Return To "No Time To Sleep" (Nightmare On Elm Street)
Everything was dark. Serena could see herself clearly but the blackness was all around her. It did not make sense. After a few seconds, she spotted an object in the distance. It appeared to be some sort of desk.
She walked towards the object hoping it would give her some sense of where she was or what she was doing. As she got closer she could see it was a bench, like the kind a judge might use, with an empty chair behind it.
Then a teenaged boy, a few years older than her, appeared beside the chair. He immediately sat down and banged the gavel three times.
“Will the accused please approach the bench,” he said.
Serena desperately looked for a way to escape, but found none. In her imagination, she saw an invisible audience looking down on her and laughing. Reluctantly Serena approached having no doubt who the accused had to be.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded angrily.
“My name is Brad,” replied the judge, “and this is your trial. You have been accused of the murders of the following people: Amy, Raye, Lita, and Mina. How do you plea?”
All her fear and anger suddenly vaporized. The bogus trial and phony charges were nothing compared to the knowledge that her friend had been killed. She began to sob openly.
“Don’t play innocent with me!” ordered Brad. “I know you did it. This trial is just necessary to remove all remaining doubt. Now how do you plea?”
“N-n-not guilty,” Selena managed to stammer. “I do not know anything about the deaths of those four people. I do not even know where I am or how I got here.”
“Ignorance is no excuse for the law,” Brad retorted. “You have committed a serious crime and now you must pay the price.”
“What price?” she blurted out. “Don’t I get a chance to defend myself?”
“Only if you can prove your innocence,” he replied.
Selena thought real hard, for her. Holding her hand up to her face she could see how much she was trembling. She was still numb from the shock that her friends had been killed. Now she had to use all her remaining energy to defend herself.
“Whatever happened to everyone is innocent until proven guilty?” she demanded.
“That was before,” he said.
“Before what?” she asked.
“Before people started taking advantage of the system,” he replied. “Guilty people keep conning their way out of the system, infecting everybody with their deceptions and their violent behavior. I am going to make sure that never happens again. Unless you provide clear, solid evidence in your defense in the next ten seconds, I will pronounce your sentence.”
To her it seemed Brad was the only one encouraging deception and violent behavior. She felt it best to remain silent.
“Since you have nothing to say, I find you guilty,” Brad said coldly. “For a crime of this magnitude, there can only be one penalty.”
Serena heard a creaking sound behind her. When she turned around, she wished she never did. A hangman’s noose was directly behind her suspended in mid air. It floated towards her neck.
“The penalty is death, to be carried out immediately,” Brad declared.
His voice echoed throughout the darkness making him sound even more frightening when she was not looking at him. As the noose wrapped around her neck, Serena let out a high pitched scream.
“Wake up, Serena!” shouted Luna.
Serena noticed Luna, Amy, Raye, Lita, Mina, and Artemis all looking down at her. Slowly it dawned on her where she was and what had happened to her. She gave each of them a quick hug.
“What was all that about?” asked Raye.
“I had a horrible dream,” Serena explained. “All of you had been killed and I was framed with your murder.”
She told them all about her dream.
“Your nightmare does not sound like it happened naturally,” said Luna. “It may have been caused by the negaverse.”
“I had a classmate named Brad before I moved here,” added Amy. “I do not know if the two are connected though.”
“Anything is possible,” said Lita.
“I hope this is not another prophecy,” said Mina.
“It is hard to tell what it could be,” said Artemis. “We have so little to go on right now.”
“I want all of you to keep a sharp eye out for anything out of the ordinary,” insisted Luna.
The group started to go their separate ways.
“Wait!” shouted Selena.
All of them waited.
“Yes?” asked Lita.
“It is good to have you back,” she said.
Copyright 1999, Steve Lucky
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