One evening, he found a new customer. Unlike the drunks and bums that he usually found himself enduring, Rupe was approached by a young woman, dressed in a neat black and white suit. She looked like a high-flying office worker, not the sort of woman who'd normally visit this bar. She walked straight up to Rupe, ignoring the whispers from the other customers, that ranged from "Call girl" and "Porn star" to "Police" and "Terrorist".
"Mr Rupert Tamer?"
Rupe glarted up at the woman for a moment before returning his gaze to his half-emptied glass. "Who wants to know?"
The woman sat down beside him. "The name's Ami. Ami Fear. I'm a journalist. You might have heard of me? I used to write a newspaper column called 'A Taste of Fear'."
Rupe thought for a second. The name did seem familiar, though he couldn't place it. But then again, he did spend a lot of time drinking and forgetting, so that wasn't unusual. "Yeah? What d'ya want with me?"
"I hear you have some interesting stories to tell. About a group known as the Consortium?"
Rupe shook his head. "Not telling you anything. I'll swap stories with these bums, but I don't need some classy chick laughing at me."
Ami pressed him. "I'm not here to laugh at you, Mr Tamer. I genuinely want to hear what you have to say."
Rupe gulped down the rest of his beer. "Get your entertainment someplace else."
Ami sighed, and stood up. One of her hands was clenched. For the first time, Rupe noticed that she was wearing leather gloves. They didn't seem to go with her professional wear, but Rupe wasn't interested in some lady's fashion tastes.
"I see you're not in the mood tonight." Ami remarked dryly. "Perhaps next time."
Rupe ignored Ami as she walked away. Near the exit, a large and powerfully built man stepped into her path. He was like a walking billboard for chains and leather, and was obviously high on more than mere alcohol.
"Hey, darling." The man chuckled. "Couldn't get any from our favourite crazy guy? Well, don't you worry yourself, darling, 'cos I've got everything you need right here." He grinned and made a lewd movement with his hands.
"Thank you, no." Ami tried to push past, but the much larger man stopped her.
"Sorry, darling, wrong answer." He grabbed her shoulders and shoved her against the wall. He moved in to grab her again, but she caught his right wrist in one hand, squeezing and twisting. He cried out and dropped to his knees.
"I'll tell you only once. I am not your 'darling'." Ami released the man, and he slumped to the floor, cradling his shattered wrist. Ami turned and walked out. Several of the man's friends rushed over to help him up.
"Jeez, she broke his damn wrist!" one of them gasped. "How the hell is that bitch so fucking strong?!"

Rupe didn't think much of the incident. He went home and promptly forgot all about it until 11.30 the next morning when he opened the door to his apartment to find Ami standing there.
"Feeling more talkative, Mr Tamer?"
"What the...? What are you, some kind of stalker?"
"No. May I come in?"
Rupe had barely opened his mouth to say no when Ami brushed past him into the apartment. Rupe slammed the door and walked after her, grabbing her angrily and pulling her to face him.
"What do you think you're doing, you little bitch?"
"As I said, I'm interested in what you have to say."
"I don't know where you come off walking into my home like this, but you've got a hell of a nerve demanding all this crap!"
Ami sighed. "Let me show you something."
Ami shrugged off her jacket. She was wearing a silk blouse underneath that seemed to be just a little too bulky. She took the glove off her left hand and pulled up that sleeve.
"What do you think, Mr Tamer?"
"I think you're seriously fucked in the head!"
Ami smiled humourlessly. She pulled off her other glove and rolled up her other sleeve, exposing her right arm. Rupe shot to his feet and gasped.
"What in the hell..?"
Ami's right arm had not flesh or skin, but was rough and contorted metal. The metal shone dully and looked slick, as if it was wet. The metal ran up to her elbow, then broke up into several narrow joints. Above the elbow, the metal was again whole, if twisted looking. About half an inch below her shoulder, the metal seemed to bury itself into the nerves and bone of Ami's arm. Her shoulder looked like normal human skin, though Rupe couldn't help wondering if that was only on the surface.
"What the hell are you?"
Ami sighed sadly. "An experiment. Remember me saying I'm a journalist? Well, I was a journalist. Not any more. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now I look like something on the Sci-Fi Channel."
"But...how?"
Ami's eyes flashed darkly. "You're not the only one to run into Consortium trouble."
"Shit..." Rupe whispered.
"Indeed. I've been trying to find out what the hell they are for two years now. At first I thought they were some sick group of scientists or something, but after investigating them for a while, they seem more like a bunch of insane devil worshippers."
Rupe shook his head. "I wish. But..."
Ami looked up. "But?"
"But...they're not a cult of demon worshippers. They're the demons."
"What do you mean?"
Rupe tilted his head. "You really want to know?"
"Yes. I have to know everything! One way or another, I'm going to make those bastards pay!"
"Alright. About six years ago, I was a professor of History in America. I fancied myself the archeoligist too. One of my visits was to this small town. The story goes that in 1551, there was some sort of bloodbath there. The whole town was slaughtered. Not a single survivior, and no one knows who did it. Strange, but the town's never been rebuilt. For that matter, it never seems to appear on any map or in any historical record around or after the mid 16th century. I only came across it because I made a hobby of finding and reading bizzare and hidden tales of historical mysteries. So, I managed to find out where this town was supposed to be, and I went to have a look..."

