John Dee/Doctor Destiny

Subject Facts

Full Name: John Dee
Codename: Doctor Destiny
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Archetype: Meta-Villain
Aliases: The Nightmare King, Dreamstrider, Skeletor, the Dream Demon
Marital Status: Single
Affiliation: Forever Alone

Subject Attributes

Meta-Human Abilities:
•Dream Manipulation: Wielding the Materioptikon grants Dr. Destiny the ability to manipulate the very fabric of dreams, how others dream, and create and manipulate dreamworlds and dream realities. He can travel through sleeping minds in an instant, and warp what others see, hear, and feel within them to his heart’s content. Under normal circumstances, Dreams are merely a collection of hopes ideas and the twisted machinations of the minds eye, real but on another plane of existence. The Materioptikon is also able to project these images from the Dreamworld and make both dreams and nightmares into tangible matter in our world. These creatures often turn on those who dreamt them up.

Standard Abilities:

•Genius Level Intellect: Dr. John Dee, in spite of his lunacy is an unparalleled genius. Though his expertise lies mainly in the study of dreams and nightmares, he is also an expert an inventor, most prominently creating an anti gravity device and tampering with the Dreamstone to create his Materioptikon

•Occult Knowledge: In his study of dreams and nightmares, Destiny began dabbling in occult studies and parapsychology, particularly in the realm of Morpheus. In tampering with Morpheus’ Dreamstone and creating the Materioptikon, Dee was able to stride through dreams creating nightmares on a whim and fracturing minds as he saw fit.

Paraphernalia:

•Materioptikon: Destiny’s precious Materioptikon is the source of all his power. The original Materioptikon came from Dream the Endless. A portion of Dream’s power was transferred into the Dreamstone, and when John Dee got his hands on it, he tweaked it and bent the stone to his will. The original was far more powerful, but was ultimately destroyed, resulting in Dream getting all his power back... However, John has since learned how to create his own Dreamstone, and though they are nowhere near the sophistication of Dream the Endless’, they serve John well.


Subject Weaknesses:

•Physical Frailty: Due to Destiny's inability to dream, his skin has withered and dried and his bones have become brittle. Without the empowerment of his Materioptikon, Destiny is left in a wheelchair bound state and in Arkham usually requires the aide of another inmate or nurse to wheel him around.

•Criminal Insanity: Destiny's inability to dream had fractured his mind and driven him insane. He has a warped view of reality, and sleep deprivation often causes him uncontrollable hallucinations.

•Withered Appearance: Let's be honest, in Destiny's current state, his appearance does him no favors. His corpse like skin and texture is downright ugly and repulsive and adds very little to charisma. Not only is he downright hideous, but he acts like a filthy degenerate, cruel and a bit raunchy at times. He is insane, ugly, and totally unlikeable

•Dreamstone: Without his dreamstone, Destiny is less then worthless in a fight. All of his power stems from the stone's abilities, without it he is simple a frail husk of a man. That being said, it could be incredibly easy to defeat the dream lord should he lose his stone. Not only is he useless without the stone, he is also addicted to it, he is miserable and suffering without it and experiences symptoms of withdrawal when it’s out of his grasp.

•Sleeping Beauties: Destiny's abilities derive from dreaming which requires sleep. He can only invade minds once they've fallen into slumber, and can only animate dreams of those currently asleep.

Subject History

Long ago, an ancient entity named Dream was jailed by a licentious cult. His jailers stole his freedom and his tools, one of which was the mighty Dreamstone. One of the cultists had a fling with a woman named Ethel Cripps, and they had a son named John. Ethel swindled the stone, leaving the cultist and taking their son, John. Apart from that, John Dee’s childhood and teenage years are a mystery. John grew to be a handsome young man, downright dreamy, and as fate would have it, he became obsessed with sleep, dreams, and prophecies. But, his mother’s Dreamstone slowly eroded his mind and warped his brain. He dabbled in bizarre experiments, and created questionable inventions with questionable intentions. But, he became disillusioned with the humdrum day to day, and dreamed of something grander. To be a God, like the clashing titans of the Justice and Injustice League. He took on the moniker of Destiny, Doctor Destiny, kidnapping Green Lantern with an anti-gravity machine, and posing as him in the Justice League. Ultimately, the plan failed and the League casted him aside like moldy garbage.

