A nightmare named 'reality'

Amanda.

Amanda yanked up the thick combat boots she'd bought online using a sizable portion of the money she'd earned while working part-time at a local diner. The young woman grunted as she fought to shove her foot ever deeper into the tight, semi-flexible dura-plastic material.

Her finger strained, knuckles whitening, teeth on the verge of cracking for all the effort she expended.

It was a damned fight for every inch that her toes scraped further and further into the infuriating footwear, the struggle so visceral that she was bearing her teeth and snarling while rocking back on her bed, trying to caox every modicum of leverage she could in any manner available to her!

The brainiac she'd bought them from, one 'Darrel Smith', suspicious as his name had been, had, on his website, guaranteed both fast and easy change times, as well as quality. Clearly attempting to corner the market of aspiring up-and-coming do-gooders or ne'er-do-wells who needed to rely on quick transitions from civilian clothes to durable super-powered costumes.

Yet, as the teen felt the entirety of her leg and arm muscles bulge with the small war she was fighting against her own clothes, she felt her foot pass through a snug section before her toes finally touch its blackened steel caps.

"...What the hell!" She complained aloud, breathing heavily while keeping her foot held in the air, glaring at the damned 'bullshit' she'd evidently fallen for with accusing eyes. "That, hah… was not quick or easy!"

All the same, and with a small sigh, she flipped back up, her body practically whipping upright with an acrobatic pop!

She had to admit that the things were damn comfortable. If not a touch too tight for socks…

Hm… she could deal with going barefoot, she was sure; her snuggling feet practically melting amidst almost silky lining that was positively wonderful to experience.

In fact, she could almost say she was cradled in god's very own slippers!

At the same time, there was an appreciable light weight and flexibility to the sole that made walking around a breeze, and she suspected 'running' to feel as though she were wearing sneakers that contrasted against their bulky black appearance.

Exitedly, Amanda moved to the mirror, smiling at herself while twisting and turning from left to right, admiring the impressive figure she cut from legs to back muscles. She was ready.

Oh god, was she ready!

In fact, she'd 'been' ready for a whole damned month already but, annoyingly, hadn't been able to follow through with her plans, partially because of her parents. But mostly because the freaking snake-oil salesman of a brainiac she'd bought her mask and boots from had screwed up the shipping.

Somehow, despite all his evident 'intelligence', the super had managed to send her package to a mail center literally on the other side of town! And he hadn't even offered a refund, nor any meaningful form of customer service.

What a jerk!

No, Amanda had needed to catch a bus four entire hours out of her way after work just to collect what was supposed to come to her parents' house.

It was beyond infuriating!

Worse?

The carefully laden plans she'd made with her friends had been completely derailed!

She didn't hold being left behind with any real resentment, after all, she understood why they hadn't waited, for the second time, yet it still made all of this somewhat bittersweet.

And yet, the girl had to admit, the boots were, yeah... they were pretty amazing...

Amanda was practically walking on air! And, with both boots now on, it was time to put the 'cherry' on top of her ice cream.

All that was left was the mask.

Reaching over to pluck the object of her near giddy joy from its priorly tightly packed and vacuum-sealed box, Amanda pushed away all the excess plastic film and styrofoam to hold in her hands the final piece of her costume!

The same one that would mark the very first moment that 'Miss Liminal', her super awesome and kick-ass super-heroine alter-ego, would take the stage and appear!

Soon, with any luck, she'd become the bane of any and all local crime syndicates that dared operate around her home turf. Making a name for herself in the hero circuit, going on talk shows, getting featured by the HNN...

It was her dream.

The dream.

Everyone wanted to be a hero! It was just that, not everyone could...

Power's could be, mhmm... fickle things... And though many of the low rankers gave it their all, and in fact, she even followed quite a few of them, the reality was that there was very little room for progression in the professional rankings unless you were born powerful.

Thankfully, Amanda had been born with breathtaking, if not necessarily 'brutish' abilities.

Slowly, almost reverently, Mandy placed the featureless and white harlequin mask over her face and felt its chilly suction pull into a snug fit, gently reshaping itself as it moulded to her blushing cheeks.

All the while, she just—stood there, taking in long and steady breaths before grinning and opening her eyes.

