Information

Teros has a minion!

Fear the Fire Carrier

Teros
Legacy Name: Teros

The

Nightmare Ghostly
Owner:

Pureflower

Age: 10 years, 4 months, 3 weeks

Born: November 25th, 2013

Adopted: 10 years, 4 months, 3 weeks ago

Adopted: November 25th, 2013

Pet Spotlight Winner
January 30th, 2017

Statistics

Level: 47
Strength: 81
Defense: 10
Speed: 10
Health: 10
HP: 10/10
Intelligence: 94
Books Read: 68
Food Eaten: 0
Job: Pawnbroker

The Keeper of Fears has no fears of his own. The hours of night are his domain, the time when his charges are unleashed upon the world.

One takes the form of an oozing slug monster that chases a little child down a maze of endless corridors. Another dons a shadowy cloak, grinning and baring viper fangs at a man whose weak heart stutters as he sleeps. A third prowls the grassy field patrolled by a fine pair of hounds, causing the dogs to growl and twitch at their master's feet.

He does not create the nightmare visions that his creatures disperse. Human imagination provides plenty of fuel for that flame. He is merely an observer.

There is only one piece of furniture in the gloomy underground cave where he resides. It is a shelf lined with voodoo dolls, each pieced together with ragged bits of cloth and clumsy stitches. He sews by the light of a single black candle that never burns out, one for each new fear that enters the world. His creatures seek the haven of these dolls in the gray hours of dawn, fleeing the rising sun. Fear loses its power to light if the exposure is prolonged.

He does not discriminate by age, race, or species. All creatures are merely nourishment to him and all look the same, except for one.

*****

She's not much to look at. She has no talents worth mentioning, at least not according to her parents, siblings, teachers, and childhood friends. There is really only one thing that sets Lydie apart from all the other average humans of the world.

Lydie is incapable of feeling fear.

She did not cry and shrink away like the other children when a snake made it through the playground fence. She watched with interest as it attacked a stuffed koala dropped by the crying boy who had run away screaming. She did not even blink when the snake turned its head in her direction. It was not until the teacher's aide snatched her hand and dragged her back that she realized anything was wrong. Snakes passed through Mother's garden all the time. No big deal.

Her heart did not race the time a truck almost hit her in the street. Her palms were dry at the moment she asked out the cutest boy in class and she merely shrugged when he turned her down. Her first job interview was a smashing success. Her boss was amazed at the confident way in which she answered every question without once uttering the dreaded "um".

She has listened to stories of nightmares and even read books containing vivid dreams but her dreams are always mundane. She almost wishes she could react to the night visions that start out in a creepy alleyway but always end with her pointing out that monsters are illogical, only to have them vanish in a puff of smoke.

*****

Teros watches her warily. Not even the Spectral Fear, the terror that has toppled presidents and dictators, can penetrate her skull.

The Keeper knows he was not there when the universe formed. He knows he had a life before this, though it is one he no longer remembers. The only way to become Keeper is to erase a Fear from the world. He succeeded almost a thousand years ago. In nine hundred years, a few humans have come close, but none have matched his success.

Perhaps the Keeper does have one fear after all: the fear of being replaced.

Story by Pureflower
Profile by Flier
Background from Here