Prof Rupert Tamer pulled up his car. It was a couple of hundred metres away from the town's outskirts, but he'd only found one way in, a bridge that didn't look all that stable. So he locked up his car, grabbed his briefcase and started walking.
After a little walking, he reached the first buildings of the town. They were in a bad state of repair, but the style corresponded with the time of the massacre. It was clear that he wasn't the first person to walk the streets since that tragedy, though, unless the people of middle-ages Coral Bayside had invented the motor car that was parked (or more accurately crashed) by a tree on the other side of the road. Rupert took a moment to look at the car. A little dust had collected on it, but not much. He didn't think that it had been there for more than a month. Probably a bunch of joyriding youths.
He carried on, looking at the map he'd copied from the old diary. It would have been a little out of date - the diary's last entry had been made nineteen years before the massacre - but the basic geography ought to be fairly accurate.There was a hill on the other side of the town, which he guessed was the hill where the main part of the massacre had supposedly taken place.Not for the first time, he wondered about the complete lack of information even hinting at any possible suspect in the massacre. There was no evidence of any strangers staying at the town for some months before hand. The only even remotely unusual event had taken place a few hours before. Rupert had found an old police record, which included a report about how a fight between two children had gotten out of hand, resulting in one of them being severely injured. The report stressed the unusual ferocity of the fight, blaming it on the other child, a girl who had been adopted by two respected members of the town's council some years before. But, however strange and horrific the accident might have been, Rupert wasn't going to chalk up the murders of an entire town's population to a disturbed 8-year-old girl.
Rupert walked on through the town, seeing an abandoned motorcycle and a fair amount of graffiti on his way. He didn't see any people, but suspected that there might be a gang holing up in the abandoned town. He fingered the small gun he had in his pocket. Any troublemakers would be deterred by that, he figured.
He reached the town square, about halfway along his journey to the hill. Suddenly, an engine burst into life some distance to his right. Cautiously, Rupert made his way to the fountain in the middle of the square, hoping to use it to remain unseen by anyone nearby. His pace quickened when he heard a gunshot from the same area. After a moment, a long-haired person on a motorcycle rode by, holding a shot gun in his hand. He drove around the fountain at breakneck speed, and Rupert was sure that he or she had seen him. But if he'd been seen, the motorist ignored him and shot off down another road. A moment after the cycle had turned a corner out of Ruperts view, there was a crash and a horrible scream. Rupert got out his gun and made his way to where the motorbike had gone.
When he got there, he found the bike on the floor, engine still running but winding down to a stop. The rider was several metres away, clutching his stomach. Rupert ran over to him. Blood was pouring from a huge hold that ran deep into his gut. The rider was gasping hoarsely, blood trickling from his mouth. Rupert could tell that the poor guy was on the verge of death.
"Run..! Get out..!" the dying man croaked. "They'll find...She'll kill you..."
"What? Who? What happened?"
The rider's head slumped - he was dead. Rupert shuddered and looked around. The road was fairly smooth, and there was no debris of any kind unless you counted the bike. There was nothing that could have caused such a large puncture wound that had killed the rider. But that couldn't be right. He hadn't had his stomach ripped from his body by thin air!
A childish giggle floated in the air to Rupert, and he whirled around. A young girl, no more than four or five, was smiling at him. She wore a white frock, and had her pure white hair tied near the back of the top of her head, and cascading down her back. Her deep crystal eyes glittered at him, and she had what looked like a doll hidden under her arm. Rupert swallowed. The child must be a sister or something to the rider. She'd just witnessed the man's horrible death, and was probably traumatised. He needed to get her to the police or someone who'd take care of her.
"Hey...little girl. I'm sorry...sorry about this."
The girl laughed again. In other circumstances, Rupert would have found the laugh cute. At the moment, he saw it as the reaction of a child too young to realise what had just happened.
"Listen, why don't you come with me? We can get you something to eat. Would you like that?"
The girl giggled, then turned and ran into a house.
"Hey! Wait!" Rupert got up and ran after her, hiding the gun in his pocket. The house was in quite good shape, considering its probable age. Rupert couldn't see the girl, but he heard a door close near the back of the house. He walked quickly through the house and through the only closed door he found.
The room was missing one wall, which would have seperated it from the overgrown garden. In the garden was a large, muscular man with long red hair. The man turned to look at Rupert, who was unnerved at the fact that he couldn't see the guy's face. The red hair covered the face as it had the back of his head.
"Er...sorry. There was an accident...I'm afraid one of your friends is..."
The red-haired man started towards Rupert, picking up a large, thick metal pipe as he did so. Rupert backed off, putting a hand in his pocket.
"I don't want any trouble..."
The man growled like an animal as he entered the room. Rupert pulled out the gun. This made the man pause for a moment, but then he snarled and made to swing the pipe. Rupert fired. The man staggered back, a red patch appearing on his shoulder, then tried again. Rupert fired again, this time hitting him in the chest. The man fell to the floor. Rupert groaned - he was in trouble now. He ran into the garden and stopped dead. Sitting lazily on the wall was some kind of macabre jester or harlequin. The man was chuckling to himself, looking right at Rupert, though thankfully not making any attempt to attack.
"You...you saw it. The guy attacked me! It was self defense!"
The harlequin laughed louder. "Do I look like a judge? A clown, most definately, a beast, perhaps, but a judge? I'm no judge." The harlequin jumped lightly down from the wall. "No, but he is."
"Wh-what?"
"Him. Judge. Well, that's what we call him. Yes, I know what you're going to say, judges have white hair, but you ever try and get someone like that to dye their hair? Fluffy!"
A small white cat jumped from a tree nearby and ran up to the harlequin. It jumped into his arms, and he tickled it under the ear, smiling at its purring.
"Now Fluffy has white hair. But Fluffy's not a judge. Still, each to their own, eh?"
"Er...right..." The harlequin wasn't acting at all aggressive, but his bizzare actions and manners made Rupert nervous. In his opinion, this insane man was just as likely to be dangerous as that other guy had been, the one called Judge or whatever. Rupert decided to excuse himself politely and get the hell out of there.
"Well, I'll just look for that girl I saw and be out of your way..."
This was apparently the wrong thing to say, as the harlequin suddenly gave him an interested look.
"Girl? What girl?"
Rupert gulped. "Er...young girl, about five, white hair..."
The harlequin tutted. "You mean Em? I wouldn't. Well, actually, I would, but that's only because she knows me well, as well as anyone else does at least, but if I were you I wouldn't."
"Why not? Are her parents...?" Rupert stopped himself. He'd been about to say "as crazy as you?", but wisely decided to decline.
"Parents? He's a funny man, isn't he Fluffy? But finding Em would be a bad thing, oh yes, wouldn't it now?" The harlequin petted the cat, who purred back. The harlequin gave Rupert a frown. "Anyway, I'd say you've got other things to do."
"Like what?"
"Well, call me crazy, you might be right there, a lot of people call me that, except Em, and Fluffy, and the Master just calls me irritating, but even if I'm crazy, I still think that Judge is a tad annoyed at you. You know, shooting him and everything."
"What?" Rupert looked back into the house. To his horror, Judge was getting back to his feet. He seemed angry as hell. Suddenly scared beyond belief, Rupert fired twice more into Judge's chest. Judge staggered, but shrugged off the bullets. Rupert's blood felt like it had turned to ice. Without another word, he ran through the garden door, into the lane, and away from the house. Judge roared inhumanly and ran after him. The harlequin laughed.
"Should we go after them, Fluffy? ... No? Alright, let's get some sleep. Honestly, you only had a nap half an hour ago..."

