Mena stood in silence. Questions flooded her mind, but she could not find the means in her brain to express them.

It took Bubbel of all people to break the silence. She waddled up to Anguish with an incredulous look.

“Your Darkness,” the crone gurgled in disbelief. “You mean to tell me…to tell us…. that this annoyingly precocious child is your daughter…?”

Mena pursed her lips. So, they didn’t know either. Only Anguish and Grizabella did. “Not now, Bubbel,” Anguish said, gently pushing the chubby green witch aside. “Can’t you see that this is mother-daughter time?”

Clearmind loudly cleared his throat. “Anguish, allow me to pose this question at you. Do you really expect me to stand idly by while you expound at great lengths to the Receiver about your supposed parentage?”

Anguish raised a hand. “Why yes…I do.”

The floor in the room cracked open as shadowy black hands and poison purple tendrils emerged from all angles. Some members of the Dream Police attempted to fight them off with their batons, but they were pulled screaming into the interdimensional depths of the Nightmare Void. Janus, May, Poshleen and even the mouthless Deidre all gasped. Tormented by a shadow tendril, Nick Clearmind leaped into his father’s arms, and he wobbled over the weight of the dummy until they both collapsed on the floor

“Good,” Anguish chortled. “Now that I’ve shaken things up here, I’ve got some answers that are guaranteed to shake you up some more.”

Anguish clip-clopped over in her heels to Mena and placed a clammy hand on her shoulder. Mena remained transfixed on her mother’s gorgon-like eyes, feeling like the sheer revelation would turn her to stone. “Mena,” Anguish said, her deep voice cooing softly at her. “Would you believe this world is nothing but a dream?”

“Huh?” Mena asked, blinking twice.

“We are nothing but the product of a long slumbering goddess in repose.”

The whole room was silent. Mena did not know how to answer that. She knew about the Goddess of Dreams, but she didn’t know that they were actually in her dream.

“We are trapped here like fish in a fruitful net. All of us subject to her whims as she tosses and turns. But none of us will ever be free to dream our own dreams. Everything is decided by her.”

“Is that…” Mena squeaked softly. “Is that really true?”

“Matter of fact,” Clearmind said, rising from the floor. “It is. My eye allows me to see the bigger picture here, but this witch lies. This is not a malevolent nightmare”—Clearmind pointed directly at Anguish—” She wants to make it that way.”

Anguish shook her head. “Always one step behind me, Jonah. That’s not what I want at all. You see there is only one way to awaken the goddess in her dreamland…and that is through two pairs of magical slippers: The Dream Heels and the Nightmare Heels.”

Anguish clicked her jet-black slippers and there was a rumbling off in the distance. “You hear that? The goddess stirs whenever I touch these magic shoes. But it is not enough…I need the other pair.”

“W-why do you need it?” Mena asked. “Why do you want to awaken her so bad?”

“Because…” Anguish said and she paused. “I want to wake the goddess and free us from these twisted roles she’s having us play.”

“Twisted…roles?” Mena asked.

Anguish summoned a tiny universe in her hand. The pink brainlike nebula of Dula circled around a planet of lapis blue and verdant green. “Every single person in this universe is set to play one role by the goddess. Everything was predetermined and well, if you don’t like it. Tough cookies.”

Clearmind obnoxiously coughed. “Allow me to challenge your assertion, Anguish, that some of us actually like the roles we’ve been given and…”

Anguish’ hand glowed bright purple and she fired a shadow blast directly at Clearmind’s heart. If he had not grabbed a member of the Dream Police and used him as a human shield, the cult leader would have died. After the Dream Police member disintegrated into a pile of miasma, Clearmind elected to let Anguish continue uninterrupted.

Anguish extended her hand towards Mena. “That is why I need you, Mena.”

“M-m-m-me?” Mena stammered. “What can I do? I can barely talk to a boy without snorting, let alone cast a magic spell to wake a god up from an eternal dream.”

Anguish laughed. “But you are special, my daughter. You are a rainborn like me and can wear those Dream Heels.”

Mena took a step back away from her mother.

“A simple click with the Dream Heels will suffice,” Anguish spoke, “Then we can shatter this dream and leave no trace.”

Mena turned around and looked at her friends who frantically shook their heads. “What if I refuse?” Mena shouted. “I’ve barely known you and you’ve already tried to ruin my life on numerous occasions.”

Anguish closed her eyes. “Touché, my daughter. And that is why I came with a back-up plan. You see, I was the one who created the book parasite, the one that corrupted your soul and nearly turned you inside out.”

“That was you?” Mena squeaked again.

“And while it failed to overtake you and was removed from your body,” Anguish said. “Your innermost darkness I cultivated became a creature all in itself.”

Another shadowy mass rose from the floor. A pair of blood red eyes glowed from the center of the darkness.

“The mal-essence,” Mena gasped.

A sallow smirk stretched across Anguish’s pale pink face. “All I need to do is open your heart to the darkness again and I will have you under my control once again.”

“You’ll never have me,” Mena screamed, throwing her head forward. “I will refuse it with all my will. I will never give in to the nightmares.”

Anguish’s forehead lifted. “Oh really? Are you sure about that?”

Anguish lifted her hand and with a loud ‘mmmph,’ Deidre’s body was flung forward like a rag doll. The ranch owner struggled and tried so hard to scream from her mouthless face, but it was to no avail. With her opposite hand, Anguish shouted, “Darkness nightmare dreams, blast her with an eternal beam of screams.”

A jet stream of purple-black miasma surrounded by disembodied ghost heads with screaming faces and black eyes shot directly through Deidre’s heart.

“DEDE…NOOO,” Mena’s eyes were laced with tears, and she ran to where her former caretaker fell. Deidre’s eyes, though growing dim, looked like they wanted to tell Mena a host of words, but without a mouth she couldn’t. And then, she slipped into the ether, leaving Mena with nothing but her innermost pain and torment.

Anguish burst into a chaotic fit of laughter. “How does it feel, daughter? To watch your loved one die, then have her return to you and then watch it happen all over again?”

Mena crouched on the ground, her hands over her head. She started shivering profusely, feeling nearly catatonic. “And this time,” Anguish whispered, “She couldn’t even say goodbye. Now you know true anguish.”

Anguish pointed a gnarled fingernail at the mal-essence, and it slithered across the floor and glommed onto Mena.

Mena dropped to the ground; her body convulsed. Something inside her—a feeling of chaos seemed to possess her limbs and cause her to flail around wildly. Janus and May both screamed.

“Help me…somebody…” Mena rasped, but she didn’t really care. She wanted the darkness to devour her whole. Then she’d truly be with Deidre.