For countless centuries, humans have needed the blessing of a good night’s sleep to perform the most basic of tasks. When the first humans were placed on the Earth by the gods, they needed a companion to assist them in their rest. This is the reason for Sandmen. It is unknown where the human term came from, but they have existed since the first beings walked along the earth.
They walk within two realms. They walk invisibly within the dimension of the sun and the Earth and travel short distances easily through the sky. They also walk within a dimension specifically created for their use. Their job is to seduce their charges into a sleep state so that their body can rest. In some cases, Sandmen can draw their charges’ subconscious being from their bodies into the dream realm. This realm can be manipulated by Sandmen—with the help of the subconscious spirit—to produce pleasant dreams or harrowing nightmares. While the Sandmen have great power in protecting their charge from the nightmares—and in most cases can stop them—they are sometimes unsuccessful.
As the population of the world increased far past the expectation of even the gods, the few Sandmen that had been created had to find another way to supply every human with a Sandman to supply them with sleep.
The original sandmen started recruiting humans to do the work for them. Humans that would die by valiant means—and their souls were accepted by the species—would be transported after death to the dream realm. Here, they were given an ultimatum. If they were to serve the Sandmen for one century, their souls would be transported back to the human world and they would be allowed to live their lives until their passing.
Character A lived long ago in the world of the living. Now, he is coming upon his hundredth year of being a Sandman. He has enjoyed his job and has done it well. Recently, he has been plagued by the worry of going back to his human form and starting over. He has grown attached to all of his charges, but he has been very connected with Character B.
Character B is a single woman living in a small town in the southern United States. She has lived in the area all of her life, and has recently returned after graduating from school to start a life of her own. Since her birth, Character A has been her Sandman. Every night, as she gets ready to sleep, he pulls himself from the dream realm to take her with him so that she may sleep.
Recently, while walking home with a friend from work, Character B and her friend were cornered in an alleyway by a mugger. In an attempt to save the both of them, Character B’s friend tries to save them by taking the knife away from the mugger and he ends up getting stabbed in the process. Character B tries to save her friend, but is unable to save him. She watches him die in her arms.
While the two weren’t great friends, it really scars her, and she blames herself. She relives the regret in her dreams and she’s begun to have more nightmares. Character A tries hard to stop the nightmares, but he is informed that—due to his exemplary work as a Sandman—he must train a new Sandman so that he can take his job when Character A goes back to Earth.
So begins Character A trying to train a new Sandman and help his charges at the same time. There’s only one problem with this new charge; he is Character B’s friend. While he accepted the task, he was unaware that one of his charges would be the person that he blames for his death. So, as Character A attempts to bring him along to assist in bringing his charges to a peaceful sleep he realizes that one of his charges will be the girl that got him killed. His pupil finds it much harder to bring people to sleep than Character A does, and soon enough, he causes havoc in the girl’s dream realm.
Using her regrets against her, the pupil sends her into night terrors. Character A believes that its just Character B’s conscious that causes these episodes, but soon, he begins to make assumptions. He must try to figure out and assist Character B while he adjusts to being a human again. Every day, he is allowed a little more time on Earth. It begins with only a second or two a day, but it slowly evolves into minutes and hours on Earth.
That is more time that his pupil has to exact revenge on Character B.
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