Rupert ran blindly through the streets of Coral Bayside. He ran for five minutes before daring to look behind him. Either he'd lost Judge, or the monster of a man had given up chasing him. Rupert didn't care. All he wanted was to get out of town, and as far from all the deaths and the big guys who refused to die as he could. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. It was then that he heard the girl's laughter again.
He turned to look. The girl was sitting on the bottom of the empty window frame on the ground floor of the house next to him. She had her doll in her lap. This time, he could see it clearly. It's head and one arm had been ripped off, and some sick person had somehow made the doll look like it was bleeding. The girl hugged it like a normal girl would hug a normal doll. Rupert didn't doubt that this girl was as disturbed as the other people he'd seen around.
"Hi!" the girl greeted him. "Who are you?"
"Ru...Rupert."
"My name's Emily! This is my best friend, Noon!" Emily held up the mutilated doll as high in the air as she could, to give Rupert the best view he wished he could miss. "You don't look like you're having fun!"
"Well, I've got to be going home..."
"Play with me! Play a game!" Emily walked up to him. "I like playing chase! I'll count to ten, and you've got to run away!"
"OK, OK!" Rupert cried, intending to run and not look back. Emily closed her eyes and started to count. Rupert ran down the street and turned right. He'd taken a few fast steps when he heard a cry of "Coming!" and swift footsteps behind him. He put his head down and ran faster than he'd ever ran before.