John was incarcerated for his crimes, labeled as a low life and a joke villain. He was a failure with grand ambitions, sulking in prison like a miserable rat. Taking pity upon her loving son, Cripps let John have his inheritance early, and so Dr. Destiny was gifted the Dreamstone. He tampered with the gem, and created the Materioptikon which allowed him to escape and seek revenge on the Justice League. He sent his enemies to a nightmare world... A world run by a tyrannical fascist version of themselves, but eventually they defeated the doubles and Destiny. But this time, they sent him to Arkham, in hopes that the doctors could take away his ability to dream, and in turn take away his ability to plague them. It did not neutralize his powers as they’d hoped... The Materioptikon’s corruption and John’s inability to sleep drove him insane beyond compare.

Dee's hatred for the League only festered as he sat in Arkham, alone and forgotten. His mental state deteriorating, and his skin now shriveling up and dying. The inability to dream withered Dee into a shriveled corpse of a man, wailing insane pleas and howls in the halls of Arkham. After years of avoiding her son, Cripps decided to visit her beloved son. Yet, the abhorrent sight was too much for her to bare. Unable to cope with the pitiful wretch that had once been her beautiful and creative boy, Ethel Cripps committed suicide. She left only a protective amulet, which Destiny used to escape Arkham. He hunted down his stone and retrieved his ruby... Reunited with his precious Materioptikon, John went on a twenty-four hour rampage. Ensnaring a group of innocents at a diner, and forcing them into depraved and hedonistic acts for his own amusement before finally killing them.

Destiny’s fun was over, and he sat bored amidst the carnage he had instilled in that little diner, bored and disinterested. It was here that Dream confronted the lunatic and begged for the return of his Dreamstone, but Destiny had other plans... Wishing to become sole ruler of sleep, God of all dreaming, Destiny challenged Morpheus and they battled across various sleeping minds. But then, in a stroke of lunacy, John tried to destroy the Dreamstone, hoping Dream would die along with it. This instead empowered Dream, returning the Lord to his full strength. Dream took pity on the creature, in spite of his horrid crimes... For Destiny’s madness came from his Dreamstone. So, he gifted John a night’s rest and sent him back to Arkham peacefully.

But, the madness of John Dee would not end there... With his occult knowledge and expertise on the Dreamscape, John crafted another, albeit flawed, Materioptikon. Doing battle with the Justice League once more, John lost his stone, and when it was recovered by the villain Red King, Destiny found himself trapped within. But was freed when the Justice League intervened. With his precious ruby in hand, Destiny continues to jump from mindscape to mindscape in a fruitless quest to become a god.

Subject Interview

In a fruitless world, dreams are of little consequence. Fantasies and delusions of grandeur, bubbling and boiling in a brain gone rogue. Maddening desires which torment and tantalize the imaginative with implausible realms. An unyielding cry for something better, something beautiful, something which is just out of your reach. It’s a euphoric experience, to want. A feeling of which all sentient creatures can relate. Yet, this desire for something more, this drive to achieve, it is systematically weeded out of every human child post a mere thirteen years of age. University and dull and meaningless careers become the status quo, hammered into the human psyche through schoolings and the pressure of peers. At a young age, it's a wish upon a star. Upon maturity, it’s psychosis. When you dare to dream, express desire,

One man. This man, this… Creature. It dared to dream. Dream of something bigger. Something better. Something grandiose and guttural! But it was condemned. Damned and deemed insane. They didn't understand. No one understands! The madness! The beauty and the madness!! By the power of Morpheous. Hypnos. Epiales the children of Nyx!! Cast your gaze upon undiluted horror and chaos of D o c t o r D e s t i n y

But where is he?
Is he dreaming?
Is he dead?
Does it even matter?

Does anything matter?
I don't think so.
I don't think anything matters.
Why should it?

This is all a dream.
An endless void of nothingness.
Would you believe me?
Could you believe me?
No one ever does...

You have crossed over into the the Twilight Zone. But you are not you, and I am not me. You are in a dream. A daze. A haze. Delightful. A maddening tale, with whispers in the dark and a holocaust of... Well, nothing. The word holocaust is just big and fancy. Is this the mind of John Dee? Are these the deranged and damaged thoughts of an Arkham Inmate? These words? This twinkling nothingness? No... It is a tale. A tale, course and rough like sand. The sandman's sand. What are these words!? Get them out of my head!! Get them out I say!!! Get them out!! Get them out!! "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!"

