that followed after it. Or that was what he liked to believe. "Mr.Chirpy" as he liked to call him chirped happily and flew off as he always did. The man was now alone again and sighed. He loved the forest and all but sometimes it was awfully boring. The bushes rustled and instantly the man took out a throwing knife and threw it into the bushes not even thinking twice about it. Looking back on it now it probably wasn't the smartest idea but what's done is done. He had gotten the spy in the foot making this odd person fall down, revealing his head for all to see. The man quickly got up and picked up his top hat, pretty much ignoring his damaged, bleeding foot that was probably in a lot of pain right now. He watched the man fix his top hat to perfection before speaking.
"Terribly sorry for the surprise there, I have a feeling you don't get a lot of visitors" The man with the top hat said to the other. He nodded his head but was still a bit suspicious.
"Oh, silly me. I always forget~ My name is Mekiki, wonderful to meet you." Mekiki grabbed the man's hand and shook it in a greeting gesture before quickly adding,
"Oh! Yes, the reason why I'm here is because of the ring. See that on your hand?" He said as he pointed to the ring. The man was quite impressed because he always wore his sleeves over his hands, although he might've saw when he was spying.
"Now, that ring is a powerful ring that came from, well you see, oh I'll have to explain later I left my stone at home" Mekiki ran into the man's little shelter and took his scythe and then handed it to him along with his throwing knife. He grabbed the man's hand and then started to run without warning.
"The forest is much too dangerous! Trust me Ray I know these things!"
He knows my name?
Who is he?
Was this ring the sign of an unsuspected visitor?
Or is there more?

☼~Chapter 2~☀

Ray could hardly see anything because it was so dark tonight. It didn't help that this Mekiki fellow was wearing mostly black either. Suddenly, he felt Mekiki's grip on his hand loosen and noticed he was going to let go. When Mekiki let go Ray went twirling into a wall and toppled backwards as he held his head in pain. Shaking his head so he could focus better, he noticed that they were probably in a garage or something because there was no sign of even the smallest light source. Not even the moon was shining. This was all too confusing for him, he knew he shouldn't of trusted that odd man for even a second. Then the strangest thing happened, he was pushed from the front and started falling, but he didn't stop. He just kept falling as if there was a cliff behind him. Maybe there was? As he fell down more light started to shine from the bottom making it more easy to see what was around him. A red and darker red mixture sky. How odd, he certainly wasn't on earth anymore. At least he thought that he wasn't, no, he couldn't be. As he was still pondering the question he hit ground. Ow, but what was this? It wasn't as hard a landing as he suspected. He sat up as he heard footsteps coming towards him. Mekiki appeared behind Ray and tapped his shoulder. Ray took out one of his daggers and swiped it at Mekiki while still sitting down. Mekiki just simply slid backwards and the dagger sliced the air in front of him.
"I must apologize again for surprising you once more. You see, you came here from your shadow. You fell into it to be more specific."
Ray could hardly believe what he was hearing. Fell into a shadow? That was absurd! On the other hand though, this whole day was absurd, and he hadn't woken up yet so he must not be dreaming.
"Now, you wanted that explanation right? Yes of course you want to hear the reason for all of this. Who wouldn't?" He put his hand inside his Tuxedo coat and pulled out a stone with odd markings on it. The left half was filled with black markings and the right half was filled with white markings. The right half of the markings matched the markings on his ring, the other one he didn't recognize.
"Now, these white markings that match your ring are from the dream world, the other ones are from the nightmare world. This stone never breaks and if it did Nightmares and Dreams would cease to exist. The best part of this stone is the story behind it." He said as his smile grew and he pressed the button behind the stone. He then placed it on the ground as the stone began to project a movie onto the red sky. One half of the screen was the nightmare world and the other one was of the dream world. It showed the peaceful towns going about their daily routines. The dream people were tall, lanky people who were a bright white color. The nightmare people were slightly shorter and had pitch black skin. Mekiki pressed the button once again and an image of two staffs and two rings were shown.
"This is the nightmare staffs and rings, they belong to the nightmare queen and king. The ring is the power and the staff is the magic, once taken from the king or queen the the taker becomes the new king or queen, this goes for the dream kingdom as well. This rarely causes a lot of chaos because some people aren't greedy nor do they want the responsibility. But one Nightmare creature decided to take both rings and staffs then went for the Dream rings and staffs" He pressed the button once again to show a picture of the Dream rings and staffs. He then pointed to the first ring.
"That is the ring you have. If the nightmare creature gets it he will be pretty much invincible. I also heard that he lost the king's staff. Ray, I believe that if I join you on this mission this creature will be stopped, of course, we will get some more help on the way~ Ki ki ki~" He chuckled to himself for a bit before bending down towards Ray and sticking his hand out.
"Deal?"
Ray hesitated. This was all too much for him, but on the other hand, if all he was saying was true, which it probably was, then that meant the earth was in danger of being destroyed. With a still unsure mind he grabbed Mekiki's hand and shook.
An invisible lock that was half gold and half black wrapped around Mekiki's and Ray's hand. The gold half of the lock had a white cloud in the top left corner, the black half had a black cloud in the bottom right corner. They were now stuck with each other, neither of them could quit the mission they had both accepted.
The deal was sealed.