text: [Themes: fan fiction]
  
  Your gaze intensely at the spinning top. Life and death depends on what the spinning top decides to do.
  
  The toy top is still spinning. It spins slower, Suddenly, it lurches. the top begins to unbalance itself. Left, no, right. The top flips. it finally grinds to a stop on the ground, and stays there, unmoving.
  
  > dive behind the doorway
  You dive behind the doorway, and sits heavily with your back against a wooden shelf. The canned spam container rolls over a glass shard to stop beside your legs and you try to pick it up. You cut yourself on the sharp edges of its lid. You look at your fingers and wince at the slit. Small blood droplets form at its edges. You pinch yourself on the cheek and wince again at the pain.
  
  "So this isn't a dream. This dreamlike situation..." you sit there and contemplate.
  
  The noises of the crowd grow louder. You snap out of your reverie and look around you in an attempt to find anything useful to barricade yourself in. Ancient junk litter the whole room. Shards of broken glass, old books, used rags, black and white pictures, a paw holding a wooden picture frame with broken glass... wait....
  
  The broken pieces of glass reflects light towards your eyes and you see the face of a cat smiling at you. You jump up with surprise and walk backwards, but the wall behind you is suddenly decimated as the cross-breed of a chainsaw and a guillotine smashes it into pieces. You leap forward and turn.
  
  "I've been waiting for you boy. Now, accept your fate!" The mask jeers. "But... I have something I must do. I'll be taking that body."
  
  The guillotine clanks back into its ready position.
  
  A sudden gust blew the hat the you dropped into the air.
  
  "There it is! My cloche!" The voice drew both the attention of the mask and your attention to it's source. A girl stood in front of the mask twirling her cloche. She Wears striped white socks, revealing white shorts, white cropped top, and a white sweater with long flat strands hanging down. The girl had her back towards you, and you resist the urge to glance up into her shorts. With a confident air, she fixes the cloche on her head.
  
  "I can't calm down without it." She her expression towards the mask a a mixture of cheerfulness, ferocity, and obnoxiousness.
  
  "You're that girl from before..." you blurt out.
  
  "Well this is a surprise. I created this space so that only the boy and I could enter." The mask intoned, "That you could intrude here..." A swipe of his weapon shook the ground. "I offer my respect to a pioneer of the Real World. There is only one way for us, who have no real bodies, to go there. You too have found a vessel, have you not?" The mask leaned forward.
  
  "I don't know" the girl injected, "When I came to I was abandoned in this world. An unknown place. An unknown sky. Not knowing where or how to get back. Not even dreaming of hope."
  
  "I see. A lost little sheep."
  
  The girl put on her cheerful expression again, "I'm Merry. Merry Nightmare."
  
  Nothing moved. The atmosphere is buzzing with electricity. "Merry..." you murmured.
  
  "Hey, take me back to the world of dreams. You can go back, right?"
  
  "My apologies, little sheep. I'm headed the other way. I've come here to get outside." the mask replied, as he stepped around Merry and towards you. A shift in his step and he looms above you. Glass shards disappeared with the force he generated. An arm blocked his way.
  
  "Then it's a dead end" Merry refuted.
  
  "Regrettably it's a one way road. I'll force my way!" He roared.
  
  Merry smiles. The masked king of cats leaps in to the air and goes for a cut at Merry. She dodges it easily with a leap backwards. "I finally found a way! I'll make you take me back even if it's by force." Merry grinned.
  
  The mask stabbed at her with his long weapon; Merry simply leaps over with one hand tapping it for balance and lands behind him. The mask turns with impossible speed and swing the weapon back for another round. Merry leaps forward and slams her fist into the mask's gut, bringing him out the back of the house with an explosion. The mask grunts and backpeddles as he lands while Merry slides to a stop in front of him.
  
  You can only look at the scene dumbstruck.
  
  The mask chops down the weapon with black smoke trailing from the end, but Merry simply rolls out of the way "she's fast!" and punches the mask again. "And strong! That she'd have such power in those slender arms... Have I underestimated her based on her pretty appearance? Merry spins, gathering a powerful kick to the mask's head, which the mask barely blocks with his arms, uses her hands for leverage, and immediately deliver a kick to the side which the mask fails to block at all.
  
  "The boss is in a pinch! Commence supporting fire!" The cats bring out a cannon to blast Merry. With both the mask and the crowd to worry about, Merry won't stand a chance.
  
  > do nothing
  You're still dumbstruck by the fact that a pretty girl appeared out of nowhere to save your life; your arms hang limp by your side as you ignore the cats holding a cannon right next to you. A boom resounds. The cannon bal knocks Merry hard on her shoulder and she spins away. The mask took the opportunity and delivers a forceful slam with the weapon to Merry's torso, causing her to crash into several walls before going limp and falling into unconsciousness with her back propped up by the rubble. Her cloche flutters to the ground. The mask now turns to you. He swings his weapon.
  
  A swirl of black;
  
  A swirl of wind;
  
  A swirl of pain;
  
  A swirl of death.