GET OUT!!

Of my...

My...

My dreams...

But I can't dream...

Can I?

In my dreams,

I could be anything

I could be....

Day 1

The dry and crusty sand felt coarse and crispy as it rustled through his toes. It was perhaps the only vaguely comfortable sensation the creature felt, trudging through that scorching heat as he was. A vaguely humanoid form huddled itself within a decrepit and dull looking old trench coat. It had partaken in an almost inexplicable trek across the country. A statewide odyssey spanning an almost inhuman voyage on foot. At least this was what it appeared to be at first glance. In reality, there was some vague method to it’s madness. Some end goal which drove this creature to traverse these hellish dunes, and suffer through blistering heat. Some faint desire, cryptic and downright insane. Images and fuzzy inclinations invaded his thoughts, and his prayers. An intense and maddening urge to trek a nigh nineteen hundred miles to some backwater wasteland at the center nowhere on earth. Yet, here he was, with whatever obscene force driving him forward. Some unknowable power influencing his very primal instincts. It left with him an intense and empty desire to wander, almost aimlessly, in search of some unknown goal. Was he mad? Undoubtedly. But, that did not mean there was no supernatural force at work here. No man, sane or otherwise, would dare trek through this ungodly heat. The sun boiling his blood, and blinding gusts of sand whisked through the wind. At the very least, the aforementioned unbearable sun was slowly beginning to subside. A glistening white orb seized it's reign from that point on. It was almost magical, stars sparkling and dancing around a heavenly white ball in the sky. One final gust of wind rustled sand particles across his coat, and then… Nothing.

A haunting stillness wafted about the air. The sudden foul stench of disparity cursed the oxygen around him, lingering and burning in his nostrils. A foul taste was cursed upon his tongue, that of the very same disparity which persisted for what felt like eternity. Struggling up one final dune, the creature spotted it… The sight brought a tingle down his spine, the ruby lenses of his eyes adjusted themselves to keep focus. A decrepit little village from off in the distance, rustic and… A tad hideous, truthfully. Fields of sand and bits of dry grass swarmed menacingly around it, a hazy miasma of dull fog blanketed the entire town. At the core of it all was a dilapidated circle of rickety and rotting old buildings, few of which housed only a handful of townsfolk. This handful was all the population could even muster up.

The cold embrace of fog met the creature almost immediately. An unwelcoming gesture which cradled him under an uneasy chill. The only thing more unwelcoming were the townsfolk themselves. As an outsider, very little trust was granted to him by this droll little civilization. Not a single “Hello” was granted to him that evening, in part attributed to the simple fact, that not a single soul dared to leave their dwelling. Fear and suspicion clouded the atmosphere, dim and frantic eyes peered at him through foggy glass. A palpable sense of dread and angst blanketed him upon arrival. Not fear on his part, rather; an entire hamlet of frightened and tortured souls. It, the shrouded figure, gazed back at them with expressionless yet luminous red eyes. Murky and dull red eyes with an almost primitive curiosity. Yet there was something beautiful to them, as if gazing upon a sea of crimson water rippling against the shore with lackadaisical intensity. Losing interest in the unfortunate souls amongst him, the creature instead shifted his fiery gaze elsewhere. A battered and mildewy old sign which read simply as “Welcome to Destiny Rock”. The creature’s eyes glew brighter than before. As if it were experiencing some, tingling... Acutely sexual and malign pleasure from that droll name. His red eyes shimmered intently. A fiery ire, intense and almost happy.

The sign was baffling to the creature. Beautiful, yet baffling. After an eternity of silence, the shrouded figure gave some guttural hiss "Dee... Onlookers from afar gazed on in horror. Jolted by that raspy whispering echo. "Dee." It hissed a second time. This one, just as cold and just as peculiar as the last. Those ravishing ruby eyes flashed and glittered tones of dark maroon. Then ruby, and raspberry, and then vermilion. All different hues and colors of glinting golden red, crackling in it's eyes like an open flame. "Dee?" That same single phrase has been reiterated thrive now. This one, less harsh and foul. More quiet, and innocent. Like the query of a curious child. Sparkles of shimmering purple, blue, and red twinkled in an inexplicable purple aura. The crackling colors came with light and delicate flutter of his trench coat, whisking the tail end in one nonexistent breeze. "Dee is for Destiny...."