Rupert ran right out of the main town and halfway up a hill before he managed to control his fear again. Slowing to a tired walk, he looked around. At the top of the hill there was a small wood. In a flash of insight, Rupert realised that he had run right to the supposed scene of the Coral Bayside massacre. This thought was not very comforting. He turned to walk back down the hill, only to stop when he saw a movement down below. He wasn't sure if it was a person, an animal, or just a flash of sunlight, but he wasn't about to run into another of this town's crazy occupants. He turned again and ran up to the top of the hill.
At the top, he reached the edge of the woods. He gasped for breath, and half-tripped half-collapsed to the ground by an old tree stump. As he tried to pull himself back up, he noticed a small plaque on the stump.

In the year 1551 according to humans, this site saw the birth of the Nightmare Girl, Glade. May she fight as a Master of Reality for all eternity.

"Night...what...?" Rupert gasped for air. He'd pushed his body harder in the last hour than he ever had in the rest of his life to date. He gulped down several breaths, then considered the plaque again.
'1551 was the date of the massacre,' he thought. 'And Glade...wasn't that the name of the girl in the police record? But what does it mean by Nightmare Girl? And Masters of Reality? According to humans? What the hell is going on here? Just what did happen in 1551?'
Rupert got to his feet and looked around. Some of the other trees had carvings on them. He looked at them.

SO + G 4-ever
1991

A typical carving, looking like one a teenager would do. 1991...only a few years ago. But Rupert wasn't sure that this fit. This town didn't seem like a place that two teenagers would survive long enough to make out. And G? Could that be Glade? If so, then Rupert pitied this SO moron, who'd probably incurred the wrath of the monsters who lived in the town with this piece of vandalism.

Four hundred and Fourty-Four years after the blight
That was the heartless town that you stand in,
On a dark and beautiful moonlit night
The Nightmare's heart did the Wanderer win.
Sealed by the giving of his mortal soul
A solemn vow was given and made.
For all eternity, understand and know,
Sharve Oman shall always belong to Glade.