Before her was a figure shrouded in mystery.

Her form was covered from feet to shoulders in high-tech, low-budget, brainiac tech spandex, matte black and devoid of any colour, of course.

On Amanda's chest was a thin bullet-proof vest suitable for calibres up to the standard nine-millimeter and stated to be highly resistant against heavier small arms.

On her knees and elbows, thick and tough-to-the-touch padding with gel interiors; on her hands, duro-weave rubber gloves!

Lower, a tactical belt was filled to the brim with zip-ties, pepper spray, a high-voltage taser, and, of course, her junior vigilante ID, all of which clung snugly to her waist.

Easy to reach, easy to see, and entirely Batman-like.

Function and form.

Her recently cut hair hung down around her jaw, the artificial dye she'd applied to its fringes giving her otherwise basic and boring golden hair some much-needed dramatic flare of bright neon green, the shading completing her persona in a way that just made her want to squeal with excitement!

"This is really happening!" She sang! Preening at how badass she looked while staring into the glowing Eldritch gaze of her hauntingly pitiless mask. Why, Amanda was practically able to feel the piss running down the legs of the first shit-heads she stumbled upon!

She was so excited that she hardly even noticed when she seamlessly shifted from ogling fan-girl, lost in her own echochamber of hype, to a popping and locking dance diva!

Her hips and hair swaying and flinging to the upbeat tune of a song only she could hear in the confines of her thoughts, grin wide as could be, bright sky-blue eyes sparkling behind her mask, even if its haunting eyes flared with ominous discoloration...

That was when she heard it.

A slight rattle from her door.

She didn't pay it much heed at first, hardly even registering the sound before a much more discernable thump caused her to practically leap from her skin!

Slowly and unbeknownst to the previously dancing girl, the cold chill that had crept in all around her as she bobbed and weaved now caused her breaths to build up slick condensation against her face...

The abrupt change in temperature was as bizarre as it was sudden, and the chill caused the young woman's skin to prickle.

Slowly, she paused, body winding down from explosive exuberance to a much more hesitant and uncertain tension. Her expression shifting to the pensive...

The world slowly drained of color, her bedroom twisting at a deranged axis, and though part of her mind was already waking, the realm of shifting nightmare still felt all too real for the young woman suffering its transition.

All at once, Amanda felt her stomach plunge in a despairingly familiar manner that often emerged as her dreams shifted toward horror...

Her excitement faltered, and in its place, an overwhelming dread overtook her prior delight as though the reaper's own scythe had just tickled the string of her soul.

It was violating.

Wrong and so much more than merely unpleasant!

Amanda felt attacked!

She felt—hemmed in!

Clostrophobic as glacial water in the form of sweat dripped down her spine as though it leaked from a siv.

Amanda spun, heart thumping at a rapid beat, breaths coming faster and faster as the lights around her flickered and darkness consumed her world!

Laughter.

The madness.

A familiar 'friend' that only left her during those brief spans where she got to relive a happy moment of her past.

A terrible creature that was both familiar and oh so alien for the younger version of herself now hunched in on her own body with uncertainty.

Her gaze fell upon the source of those nightmarish and psychotic chortles that rang through her mind like a tolling bell as, all around her, a legion of grinning shades emerged from the floor, crawling and writhing, their forms misshapen and grotesque!

People all of an all too familiar appearance manifested from the ground as laughing shadows of her past, their bodies ruined and broken, filled with holes, torn apart, burned to cinder and glowing ash, squished in some cases and flopping like limp pancakes...

Each and every one of them—her.

They didn't say a word, they just laughed.

Laughed their deranged insanity as loudly and merrily as they could, all of them crowding around as if to deafen her in noise!

And yet, as Amanda ground her teeth and dug in her shoulders, her subconscious was now well used to the horrid abhorrences that surrounded her, mind resisting the symphony of a madwoman years in the making.

Rather, it was the sound of something far worse that next caught her ear and gave her another cold shiver.

Without warning, all the voices quieted, silencing themselves as one within an eerie moment of unsettling unity. The shades, each and every one a brutalized version of her theoretical self, all merely stared, white teeth gleaming amidst the gloom.