Day 2

The townsfolk were... Most displeased. This unwanted unknown creature spent the night. It remained at that rickety village from dusk until dawn. Like some alleyway tabby or disregarded pup, it blissfully toiled on with whatever ambiguous business it went about doing; aimlessly adrift through the sandy cobbled roads. Once dawn had finally arose, the creature’s meandering found itself stumbling upon a curious little establishment: “Bea’s General Goods”. With blank expressionless eyes the creature ogled at the shop's rickety old. It creaked in the wind, swaying too a fro with not a care in the world. It's eyes, void of any thought. Void of any reason outside of empty madness... Merely stated. This vacuous empty stare seemed to be all that dense little figure was even mentally capable of. The townsfolk all quietly agreed: whatever light flickered in the mind of all sane men was eternally dim in this creature’s case. Two luminous glared of red ogled the bits of wood and iron. Mother Nature continued to sway it's rusty chain too and fro. But the creature did not see a sign. It conjured up some other tale. A daydream. That if a mother lovingly cradling her newborn child. Loving sways, left to right. Right to left. Left to right. Tender, motherly motions which wrought about a warm feeling in his chest, and an even warmer reddish glow. "Dee......"

The creature stepped in with the ding'a'ling of a bell, wandering into the quaint little shoppe and immediately analyzing only minute and inconspicuous little details. It hardly even noticed the shrewd ire of one, Beatrice LaBlanche. An ever demanding presence, the mere aura about her wafted a sense of authority and sovereignty. She was an elderly dear, hovering around the mid sixties. Wisened and astute from experience, she analyzed the creature before her, matching him with a similarly curious (though far more cautious) intensity. With puckered lips accentuating no small amount of painted gloss, and narrowed eyes similarly accentuating a thin layer of mascara, she was often described by her fellow townsfolk (whether maliciously or otherwise) as a hawk with clown makeup. She wore an old pantsuit, obviously battered with age, with a hue of grey which fittingly matched the curls of her silvery mane. Visibly exhausted, the elderly owner was just wiping down her counter as the creature ambled in. The mere sight of this grotesque form caused her to jerk a smaller, frailer figure close to her side. It was a gaunt little boy, equally as exhausted, twas her often astute grandson, Will laBlanche; often considered to take after his grandmother. He quietly and intently peered over the counter, Beatrice looming over him with her own grey pupils piercing at the hideous figure as it ambled in.

“That was quite the light show you put on out there, wasn't it?” The beast was verbally confronted, though it gave no response. Not a nod, nor grunt. Not a single acknowledgement of Beatrice or Will. Was it deaf? Was it dumb? Or was it just rude? She could not tell. She could not discern any emotions, nor any physical attributes. Cloaked under a tattered old blue hood, there was a face. A face that she could not make out. A face which was veiled my shadows, with no visible moth nor nose not chin, only vibrant and glowing red eyes. Eyes like she'd never before seen. There was a foul equilibrium to those bulbous red orbs. An equilibrium of beauty and horror. Splendor and terror. Magic and mystery. They were like stars. Gorgeous shimmering stars with an almost supernatural presence. A pulsating presence which wrought about an intense feeling of hope and joy.... And yet…. They were so unnatural. So unnerving. So strange and unfathomable. Yes, an unnerving beauty. God would not bestow man with such remarkable orbs. But, would Satan? Was it even a man? Was it an angel? Only the most hideous of angels? Was it even real? It seemed so very real as it meandered around her establishment. Rustling through fruits and sniffling the air like some rabid dog. She wondered if perhaps someone had dreamt this odd figure up. If some unfortunate fool had fallen asleep and conjured up this perturbing beast. It lurked and wandered with no vocalization. Not a single sound emanated nor gurgled from it’s throat. There was only the slight creak of wood as it lurched about.

Taking a defensive position, Beatrice struggled to remain at ease. It wafted about with such janky and inhuman motions. Like a ghost, hovering through the air. Glitching and twitching across the floorboards with all the bravado of a sneaking mouse. Her questions unanswered. Her presence unacknowledged. She pressed on with mild irritation. “You don't talk much do you?” a The creature's face very suddenly and unexpectedly darted up upon that last remark. Her grey pupils were now locked with the ruby shimmer of it's glowing magnanimous orbs. Strong and proud, Beatrice stood her ground as goosebumps trickled down her spine. She stood her ground, narrowing her eyes as his only widened. The creature, and the unblinking gaze of it's inhumanly massive eyes pierced through her confidence. Significantly more than her foul gaze pierced it.

