Tero's scary look moved towards a famous chef, Beno, a man whose food tasted like pure joy. Now, Beno was deep in sleep. In his dream, he was making a meal, a "grilled chicken" so good it could make angels cry with happiness. He rubbed the chicken with a secret mix of spices, everyday friends like vinegar, garlic, ginger, paprika, rosemary, cumin, and coriander, along with the usual salt and pepper. He watched it cook over the hot flames, each turn promising a tasty bite. "My time," Tero whispered, like a shadow getting ready to take something.
Suddenly, the delicious meal in front of Beno changed in a bad way, like a happy story ending sadly. The food turned bad, the smells became awful, and the chicken changed into gross, moving things, like bad dreams
you can see.
In the dream, Tero made Beno taste the spoiled food. The bad taste stayed in his mouth, a memory of something rotten that wouldn't go away. This dream made him hate food, turning his happiness into something that made him sick, like a beautiful song suddenly sounding wrong.
Tero watched with a happy smile, "No need for blood or fighting hard. Just change the good to the bad," he whispered, his voice like a soft wind carrying a dangerous smell.
Beno woke up shaking, his stomach feeling upset. Food, which was once his comfort, now felt like something dangerous. Days went by slowly, each without him eating. His strength went away, like a candle burning out. Because he was weak, his kitchen, once his safe place, became a place where he could get hurt. A mistake, a deep cut from his knife, and then germs got in, like unwanted plants growing in a garden. His weak body, like a soldier with no protection, couldn't fight it. And so, the famous chef died.
"The famous chef," Tero made fun of him, his voice as cold as stone.
Meanwhile Davies felt like he was hunting something that wasn't even real, a scary shadow that lived in dreams. He knew he was about to find something really frightening, something that didn't make sense at all. But he didn't know what it was yet. He was so close; he could just feel it. He just needed one more tiny piece to solve the puzzle of this Nightmare monster. But where could he find it?
Nights turned into days in Davies's office. Sleep didn't come. Files piled up around him like little towers, and empty coffee cups stood like tired soldiers on his desk. He looked at the dead people's reports again and again, trying to see if the doctors had missed anything. He looked closely at who the people were, what they did, and who they knew.
"Mina!" Davies called out, his voice tight with a sudden urgency. "You have to see this!" He pointed to the brain scan report. "This energy signature it's faint, but it's there. And it's the same in all of them!"
Mina walked over, her eyebrows furrowed. "Energy signature? What are you talking about, Davies? The reports said natural causes."
"I know what the reports said," Davies replied, his finger tapping the page insistently. "But look closer. This isn't natural. This is something else. Something is invading their minds while they dream."
Mina leaned in, her eyes scanning the technical details. "Invading their minds? Davies, that sounds like something out of a science fiction movie."
"I know it sounds crazy, Mina," Davies said, his voice low. "But what else could explain it? Three people, different lives, different ways to die, but the same kind of terrifying dreams and now this energy."
He stood up and started pacing, his mind racing. "The falling, the fire, the spiders they're not just random fears. They're powerful, primal. What if someone, something, is using these fears against them?"
Mina watched him, a flicker of concern in her eyes. "But how? How could someone do that? Get into people's dreams and kill them?"
Davies stopped pacing and looked at her, his gaze intense. "I don't know the how yet, Mina. But I know this isn't a coincidence. There's a monster out there, a nightmare monster, and we need to stop it before it strikes again.
Davies thought back to the old tales, the ones he used to laugh at as silly superstitions, about nightmares being doors to other worlds. Now, he wondered, what if they were real?
He started looking into strange and secret knowledge, things most scientists made fun of. He read very old books, studied languages no one spoke anymore, searching for anything about controlling dreams, about hunters of nightmares.
He found bits and pieces, old stories about creatures that could go into dreams, that could eat fear, that could even kill people in their dreams.
Then he began to get it.
Tero wasn't just a crazy killer. He was something else, something more scary. He was a creature made of nightmare, something that lived between what's real and what's a dream, a monster that hunted sleeping minds.
Davies knew he was up against something much more dangerous than he ever thought. He wasn't just solving murders anymore. He was hunting a monster, a dark thing that hid in the shadows of the dream world. And he knew if he didn't stop Tero, no one would be safe.
The city slept, not knowing the real horror that walked in their dreams.
And Davies, now with this scary knowledge, got ready to go into the nightmare himself.
"Mina," Davies said, his voice barely a whisper, "remember those old stories people used to tell? About bad dreams being more than just dreams?"
Mina looked at him, puzzled. "You mean like gateways?"
"Yes!" Davies exclaimed, his eyes wide. "What if they're not just stories? What if Tero what if he's using them to get to people?"
He pulled out more books, their pages yellowed with age. "I've been reading... things. Old legends, forgotten beliefs. There are whispers of beings who can enter dreams, feed on fear."
Mina leaned closer, a shiver running down her spine. "You think Tero is one of these dream creatures?"
"It's the only thing that makes sense, Mina!" Davies said, his voice filled with a dawning horror. "The energy signature the way they died, their fears it all points to something unnatural, something that lives in dreams."
"A nightmare monster," Mina breathed, her face pale.
"Exactly," Davies said grimly. "And we can't catch a monster that lives in dreams in the real world. He's too elusive, too unreal."
"So what are you saying, Davies?" Mina asked, her voice laced with apprehension.
Davies looked at her, his gaze determined. "I have to go in, Mina. I have to enter his world. I have to go into the nightmare."
Davies felt a chill despite the warm office, the old tales suddenly feeling terrifyingly real. Mina stared, her breath catching in her throat at Davies's impossible plan. His hand trembled as he reached for something on his desk, something that might bridge the waking world and the sleeping one. The air in the room seemed to thicken, charged with an unseen dread of what Davies was about to attempt. Would he find a way to fight a monster made of nightmares, or would he become another victim lost in the dark? The answer lay hidden just beyond the veil of sleep, a terrifying unknown waiting to be faced.