It began with a second rattle.

The soft wiggle of her door's handle, the gentle whisper of a hand brushing its surface.

Nervously, her gaze fell upon the lone wooden entrance leading to her room, all her doppelgangers following the movement. All abruptly listening to the soft sounds of a stranger trying to enter from the other side.

Thankfully, it was locked, yet the subtle 'rasp' of dragging nails and questing fingers alluded to something from the other side gently beginning to scrabble at the edges…

Scritch scratch, scritch scratch… the door knob beginning to wobble and shake with intestity...

Her breath held tightly, the young woman felt herself back away, eyes growing wide with concern as the noise abruptly became deafening!

Scratch, scratch… Scritch, scratch, scratch… Bang! Bang, bang, scratch, scratch, bang! Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang—

Amanda's eyes shot open!

A fresh layer of sweat had formed at her brow as the pounding flooded the room!

It was like a dozen baseball bats were being pitted against a steel door, the racket redoubling with each passing minute, bombarding the apartment with noise and jarring clatter.

For a few moments, Amanda just sat there, her chest heaving, salty droplets dripping from her brow. At the door, her barricade was already slowly shifting, every moment allowing the constant and slight rock that had developed to threaten disaster.

She—sighed… hands pressing against her face to rub thoroughly at her eyes before she just clamped them as hard as she could to let out a silent scream of frustration!

Not even in her dreams was she free from this waking hellhole of a—

Bang!

Her eyes whipped sidelong, head dipping to the left, her gaze fixating on the very first of her erected defences as it clattered to the ground...

No more than a mop that she'd found to help 'reinforce' the makeshift barrier she'd set up, but… Ignoring why she'd even bothered with it, Amanda could already see how the rest of what she'd piled against the door was beginning to shift and rattle with unnerving regularity.

The sheer staccato of ceaseless and ravenous hands smashing at the only thing separating her from the outside horde let her know that there were potentially dozens upon dozens of the creatures that had found her…

"Fuck…"

She hadn't spoken the curse aloud so much as she'd whispered it. Not expressly because she was worried about being 'discovered', but it was more a developed habit at this point, and even then, it had merely become something she practiced for the sake of others rather than herself.

The 'things' trying to get inside were notorious for having excellent hearing, yet she practically growled in her head as she rose from her thin blanket and quickly began packing everything she'd left scattered around her.

Amanda moved with conditioned ease, working without anxiety or terror, despite her situation, merely focused on getting the job done.

Lastly, though she had a mental count in her head, Amanda checked the state of her weapons, again, not because she was forgetful, but rather, that she, at times, couldn't always tell what was her current reality, and what was—well, something a touch more alternate than her immediate and sometimes jumbled memories.

Three bullets in the Glock.

Four in the Smith and Weston…

Six still in the tiny purse revolver she'd found, two more in a Sig she'd discovered around three months back, so far, her favourite gun to shoot. And, there were another five in a second Glock chambered for the larger forty-five caliber that kicked like a horse in her small hands.

It was—honesty? Sort of light so far as things went…

Though it was also not very much of a surprise.

Amanda had been somewhat neglecting her stores of ammunition as of late… putting off the inevitable for no greater reason than that it was 'busy work', and simply put, a chore she had to deal with that wasn't at all interesting.

Truth be told, her 'easy' manner of acquiring new ammunition was—boring. And she'd hoped to find a nice cache belonging to some old-world nutjob apocalypse prepper while haunting this particular and overtly be-flagged apartment.

As if all the tiny handguns they stockpiled and posted online would stop a cataclysmic event like a nuclear holocaust from turning them into 'people-soup'...

Oh well, their collections often made for wonderful treasure troves! Metal and plastic having survived the deadly plague that had crippled its creators, so it was usually big win for her whenever she did find such exhibitions.

Alas, Amanda had achieved no such luck… So, instead, she began unstrapping everything of value from her person while musing over, at what point, all the ghouls had managed to find her.

If she had to guess, it was probably the dreadful screaming amidst yet another night terror.

She'd been told it sounded positively ghoulish!

With a groan, the young woman sighed and got to work, slowly, unstrapping her now packed away gear so she might set it aside for what was to come...