Alfred woke up in a hospital bed. He was surrounded by three doctors holding the doors to the room shut. One of the doctors turn to him, a surgery mask on his face. "Thank god! We've been waiting for you to get up!" The door bulged slightly. "I can't believe we found Galaxy!" Another one of the doctors at the door shouted. "I own all of your comics, Mr. Black. I'm a huge fan." "Garry, shut up!" The first doctor shouted. He turned back to Alfred. "We just want to know if you're good for a few interviews. I know you're pretty beat up, but you don't have to get up or anything. We can take care of it."
Alfred looked at them. "Sure, sure. I think I can deal with it. Just make sure they edit anything of my stuttering out." He joked. The doors opened, and, instead of a few dozen reporters, only Rachel walked in. She looked like she was no older than sixteen. "Da... daddy?" She said, sounding like a little girl. Alfred smiled. He suddenly felt much better, stood up from the hospital bed. He hugged her. "I... I didn't mean for what happened to happen. If I knew what your mother was doing, I would have done something. I'm so sorry." He pulled away and looked at her. She had changed into what she was now. Cold. Dark. Dirty. "What is.... Terror! Get the fuck out here! I said now! You know the rules, if someone knows they're in the dream, you wake them up! Come out you fucking coward!"
A slow clapping sound was heard. Rachel faded away, and the world turned to darkness, with Alfred in the only light. A man in a suit, a normal work suit, with brown eyes, a large nose, and brown hair, sat atop a wall, watching Alfred "Well done, well done. I should have guessed you where immune to my powers by now. In fact, I'm surprised that you fell for it as long as you did. Bravo, bravo. I always loved watching your Dreams. The others where just so... bland. The Rat had his parents murder, Violet had her village being burned down by stolen Vietcong tanks, and Steal always had the death of his newborn son, but not you. You always had regrets, and stories. Plays, practically. Such as the kid you let die when he was attacked by The Mechanist. Want to see that one again? I always loved that one. Action!"
Alfred fell to his knees and grabbed his head. The painful memory of the child dying. The look in his eyes. The blood on his face. The screams of pain when the gears started to crush him. The life fade from his eyes as he breathed his last breath. It brought back a million things he didn't do, a billion people he couldn't save, a trillion things he could have done better. All of them at once. "That. Is It!" His armor slipped on and he stood up. "I'm tired of never wanting to fight you. I don't care anymore. Bring it on!" He charged Terror, but was stopped when the vision of a cat falling off a forty-story building and exploding on the ground below. He fell to the ground again.
"Remember that cat? Mittens was his name, wasn't it? It was your cat, or was it your daughters? I don't-" Terror felt a sharp pain in his stomach. "If you ever say my daughter, or Rachel, or Rach, or anything mentioning her ever again, I might just piss on your grave when I kill you. Suit, engage protocol 'Nightmare'." Medical needles shot out of Alfred's suit's arms and legs. "I know your fear. Needles. Medical needles, to be exact. I know you gained this fear after seeing your father get dosed with rat poison in a concentration camp. It didn't kill him fast. He suffered for weeks, and you blamed the needle, because that's all you saw of that doctor. You made that doctor re-live the murder of his wife one hundred million, four hundred thousand, six hundred and forty nine times. He committed suicide the next day. Hung himself with a flag, the Swastika having blood dripping all over it."
Terror fell down from the wall upon seeing the needles. "Wha... What the fuck is in those." He screamed. Alfred grinned. "Rat poison." All of the needles shot out and flew forward, hitting Terror in the chest and legs."Ge... Get them off! Get them the fuck off! Please, help! I..." He started to cry, something Alfred had never seen him do before. "I didn't mean it! Please, get them off, get them offffffffffffffff!" Alfred turned away and started to walk into the darkness. "You should have thought of this before you mentioned my daughter."
The darkness faded, along with Terror, and Alfred shot up in a hospital bed, barley able to move his arms. There was no one around. No one at all. He checked himself. He had a small note card on the table next to him. It read "You... you bastard! I thought you where a fucking hero, not a some fuckhead who leaves a guy to die in the dark because of fucking rat poison! Fuck you! And your fucking daughter too! Yeah, Fuckin' Munchkin is coming for your **** of a daughter next.
-Sign
Terror"
Alfred smirked and laid back down. You'll have a better chance of killing me than killing Rach. He soon fell asleep, unafraid of another "dream".