System Programmer - 46 Nightmare

Catherine observed the girl in front of her while remaining silent. The girl was smiling at her, waiting for a reaction.

‘Mommy? I think I would remember if I had a daughter,’ she thought.

She took a quick glance at Joshua, not sure what to think.

‘Is this why you refused to talk to me? No, there has to be more.’

The blow she had given Joshua wasn’t too violent, he should wake up in a few minutes. Until then, she had to learn as much as possible about the issue. The girl was a nightmare creature created by Joshua, thus, she suspected she was still bound to the role she had been given in the bad dream Joshua had. For now, she decided to play along. She smiled at the child and told her:

“Welcome back, sweetheart!”

Catherine carefully approached her and pat her head. The girl purred like a kitten as she did that. Now that she was close, she noticed a few uncanny details about her appearance. For example, the girl had a scar around her neck, almost as if it had been slit. A few other hastily healed wounds were present on her body. Normally, a spiritual body can heal its wounds without leaving any trace, the presence of scars indicated the spirit in front of her was low on energy. Nightmares fed on their host and Joshua hadn’t slept for several days so she didn’t have any chances to recharge. This was reassuring, Catherine’s soul was much more powerful than the girl. Once someone became lucid while sleeping and escaped their dream bubble, their form was similar to a soul projection. She could, therefore, use all her regular mental abilities without issue. She was, thus, confident to handle the matter once and for all.

After a few seconds, Catherine withdrew her hand.

“So, what have you been up to lately?” she asked.

“Mommy, I want to play a game!” the girl said, ignoring her question.

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Catherine instinctively bit her lip. The whole scene was uncanny and she wasn’t at ease. Still, she continued to play along and asked:

“Oh, what do you have in mind?”

“Hide and seek! It will be fun! Daddy should join us!” the child replied and began walking toward Joshua.

“You too, Mommy? You’re just like Daddy.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t love me, do you?”

“…What makes you think that he doesn’t love you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” the girl said pointing at her scars. “I didn’t do anything to him. He just attacked me out of nowhere.”

The girl’s expression had grown rather sinister and she no longer pretended to be a little angel.

“Tell me, ‘Mother’… What is my name?”

Catherine obviously didn’t know the answer to that and remained silent.

“Figures. Well, we’re gonna play hide and seek whether you like it or not.”

The girl’s figure became blurry and soon began to split over and over. Soon the room was filled with creepy looking children, all staring at Catherine. They all began to speak at the same time.

“The game we play has only one rule: If I manage to reach Daddy, I win,” she said giving Catherine an inhuman smile. “Oh and by the way, I’ll only say it once so remember my name: it’s Diana.”

As soon as she said that, the many girls all rushed toward Joshua’s unconscious body. Catherine didn’t waste time. She gathered some energy around Joshua and created a wall of ice around him, stopping them net in their track. Seeing this, about half of them turned their head toward Catherine and charged at her instead. Their appearance began to change as their teeth grew extremely large and various tentacles spawned from their bodies.

Catherine wasn’t impressed by such a move. She formed an ice spear in her hand and effortlessly impaled the closest little monster. As expected, it exploded on impact. Diana was already weakened, splitting up in many bodies was a huge tactical mistake and the ones assaulting Catherine were dispatched of one after the other. Of course, Catherine could tell she was merely trying to buy some time, as the other half of Dianas was currently hard at work to break through her ice wall, biting their way through the ice wall.

Catherine noticed that Joshua’s body shivered as if he sensed the presence of the nightmare approaching him. She wouldn’t allow them to reach him. Unfortunately, there were still quite a few girls coming after her. Seeing as their blind charge wasn’t working, they all launched their tentacles at Catherine in an attempt to immobilize her. There were too many to dodge so Catherine allowed herself to be wrapped. The Dianas smiled, thinking they got her but their joy was short-lived as the tentacles wrapped around Catherine rapidly began to freeze. A moment later, Catherine tore them to pieces and ran toward the group trying to reach Joshua.

