10.

Oh, to curl up on a winter's night, and lose oneself in a good book, dreaming away the cold ...

I awake on a hospital bed kinda like I once did before, except this time when I call out 'hello', I am quickly approached by a nurse. I try to get up, but I can't. I'm strapped to the bed. If I wasn't feeling panic already, then I really would when Rufus, as brazen as you like, enters this hospital room, and instead of wearing all brown, he was wearing white, as if he were a doctor with charge over my health whether that be physical or mental. I'm given a sedative, as I more than likely am coming across with great agitation. And just like that I would be out again, asleep for the next few hours.

When I awake, I am released from the restraints, given a dressing gown to wear and under guard, I am taken to a doctor's office. Yeah, I am accompanied by two orderlies from my bed through the hospital and this place is the same place from the dream virtual world, the place where this all first began only now is not empty or abandoned. It is not run down and seems to be in full working order.

I am feeling groggy from the sedative so that means I am awake, right? I can this moment as one of reality? As it would seem, I had been taken to some type of doctor - patient group therapy session. It soon became clear that I am a patient in some sort of an asylum, with Rufus being the doctor. Like seriously, what the hell is going on?

So, it would seem I cannot believe anything that has gone before, even my own life before all this madness began? Or maybe it everything I see and hear now that I cannot believe. I am told that I've been delusional ever since my automobile accident and probably even so since before that, ... yeah right, go pull the other one. I never really could totally remember that accident, how it happened or even if it happened at all. It didn't though.

I'd been in the asylum for apparently three years now and not being able to remember this is supposedly partially due to my treatment, Electroshock Treatment. What this? The dark ages or something? This is a treatment known to create memory loss. I know of Electroshock Treatment, and I am sure that this sort of 'treatment' is no longer used or even legal for that matter.

I, so I am told, apparently created an alternative reality for myself based on my surroundings, a reality where shadow like creatures exist called Dream Demons, and whereby one such demon took human form, also taking a name from my actual surrounding. Keith and Mike were in my supposed alternate reality, fighting these demons, only later finding that both Keith and Mike in actual reality were emergency paramedics though now they are patients like myself in this asylum.

What? Did I infect them somehow with my madness? C'mon, if you want to convince me that I am not well, at least make it plausible.

Never liking Doctor Rufus was his reasoning for my manifestations of him being a demon in human form. I apparently wanted someone to oppose and not the other way round. Things were not right, and I knew this, and this was proved to me when Doctor Rufus asked me what year I thought it was.

Simple, as far as I am concerned, I am living in 2009, but he told me it was 1958. Not possible, definitely not possible. I begin shouting at Rufus to get out of my mind and stop messing me about. I was born in 1974; there is just no way I am living in 1958. As I stand to confront Rufus, continuing telling him to get out of my head, I am grabbed by the two orderlies who had brought me to this room not so long ago.

Rufus stands, staring me in the eyes and he tells me that it is time for another treatment. No, I am not really here, he can't hurt me, can he? It's not real, none of this is real. The other apparent patients begin to rare up in reaction to how I am acting.

Once again, I am strapped to a bed. A long wooden circular piece is placed between my lips, for to bite down on as I am being prepared to be shocked. I know I am not really in this place; I know I am not really strapped to bed, but I am still unable to move, and I do fear what I perceive is about to happen. My heart rate has quickened, I can feel it pounding. I need to calm down, this is not so easy.

I prepare mentally to be shocked, obviously Rufus can make me feel as well as make me see whatever he wants me to feel or see. My eyes close tightly and I bite down on the circular wooden piece, in preparation for the shock I didn't notice that all around me has gone quiet. I open my eyes to find that I am back in my own bed. The bedroom window is open and that scent, the damp burning rusted smell is wafting in from outside. Immediately I get up and go look out the window. Rufus is standing at the bottom of the garden dressed in black, looking back up at me.

I make my way out of the bedroom, go down the stairs and out the front door as quickly as I could but all that was waiting for me at the bottom of the garden was a puff of black smoke with that damp rotten scent dissipating.

