I don't usually write down my dreams, save that one about the Daleks... yeah.... that one was sweeeeeeet....

I'm warning you, though. I slept in today due to the lack of school, so this dream is extremely long, 'kay?

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"No! No please! I'll do a better job next time, I swear!"

"Your time is up, Bull. You should have caught him this time. I don't cope well with such a failure as you."

"Please..... Please......"

"No."

The strange bug-like beast lunges at the man named Bull. Bull dodges, but is soon caught by some sort of hybrid lizard-monkey.

"Goodbye, Bull. I hope that you do a better job in your next life."

The beast grabs Bull by his shirt, hoists him up into the air, and spins a cocoon around him. She hangs him up from an overhead fire escape, smiles, and walks away.

"Dinner time," she says with a malicious glee, as the hybrids leap onto Bull and begin chomping into his flesh. As the beast walks away, and the hybrids tear into a screaming failure, an apparent title screen pops up to the front of my dream, which reads:

"SPIDER-MAN 7: TERROR OF THE BEAST"

All I can say to that is Fail.

Fail Fail Fail.

We rejoin the scene several hours later, the movie, apparently, has ended. Several people walk out of the theatre and into the street, with only a backwards glance at the poster of Spider-Man, which has already been covered by stickers that read: "Closed after 1 Show".

"Well, that was terrible," says one man, the oldest of the small group.

"At least your dæmon didn't drop dead in the middle of it!" laughs another man, obviously his son.

"Oh, hush, Peter," says the second man's wife, "I didn't think it was all that bad."

The others stop and stare at her, unblinking, wondering what could have possibly gotten into her head that would make her say such a thing.

The other woman, Peter's wife, stops too, now aware of her family's current position.

"What?" she questions to the others, who all look away and pretend to be doing something, like looking at a nonexistent watch, or up at the sky. She scowls, begins to smile, then bursts out in a grin and laughs, "I was only joking!"

The others smile too and begin moving along, with only small glances at Peter's wife to check up on her sanity. She rolls her eyes.

They wander into an alleyway, a familiar route home, before a cop rushes up to them and, panting, he says, "Sorry, folks, there's just been a murder. I'm going to ask that you all take a step back and leave while we secure the perimeter."

Peter's dæmon pops out from his pocket, "A murder?" says the little rat, "Here? So close to home?" She scurries back into Peter's pocket and speaks a barely audible, "I'm scared, Pete!"

"We should go, Lucy," says Peter to his wife, and they slowly back away down the alley.

His father stares at Peter, baffle in a way, "Where's your old sense of adventure, boy?"

"Charles, somebody's dead! I don't think we should be prodding into this!"

"Quiet, Myrna. If our son wants to be a sissy weasel about this, then I say let him!"

"Charles–"

"Quiet Myrna!"

"C'mon, Lucy," says peter, holding her shoulders and backing away from the stench of death, and his parents.

"Alright, then," Peter says, walking up to his TV back home, "if my parents wanted me to see that murder so badly, then why not just watch it safely?"

He flicked it on.

"The Body of a dæmon, I repeat, a dæmon was found near the intersection of Harlem and Trott earlier today by a local pub owner. Sir, would you care to elaborate?"

"Yes, Clark, I would. Now, I was out throwing the drunks out into the gutter when I realized that there was somethin' already in there. It was a small pup with a yellow and orange harness."

"A dæmon."

"Well, I didn't think so at first 'cause it should have disappeared when it died, but it didn't. I thought it was probably a stray that got hit by a car or somethin'."

"But it wasn't."

"Of course it wasn't, 'cause then I turned him over and saw that little symbol that means he's a dæmon."

"Now, why wouldn't this dæmon disappear?"

"Not a clue."

"Well, we'll have to continue investigations as why this dæmon is hear. As for the whereabouts of her human–"

Lucy turns off the TV, worried.

"How'd this happen, Pete? How could someone do this?"

"At least Yars and Kornilius are safe, Lucy. They're alright."

Kornilius, Lucy's owl dæmon, turns his head an eerie 180º and looks at her affectionately.

"I'm still here, Lucy. You've got nothin' to worry about 'cause I'm still here."

There's a knock at the door. Lucy jumps, and, in a moment of panic, grabs Kornilius and holds him tight, muttering, "Nothing's going to happen to you, nothing's going to happen to you, nothing's going to..."

Peter opens the door.

"Hello there, mister. Just wonderin' if I can borrow a cup of sugar, please."

"Peter cocks his head to the left, looking strangely at the even stranger man on his doorstep. He was dressed in a brown suit coat with a bright orange tie, as if he'd gone colorblind putting on such clothes. He was wearing sneakers with polka-dotted socks, and a tiny fez on his head. He kept twitching uncontrollably and looking down at Peter's pocket.

'Well?" he says, impatient of Peter's stare.

"Right," he says, snapping back into the present moment, "sugar. Sure... just a moment."

Lucy looks up from her state of fear with Kornilius. "Well? What does he want? Will he go away?"

"He just wants some sugar, Lucy," says Peter, reaching into the cupboard and pulling out a bag of sugar for the man at the door. "It's fine. Don't worry." And with a quick peck on the cheek, Peter walks to the man gives him the sugar, and closes the door.

"G'bye, now, sir. Have a nice day!" he shouts through the mailslot.

"He's gone? It's safe?"

"It's always been safe, Lucy. However, I must admit there was something peculiar about that man at the door, aside from his getup... I can't put my finger on it, though..."

"I know what it was," says Yars, poking her tiny rat head out out of Peter's pocket, "He didn't have a dæmon."

TO BE CONTINUED...