A poem? Involving Glade? And could SO mean Sharve Oman...?
"Got you!"
Rupert jumped back. Emily had appeared just behind him somehow. There was no way such a young girl should have been able to make it that distance so quickly, but Emily didn't even seem to be out of breath.
"You found Glade and Sharve's special place." Emily scolded. "They wouldn't like that. One time, there was a boy and a girl, and they came up here and started doing stuff, and, and Glade and Sharve found them, and they did very bad things to them! It was funny!" Emily laughed. Rupert shivered with fear. He was starting to find Emily more to be feared than Judge! He reached slowly for the gun in his pocket.
"That would be a bad thing, now." Emily said, her voice suddenly losing all of its usual childness. Her eyes had narrowed, her face had set in a firm, menacing glare. In a single moment, she'd gone from being a happy little girl to a frightneningly mature woman in a child's body. "I might not be as forgiving as Judge."
"Wha..? How..?"
Emily shook her head. "This is not a place for mortals, Rupert Tamer. This place belongs to us."
Rupert swallowed. "Us?"
"Call us what you will. Some know us as the Masters of Reality. Others call us Nightmares. Here in your world, however, we go by the name of the Consortium."
"I don't know what.."
"You know far too much already!" Emily snapped. "We do not choose to have our existence revealed at this time. You may not return to outside and tell people about us."
The feeling of impending death was quickly overcoming Rupert. "But you can't! You can't just..."
Emily grinned evilly. "I can do whatever I wish."
Rupert whipped out his gun and fired. But it bounced off the skin of Emily, shining dully like armour, towering over him...
Emily wasn't a little girl anymore. She stood easily over twenty foot high. Rupert's eyes watered, he couldn't look at her. His eyes refused to focus. He made out giant tentacles, a huge tail with a sting, leathery wings, claws, teeth, hundreds and hundreds of deep, horrifying, different eyes...It was like someone had collected every nightmare he'd ever had as a kid, melded them together and added other things, each worse than the last...
Rupert's mind screamed at him to dive away, and he barely dodged the huge stinger as it came for him. It was followed up by a spray of a light green mist, which burned and ate at his clothes, thankfully not reaching his skin. Rupert ran faster than he'd ever thought possible, slipping on the mud of the hill and tumbling down to a painful stop at the bottom. For a moment, he lay there and groaned. Then ne noticed a shadow appearing around him, growing rapidly larger. He rolled away, and Emily again barely missed him as she stomped at the ground he'd just vacated. Rupert jumped up and ran. He noticed an abandoned car nearby and dashed for it, praying to anyone that might be listening for it to work.
He dived through the broken window, turned the ignition key...and the car sputtered into life! The car shot down the road, followed closely by the airborne Emily.
Rupert drove randomly, not knowing which way to go, aware only that he had to escape. He passed a few people, one of which he thought he recognised as Judge, but he ignored them, determined to run down anyone who tried to stop him.
There was a high pitched ripping sound, and the roof and part of the back of the car was torn away. Emily was right above the car, throwing the torn metal to the side. As she reached for the rest of the car, Rupert slammed on the brakes. Emily overshot the car, flying so fast that she'd reached the end of the street before she could turn again. Rupert hit the accelerator again and drove quickly down another road. To his relief, he saw the bridge that led out of Coral Bayside. As the car shot over the bridge, he felt the approach of Emily from behind. Desperately, he kicked open the door and jumped out of the car into some thick bushes. The car drove straight over the side of the bridge into the river below. Emily, apparently not having seen Rupert jump out, followed the remains of the car. Rupert dashed to his own car, still parked a little way away, and drove, leaving the hellish town behind.

Rupe leaned against the wall and sighed. "That's the last I saw of the town. I went back to the University, only to find that I'd been inexplicably fired. A couple of times I was attacked in the street. I ran, eventually found my way here. They never found me, thank God. I hope I never see them again."
Ami frowned. "Fired?"
"Yeah. I think they're in positions of power somehow. I'm certain they were behind it."
"You don't want them to find you, yet you tell about your experiences to all these people in the bar for alcohol?"
"They're just drunks. I've been safe here for three years now. No one'll ever find...me here..." Rupe trailed off. Something nagged at the back of his mind.
"Well, I've got a friend near here." Ami continued. "She can help you...help us. You'd never have to worry about being found again."
Rupe only half-heard her. His mind was racing, trying to identify what was bothering him. It came to him in a flash.
He'd thought that he'd heard Ami's name before. Now he remembered. It had been in that "Taste of Fear" column that Ami said she wrote. He'd read a paper with that column in about a week before. Only a week? But Ami said she'd been on the run...
"How..?" Rupe suddenly felt a chill in the air. "How did you find me?"
"I said, I'm a journalist."
"But you've been running from the Consortium for two years. And you're still writing that column..."
Rupe's voice trailed off as Ami smiled. The smile was as cold as ice.
"Clever boy."
Rupe dived for the door, only to be pulled short by a metallic hand clamping around his ankle. He turned and threw a punch at Ami, connecting on her chest. It felt like he'd hit a metal wall. He bit back the pain as Ami smiled at him.
"I'm what you might call a Cyber-Demon, Mr Tamer. The name's Amethia."
With that, Ami...Amethia threw Rupe easily into the wall, hard enough to cause a deep dent. Rupe slid slowly to the floor, his back in extreme pain.
"Why..?"
Amethia ignored him, turning and opening the door. Someone walked in. Rupe's worst nightmare. A little white-haired girl carrying a mutilated doll.
"Hello Rupert." Emily grinned nastily. "Time to finish our game."

The body of Rupert Tamer was found two months later, with one arm and part of his ribcage missing. The official verdict was suicide, despite the contradicting evidence. One police officer brought up the subject and its unlikelyhood, but was sadly killed in a car accident before the investigation could begin. No questions have been asked on the subject since.