It was a new day at the Slender mansion, and Nightmare had made breakfast for everyone, including Eyeless Jack and his unique feeding habits. Sally wanted to play despite Nightmare's insistence upon reading the tomes, and somehow, one thing led to another, and they were playing Liberian. It gave him little bits of time before he had to "find the disruptive child and kick her out" in Sally's words. So he eagerly absorbed the words on the page until their was an ear shattering scream that nearly scared the corruption off of him. He searched for any trace of her negativity, but it seemed it was just part of this game of hers. With a soft sigh, he closed up the book and put it where he located it to look for the child. She screamed again when he entered the hall, and he went into the direction of her voice. "Got roped into the child's game?" LJ asked, and Nightmare nodded. "she is a persistent one, that girl." He replied as he followed her screams out into the front of the house. From out there, he scanned the woods, spotting something in the bushes.

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"sally, the woods are no place to play. you could get lost or harmed, or worse." He frowned. The intent of this thing was darker, anticipation rising in chest as Nightmare drew closer. An enemy was all he could assume. How did it find Slenderman's pocket dimension, though? Surely it couldn't be this easy for his enemies to break into it? Nightmare supposed it was his job to kick this creature back out... or kill it if it became a nuisance. The creature lashed out when Nightmare got to close, three claws tearing into his chest, but Nightmare was anticipating this and picked the thing up with his tendrils. It was thin and boney, human by shape with wide white eyes. It struggled and cried in Nightmare's grip. Panicked that its attack didn't work. "Rake!" Sally came running up from behind him. "excuse me?" Nightmare looked between Sally and the creature. "That's what it's called the Rake. It takes asylum in these woods on occasion when mister Z is out and about... and if mister Z is about, usually we stay here because only Slendy can deal with mister Z." Nightmare hummed noncommittally and dropped the Rake, letting it scurry off to stars knows where.

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All in all, Slenderman had a nice night with Error. The skeleton was a bit of a child, but in a way that Slender found endearing. He supposed he was reminded of Sally when she first came to live with him. She was stubborn and rude and unable to share her favorites. He had a feeling that Nightmare didn't knit. Thus, Error got away with it. Still, they had fun and made some things- dolls in Error's case. He loved to make little dolls of skeletons. Slender assumed Error had met them at some point or another in his life, then decided to make them by memory for the fun of it. Slender decided on a beanie he thought Horror might like and made matching ones for Dust and Killer, too. A peace offering of sorts. Horror came in to get Slender for breakfast, something that he wasn't exactly used to. He usually was the one making breakfast. "Where is Dust?" He noticed the absence of the only one he hadn't properly met immediately. "he's working through his lv. he'll be back." Killer replied. Slender supposed bed have to give Dust his beanie later, then.

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The two skeletons seemed to accept the gifts, though Killer refused to wear his as Slender searched the library. He didn't mind, really. It was Killer's choice to keep it or throw it. Wear it or hide it. Slenderman was just trying to show his peace. The last thing he expected was for Dust to appear, his back slamming into the heavy shelf as he slid down, wounded. "dust!" Killer was there in an instant, and Slenderman crouched down to assess his wounds. "th-those damn stars... they ambushed me..." Dust hissed between breaths. "c'mon..." Killer wrapped Dust's arm around his neck. "let's get you to the infirmary..." He seemed to have completely forgotten about Slenderman as he worried over his friend. This was fine by him. It gave him a chance to back trace Dust's location and teleport there himself. The location was a snowy forest, most of the trees knocked down or completely obliterated. It was easy to find the two who hurt his charge and spear them through with his tendrils. One gave him a look of shock, while the other melted into ink. "This is your only warning. Hurt one of those boys again, I will tear you apart, limb from limb."

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Nightmare wanted to meet this 'Z' character. See what the deal was. He decided to shoo Sally off to the others and go meet him himself. If this was the man he would have to protect this Slenderman's people from, he needed to be aware of his strengths and weaknesses. It took longer than he would've liked, to draw him out, but it happened eventually as he roamed the woods outside of a nearby small town. The negativity was strong here, the people sickly and getting worse. Nightmare greedily absorbed that negativity, which in turn caught Z's attention. Z was different from those he met before, horned and pitch black in color. Hungry red mouths covered Z's body. "Would you look at that? My virus has no effect on you." Z hissed out. "so you are my opponent, hm? you will be quite bothersome, with all those gluttonous mouths. i must say, i'm actually disappointed." Nightmare replied calmly as he looked up boredly at the creature. Z was not pleased. "You insolent creature!" Before Zalgo could do anything, he found himself trapped in a living nightmare where he would be for a while.