The little nightmares were getting close to piercing through her wall but Catherine would have none of it. A couple of ice spear blows cleared up an area of the wall, allowing her to place her hand against it. Without delay, the wall began to repair itself as Catherine poured energy into it. Worse for the girls, several spikes suddenly grew out of the wall, impaling the little figures. The number of Dianas dropped drastically thanks to that, only a couple remained.

Seeing as the tactic wasn’t working, Diana reformed into a single entity. However, she was looking much worse for wear. Her innocent expression had completely vanished and had been replaced with a look full of hatred toward Catherine.

Catherine let out a ‘humpf’ and told her:

“If you want to claim to be my daughter, you’ll have to do better than that. Children in my family aren’t that weak.”

“Tssk.”

“Tell me, why is Joshua so afraid of you?”

“Hell if I know. My dear father is so terrified of me, it’s hilarious. I was created as part of a peaceful dream and the first thing he did was slit my throat. Talk about paternal love, hehe…” Diana answered, spitting in Joshua’s direction.

Catherine didn’t get the answers she was looking for and was slightly upset. No matter, she had to get rid of the creature in front of her. She would just have to confront Joshua and force answers out of him, one way or another. With no hesitation, she charged at the girl. Diana tried to dodge Catherine’s attacks but she barely had any energy left and received a couple of spear blows. After a short exchange, Catherine grabbed her by the neck and began to freeze her. What should have been an easy victory, however, suddenly turned into a much more complicated matter as Catherine suddenly heard a familiar voice.

“No!!!!! Nonononononononono!!!!!”

Instinctively, she took a look behind her. Joshua’s body in the real world was still on the ground, but a soul form was floating above him. How did he get here? Nevermind that, his face was extremely pale and he looked at the scene in front of him in utter terror.

“Calm down!” Catherine ordered him, “I’ve dealt with her. It’s all right.”

However, nothing was further from the truth. There was one thing Joshua feared more than Diana, in his mind, it would be a catastrophe if Catherine found out about her. Being a nightmare creature, Diana was feeding of her host’s fear. As she was about to be destroyed by Catherine, she suddenly felt her power rising. Not wasting time, she unleashed that newly found strength, destroying the ice that was trapping her and breaking free from Catherine’s grab. One of her tentacles tried to strike Catherine’s head, but Catherine blocked the attack with an ice shield. A crack appeared on the ice layer, Diana’s power was rapidly increasing and it didn’t appear it would stop anytime soon.

Diana’s form was changing, her body was becoming much more grotesque. Several new eyes were growing on her face, her hands became more monstrous, almost if she had claws and a pair of skeletal wings was growing from her back.

“Is that really what I look like to you, Daddy?” she asked smiling.

Joshua wasn’t thinking rationally but he realized he had to clear his mind, that girl kept adding whatever he thought of to her abilities. Unfortunately, Catherine’s presence made that impossible.

“It’s too late…I really screwed up… ” he said out loud to himself, tears streaming down his eyes.

“JOSHUA! STOP GOOFING AROUND! WE CAN BEAT HER!” Catherine yelled at him.

Joshua looked at her with a lifeless expression. He shook his head and said:

“I’m sorry… you deserved better.”

Catherine stared at him with a confused expression, what in the world was he talking about? Before she could ask for more details, Diana burst out laughing.

“I see. So that’s how it is. Mommy, it looks like your presence was necessary to create Daddy’s ultimate nightmare.”

Catherine launched an ice spear at Diana in response, but she blocked it effortlessly. Diana’s form was surrounded by a dark aura, which suddenly spread to the entire room. Before they could react, both Catherine & Joshua engulfed in darkness.

“JOSHUA! HANG IN THERE!” Catherine yelled.

For a long time, silence was her only response. After what seemed to be an eternity, she finally heard a reply. It wasn’t Joshua though.