All I want is to return to some sort of normality, and this may come ... for a little while at least. I feel a change coming though I know it can only be temporary. Can I trust all that I see and feel to be in the here and now? I just have to trust my senses. I will one day see Rufus again; this is not over. I am sure of that.

More demons will come my way ... in time. It's just a question of what is next. For now, I just continue being me. Deal with whatever happens whenever it happens. I may not be finished with the demons, but for when it does continue, I will be ready. I am always ready...

11.

'Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.' – James 1:17

Christmas was most definitely in the air when I arrived in Cork city. Months have passed ... quietly. All the recent normality has me on edge, for I can never know how close I am to a return of all this madness.

It was early evening on December 22nd and darkness had set in hours at this stage. Christmas may be in the air though the breeze is certainly carrying ice that can pierce through clothing and skin and center in right upon the bones. The seasonal décor as good as I've ever seen it.

The moon was full, and the stars shone bright showing very little in the way of clouds in the sky. The breeze quickly strengthens and could easily become gale force within the hours to come. The seagulls along the river Lee are already struggling to travel against it while actually not getting anywhere as they fight to push against it, eventually giving in and getting carried away downstream. Why they do this I have no idea, fighting a fight they cannot win.

Tiredness had me sluggish, a general tiredness, one of my own doing and not forced upon me, well, I guess I could debate that with myself. The journey to Cork from Dublin had been a long enough trip, and my lack of sleep, half out of insomnia and half out of fear of where my dreams will take me, all just left me with a strong will to find myself a hotel room, a place with a comfortable bed where I can just hide from the world for a while.

It has been quite some time since I last had to deal with either the Dream Demons or that Rufus fellow and having travelled to Cork, this was the last place I expected my encounters with them to continue. The whole adversarial thing with Rufus still confused me. I couldn't help but feel wouldn't it have been easier to have killed me for food rather than take on any type of challenge.

I was to be in for another encounter with the demons but this time round things were to be a bit different, and I knew this early on when having not been in my hotel room long, a bright white light began to emanate right in the center of the room, a light so bright it almost blinded me. It took a couple of moments for the light began to fade only to reveal a man standing in the place where the light had emanated from. It wasn't just any man; it was the priest with whom had been killed by Rufus in a church confessional box, the same man I had seen by that rather large old oak tree.

I knew straight away this was a Dream Demon related visit, as lights just don't emanate in hotel rooms, and priests, especially dead priests, just don't appear out of such lights. I have dealt with these dream demons in the past so since they have an existence, something I still can't be entirely sure of, then I guess ... why can't dead priests appear to me too?

With the time of year it is, it could be thought that there is something angelic in this moment, a moment also to be check mated.

Upon his arrival, the priest just pointed to the bed behind me. I was surprised by what I was about to see, but I don't know why, it was something I should have expected to see especially with the arrival of this priest and with how he arrived. It's like something from a silent movie with which I should have seen coming.

Having turned, I could see myself sleeping in the bed. Indeed, it may have been something I should have expected but my surprise turned to confusion. I am asleep and obviously dreaming, but since I am dreaming why am I still in my hotel room? Why haven't I returned to that derelict hospital as I have done so in the past? But then is there something more? Am I ... dead?

Before I could get any answers to my many questions, that smell, the damp burning rusted smell began to once again arise, a smell, a scent that I always would associate with the arrival of Rufus. As a black mist began to gather in my room, the priest told me, 'we're winning, the demons are dying'.

With that Rufus appeared out of a sudden burst of black mist and smoke.

'Haven't I killed you once already? Why are you here old man? Your fight is over, I ended your life once now, don't make me do it all over again.'

The distain Rufus has for the priest is clear to see, makes me want to know what I may be missing. Rufus continues his rant for a moment or two, telling this priest what he could and would do but before the priest could retaliate. Rufus then, with just a wave of his left hand, appeared to send the priest away. Yeah, the priest, along with his white light aura, just vanish.

'Now', continued Rufus, 'let the fun begin'.

He waved his left hand once more, this time vanishing himself leaving behind a puff of black smoke and that smell I associate with Rufus. Right away, the smoke and scent both begin to dissipate. It leaves me with the thought ... what am I in for now?