The Interview

Stop Anti Nightmare Prejudice: Interview with Johnathan Spencer of the Nightmare Auditors

Good morning Johnathan. We’re running a documentary on anti Nightmare prejudice and as such we felt it was important to talk to one of the brave souls who keep our frightening friends on the straight and narrow: The Nightmare Auditors.

 

Thanks. It’s a pleasure to be able to raise awareness of what we do.

I guess the obvious first question, Johnathan, is what exactly does a Nightmare Auditor do?

I guess there’s two answers to that question: the Ministry line and my personal take on that line.

The Ministry defines what we do as “policing the provision of negative reinforcement experiences, keeping them within the boundaries of the Terror Accords as defined by Her Majesties”.

That’s a pretty clinical way of describing it.

 

Yes. Yes it is.

The way I see it is like this: People need nightmares to help create balance in their imaginations. It’s why the War ended and their Majesties decided to work as one after all.

Now, some Nightmares aren’t very good at scaring people, either through being too soft hearted, needing better technique or any number of other more trivial issues. We’re there to help those Nightmares hone their skills and get to the point where they can scare dreamers, harvest imagination and do so safely for all involved. That’s the nice side of being a Nightmare Auditor. Helping others and making sure they are happy with their work and within themselves.

The other side of what we do is less pleasant. When Nightmares get out of hand or even go rogue entirely it is up to us to stop them. We have several specialist teams for this purpose as well as a few specialised agents from among the Old Nightmares. We utilise the latest in detection technology as well as bespoke weaponry designed with our specialists in mind. We take our work in this respect very seriously indeed.

You said that dreamers need nightmares. Care to elaborate on that?

 

Dreamers need Nightmares as a counterpoint to what they feel in dreams. Dreams in which you have courage do not necessarily make you courageous without the corresponding Nightmare to teach what fear feels like. Nightmares can warn dreamers of moral pitfalls they are walking into or of events in their lives that are taking unexpected turns. This is where anxiety dreams such as myself play a vital role. It is our solemn belief that it is impossible for a being to know right and wrong if they have never been shown what “wrong” is. It was based on this understanding that her Majesties founded our nation as we currently know it.

Quite so. A final question for you then. What are your feelings about these dream vigilante groups, hunting nightmares and preaching that only dreams are needed in the realms of imagination.

 

I feel about them in much the same way I do about Nightmares who go rogue. I feel anger and a little pity. Nightmares who go rogue often rave about the supremacy of the Nightmare Kingdom and the right to savage the dreamers as we see fit. Vigilante Dreamers such as the Sons of Morpheus preach much the same. The only difference is they see an endless kingdom of dream where they may frolic and play with the dreamers as they please. This is still wrong.

No group has sole rights over the dreamers. There must be balance or the realms of imagination become less varied and magical with every passing day, damaging the tapestries permanently.

I cannot stand for that. We cannot stand for that.

Thank you Johnathan for your quick insight into Nightmare Auditing. Next week, we’ll be interviewing Valravn, one of the top hunters for the Nightmare Auditors about the dangers inherent in his work and why one of the Old Ones would choose to do it.

Endeavour

In April I won the inaugural Whitby Goth Weekend Story Slam. I had a short story titled Endeavour (which was the theme). Here it is again for my own personal record. Hope you like it.

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The Executive Auditor delivered her orders with a level of fire usually reserved for a visit from Control.
“Many people dream of Endeavour and what it represents. Exploration, adventure, colonialism! Something has been hijacking this psychic traffic to feed and it has fallen to us to clean up.”
“Response level?”
“Termination approved. This is serious.”

Thankfully, the intruder wasn’t hard to sniff out….

Perfume. A woman’s scent, on a ship without women. Any woman here should have been among the dreamers, rainbow shadows on our awareness. Somebody didn’t belong…
I advised Cook that the crew be confined to quarters until an all clear was given. Civilian casualties upon the Endeavour would only make a bad situation worse.
I followed the scent into the hold of the ship, rats following in my wake, dark eyes darting back and forth.
The smell began to take on additional tones. There was shame. Regret. Inadequacy…. Fear. I saw the empty shells of dreamers, drained of essence, just gossamer whispers. I saw children amongst them.
I felt cold rage rising….

I found the barrel she used as a gate. Clever girl, she hid elsewhere so we wouldn’t spot her.
Dragging it onto the deck I removed my gloves and altered her ward. What was once a clever escape was now a one way tunnel to me. All I had to do was wait.

She appeared as a sailorman’s dream, all consumption white skin and blushing lips, wrapped in a ragged dress that did little to hide her… physical beauty, playing the victim to draw in her prey. Seeing me she approached, smiling and swaying her hips. Her teeth were razors behind that coy smile. She came within inches of me, the promise and threat of a kiss on those blood red lips. Lips with shreds of gossamer on them….
She was the one….
The ice cold fury returned, dousing the heat of desire as quickly as it came. I pushed her away, my power manifesting as the ship’s lanterns started to gutter and die around us.

She backed away then, awareness dawning in those huge, captivating eyes of hers. She had played on the feelings of men regarding women. She fed upon their fears, their inadequacies and their… hungers.
She had tainted their dreams, going so far as to target curious children and any other poor soul who dreamed of Cook or his ship.

I reached up and removed my human mask, revealing the face of nightmare as old as man, the hunger of darkness and the blood drenched terror of prey. She began screaming then, her eyes very nearly popping from her head. Her large, delicious eyes….
The sound of ravens filled a deck now heaving with darkness as through them a solitary scream rose higher and higher in pitch and volume until…. Silence.
I donned my mask and signalled the all clear to the dreams in hiding. Sparing a glance for the tatters of dress on deck, I made my excuses… and left.