(Five Days Ago, Cragglewood Park, Dream World.)
Cragglewood Park otherwise known as SCP-2571.
It was a large theme park. Unlike most theme parks however it only had one ride which was a carousel. The trees that surrounded the theme park were smiling and laughing at the children present in the park.
But the children were crying rather than laughing. The children who seemed older than the younger one's were holding the younger one's hands, they seemed to be between 10 to 12 years of age while the younger ones were between 6 to 8 years of age and they were crying as the older ones were encouraging them to keep smiling.
The organ music continued playing, the carousel spins as the tree's kept smiling and laughing.
One of those young children was Alan Mason who's in this nightmare on his 6 years old body.
Next to him was a 12 year old boy, holding his hand, he had black hair just like him, and was wearing blue pants, a green shirt and blue shoes.
"I want to go home." The young Alan said while crying.
"Alan, you have to keep smiling, otherwise they will notice."
Alan and the boy noticed one of the trees looking at both of them, and was as usual continuously laughing and smiling.
"I just want to go home! I don't want to live in this nightmare anymore!!" Alan yelled and cried even more.
At the entrance of the theme park, a figure wielding a huge scythe looked at the path, floating along with it.
As he went down the path, he looked left and right to see the trees laughing and smiling at him, but the figure just ignored them and continued floating down the path till he saw a carousel and children in there.
"Well this is something." The figure then floated towards the children.
One of them noticed him, which was surprisingly Alan.
"What the fuck?!" He exclaimed.
This caught the other children's attention and they looked at the scythe wielding figure in shock and horror.
"Who are you?"
"Now isn't the right time to say my name, but judging from the teary eyes that most of you have, it seems like you want to leave this nightmare. Am I right?"
The younger children nodded, while the older children seemed skeptical in trusting him. Alan took a step forward and looked at the figure.
"Are you sure you can get us out of here?"
"Yes I can. With just one slash." The figure was about to swing his scythe downward to slash the air, but then suddenly all the trees stopped smiling and looked at him with anger.
"""Leave. Dream Walker. These children are destined to be here. Forever."""
They all said in unison.
"Catchy name for me but I'm not leaving, unless you want me to slice and dice all of you, bags of shits in half." He said menacingly.
The children were just dumbfounded that he was actually talking back to the trees and not giving a damn about what they were saying.
"""There. Will. Be. Consequences for you. If you don't leave... now!"""
"Nope."
By then, he lightly swung his scythe sideways, and in an instant, five trees on his left were suddenly cut down in half with one single swing of his scythe.
The children's jaws dropped at his action.
"I will tear this nightmare apart, if you don't let me leave with the children." The figure said in a threatening and serious tone.
The trees then gave him an angry glare, and so they sprouted wooden branch arms from their sides, they then detached themselves from the ground and started using their wooden roots as legs before starting to surround him, ignoring the children completely. All eyes were on him only.
"Well looks like I'll have to chop them down to size. Get it, author?"
(Author: Yep and stop 4th wall breaking man. You're not Deadpool.)
The children were confused as to who he was talking to, even the trees seemed confused.
"Just hit the music, author."
(Author: Alrighty then.)
(Music Starts from 0:48 )
=====================================
Music: Devil May Cry 5 OST, "Devil Trigger"
Link: https://youtu.be/sLHdJIat0ZM
=====================================
"Why do I hear boss music?" Young Alan asked cluelessly.
The scythe wielding figure quickly spinned himself in a 360 degree, which cut down a few dozen trees that were surrounding him in half. The children could only look in shock and amazement by the scythe wielders' crazy attack.
"I'm just getting started."
The trees then started to rush at him one by one. One tree tried to land a fist at him, but he quickly dodged the attack and sliced him in half bottom to top.
All the trees tried to attack him at once but he started twirling, spinning and swinging his scythe in numerous angles, cutting through all the trees like a freaking lawnmower while the children watched in awe.
"Wow. That is so cool."
The children nodded and continuing watching in excitement. Meanwhile the figure then stops his attack and sees more trees coming after him.
"They seem to be endless." The figure flies towards the trees at blurry speeds before doing a downward slash on one tree, then an upward slash on another, sending it flying in the air for a few seconds before it crashes on the ground.
He then spins his scythe at 180 degrees which cuts two trees at once. He then turned around and saw three trees approaching him.
Instead of flying towards them, he just stayed in one place before swinging his scythe at an even greater speed, sending a wind slash towards them, cutting them in half instantly.
"There's gotta be a way to permanently end this." The figure looked at the carousel which was still spinning.
He then thought, 'Could the carousel be fueling this nightmare or maybe it's keeping this nightmare intact. If I destroy it maybe I can end this?'
He wasn't sure if it would be a good idea, but he decides to take his chances, he looks up and starts flying up high in the sky till he stops when he is high enough and looks at the carousel.
Kicking the air, he then flies towards the carousel like a ballistic missile that creates an ear piercing boom throughout this dimension.
But then suddenly multiple roots emerged out of the ground around the carousel and were heading towards the figure. He then barrel rolls to the right dodging one root before doing the same thing to the left, dodging another root.
Another root was approaching him but he immediately swung his scythe, sending a large wind slash towards it, cutting the root in half.
The figure saw that he was now getting close to the carousel, and so, he readied his scythe to deliver the final blow.
"Sayonara, Crackle-wood."
Just within a second, the distance from his destination was now incredibly close, when he was close enough, he unleashed a barrage of slash attacks.
"YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!! YO!!"
After sending countless attacks, he then stops it before he lands on the ground and looks at the carousel.
"Kill the music."
(Author: Got it.)
(Music Ends)
At the next instant, the carousel stopped spinning and exploded into a million cut up pieces.
This led to a massive chain reaction. The sunny sky became gray and covered in clouds, the trees started to rot and decay into dust as the atmosphere around the nightmare just became dead.
"I did warn them. Oh well." The figure then flew towards the children, but then, he saw that the older children were turning into dust, while the younger children were looking in shock and a bit of sadness.
"What's happening to them?" One of the children asked the figure.
"They were either part of this nightmare or were never real in the first place."
"It's ok, Alan. We maybe never really were related to any of you. Maybe we were never real or were just part of this nightmare, but I'm glad it's gone now. Goodbye Alan." The boy that helps Alan all this time said to him with a gentle smile.
At the last moment, all of the older children then turned into dust as the wind blew them away.
The younger children could only let out tears seeing them gone even though they were never related since they were a single child in the real world... or were they related? Either way it was a sad sight.
As he continued to shed tears, Alan then felt a hand on his shoulder, it turned out to be the figure.
"It is time to go. This place is falling apart."
Alan and the rest of the younger children noded.
Facing the area in front of him, the figure slashes the air with his scythe, the fabric of space in front of him and the children begin to tear apart in an instant which creates a white rift.
With a bit of hesitation, the younger children went into the rift. The figure takes one last look at the dying nightmare world before enters the portal.
———
(The Figure's Amusement Park, Dream World.)
A white portal opens and the figure and the children arrive in an amusement park. It was very big and had multiple rides, like a ferris wheel and a roller coaster just to name a few.
The children seemed happy, but then they looked at the figure who was taking notes on a notepad using a pencil which seemed to come out of nowhere.
"Uhhh sir." The young Alan called out.
The figure looked at them, "Yes, my boy?"
"While we do appreciate you saving us from that nightmare, what do you want us to do now?"
"Simple, have fun. The rides are free. You can do whatever you want with them. I'll be going to the castle. Enjoy."
He then flies towards the castle and enters it through one of the windows. The children then started exploring the amusement park, looking at the multiple rides that were available.
Alan was actually more curious about the scythe wielding figure. He wanted to know his name and what he was. He then looked at the children who seemed to be happy and were enjoying themselves in this new environment.
He counted how many children there were and based on his calculation there were at least 20 children including him, all between the age of 6 or 8 and some were even 9 years old. Ten of them were boys and ten of them were girls.
He decides to head for the ferris wheel but he then hears a voice behind him. It was a girl at 9 years of age. She had neck length orange hair and had dark blue eyes, she was wearing a light green short sleeved shirt and was wearing light gray pants.
"Hi." She greeted him.
"Hi." Alan responded.
"So you're heading for the ferris wheel?"
"Yeah, I just want to clear my mind off of some things."
"Mind if I tag along as well."
"Sure."
They both headed for the ferris wheel and entered it then sat on opposite ends of the cab.
The ferris wheel then started moving on its own. They look from the cab they were on and got a very good look of the park. Alan then decides to start a conversation with the girl.
"Soooo what's your name?"
"My name's Camille Henderson. What's your name?"
"Alan. Alan Mason, so how long did you experience that nightmare?"
Camille sighed, "For a year."
"A year?!"
She slowly noded.
"Sorry if I asked." Alan said apologetically.
"It's ok. At least we don't have to witness that place anymore thanks to the reaper."
"I don't think he's a reaper. Sure the scythe makes him look like a reaper but still I think there's more to him than that."
"Perhaps... So you're not a child in the real world are you?"
"Nope."
"Me neither."
"Well at least being a kid in a dream isn't bad, if you're in Cragglewood Park that is."
"Let's not talk about that nightmare, I'm glad that the reaper showed up and destroyed it."
"Yeah, me too. And who knows maybe if we sleep again we might not have to be in that place ever again since it's well gone."
"...Alan, do you think those older kids who seemed to know us even though we didn't know them, do you think we had some sort of relation with them in the past or were they just part of the nightmare?"
"I'm not sure myself as well."
Pretty much the two kept on talking with each other like any normal conversation two people have between each other.
Meanwhile back at the tower of the castle, the figure was looking through the window seeing the kids enjoying themselves.
"They deserve this. Must have been tough for them living in Cragglewood Park, but I got some new notes for my research thanks to the park."
———
(Some Time Later)
The figure then heads for the children who seemed to be still enjoying themselves. He then spots Alan talking to Camille next to a lampost.
"Hey there. Alan, was it?"
"Yeah that's my name. Sir, can I ask you something?"
"Before you ask me anything, let me gather everybody."
He then snapped his fingers and all the children appeared right in front of him.
"Now kids, did you enjoy yourselves here?"
The children nodded in agreement.
"Now all of you need to wake up and go back to the real world, but before you go I want to ask all of you something. Do you want to forget this place or remember it because I am able to make you forget my world actually."
The children looked at each other for a moment.
Then, Alan responded, "We want to remember this place and even you as well. You did so much for us and it would sad to forget this place since we haven't been this happy since Cragglewood Park."
The children also agreed with him.
The figure sighs, "Alright, before all of you wake up." Then he looks at Alan, "Alan you wanted to know my name right?"
Alan nodded as well as the other children and so, he answered.
"Ok kiddos. My name is...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"Death 13."
To Be Continued ➡