Work Text:
Life is cruel.
I was four years old when I learned that lesson.
And it doesn't matter how hard those around you try to make you forget, how deep they try to make you bury it, you can't. Maybe the source of the lesson is lost, but the knowledge can't be undone.
Life is cruel.
When I sleep, there's nothing but a blissful void. A reprieve from reality, from memories, from bills and stress and anxiety and hunger and thirst and a lingering sense of dirtiness that I can never wash off.
There is never any fire, any blood, any screaming; there is never a rancid breath on my skin or hot metal scraping at my flesh.
Sometimes, sometimes life is not so cruel.
And when I lay me down to sleep, I can almost smile, if it hadn't been stolen from me.
My evenings are full of screams.
I wake in the moring and I work and I come home, pretending I'm normal. Pretending I'm not some fucked up kid who didn't quite fit even before some bastard decided to try and break me so I'd always be his.
But then I come home. I lock the door behind me and grab a bite to eat. Change out of the uniform, because I can't start my shift a mess. And I unlock the basement door, baseball bat in hand.
There's cursing and shuffling while I descend the stairs, and there he is. Chained to the musty, bloody bed.
I'll dream tonight; it's okay. I'm tired of holding back. I can always pull him out again. I've gotten really good at it.
Life is cruel.
A man named Fred Krueger taught me that.
And every night, I remind him of what a good student I am.