Seconds trickled by for what felt like hours, and what ended that stare down standoff was a small, frail, and entirely mangled hand reaching out from the confines of the creature's ragged cloak. A thin and gnarled finger pointed even farther than that frail little hand had stretched. The finger was spindly and thin like a twig, with a craggy skin texture which somehow appeared both moist and shriveled up at the same time. An almost charred looking stalk of dry yet slimy flesh, with cracked and chiseled nails that were so long and mangled that it had curled and contorted upon itself. “Apple.” The creature whimpered out with a pathetic and disheveled almost whispery voice. That spindly withered digit guided Bea's attention to a mound of fruit resting in a barrel behind her counter. She looked to the apples, then to the creature with an apathetic ire. “That'll be two dollars.” She demanded, and the creature complied. It pulled a small purse of change from it's coat, and plopped it on to the counter with an unchanged and unfeeling expression in it's eyes. Only wishing for this exchange to be over, and hesitant to see what unsightly creatures were ambling about within that purse, Beatrice simply complied to the creature's demands, and planted one juicy red apple to her mahogany counter.

With almost inhuman reflexes, the creature snatched up the fruit immediately. Delicately, it groped that juicy fruity meal with all ten of his spindly fingers. The apple’s reflection glistened and gleamed off both ruby eyes. Large beady and unblinking orbs glaring intently at the smaller sphere of a similar color. Bea and Will ogled on in relative amusement as the alien creature gazed at the succulent produce with an entirely infatuated inspection. Amusement very soon faded into horror as the creature’s mouth fell agape. There was not one, not two, not even three rows of teeth, but four. It’s entire mouth was lined with an inhuman and an insurmountable amount of dentition. Jagged, flat, sharp and everything in between lining the entirety of its gaping maw. All varying colors of yellow, white and even charred black. With countless barred fangs the creature ripped through the apple’s skin, ripping out bits of the apple’s pulp and chewing with large rigid motions. Beatrice winced in disgust as it tore through the apple with an unexpected amount of savagery and truculence. The beast sunk a second toothy bite into the fruit, splattering a mucousy concoction of saliva and juices across the oak floors. There was a ravenous aura to this creature. As if civility were an unfathomable concept outside of its own grim and grimy reality. Once more, the creature bore it’s jagged jawline, shredding through it’s produce prey until the Apple had at long last reached a point of no more succulence. All that remained, a battered and beaten core, haphazardly fallen to the moldy wood floor of Beatrice’s shoppe. The creature belched, sloppily wiping away saliva and apple juices with a handkerchief, and hobbled away with a reserved "Thank you.”

Day 3

Word spread like wildfire. Gossip and rumors of this twisted little alien guest in their rickety dessert village ran rampant. His repulsive tendencies, his incivility, his lurching trance like nature, and most of all… Those, beautiful, beautiful, illustrious eyes. Two foreboding flashlights of red, they glittered and glistened in the moonlight. How could something so grotesque be so beautiful at the same time? Why was it even here? When will it leave? And perhaps most prevalent, how was it still alive? There were… Things, which roamed the village at night. Horrible, unnatural things… The town grimly remembers what happened to poor old Paul… They came. They came at night. Shadowy, grotesque, globules of darkness. They were ravenous. Horrible. Fanged and misshapen. Inhuman. Limb from limb. Publicly. They ripped him apart, feasted on his corpse. Ripping off tender fleshy muscle, shredding through skin, ravenous, angry, and foul. They ate him. By God, have you ever seen someone eaten alive? That shrill ear damning scream Paul hacked out. It haunts them all. Poor old Beatrice was still grieving to this day...

But this creature... This hideous ungodly creature... Has survived! At least thus far. Survived out in the streets and out in chaos. There were so many questions, and so few answers. In these uncertain times, life was hell for the village. No reprieve. No hope. No dreams. It was as it should be. Everything was as it should be. This land of piss and degradation. A nightmare. A nightmare that needed a nightmare king. The Nightmare King. Hopelessness. Fear. Angst and horror. This was his realm damnit! This was HIS dream God damnit!! He'd build it up, then destroy it again! Then he'd piss on the ashes and build it once more!! Such was the ceaseless wheel of life and death. To create then destroy. That was his lot in life. His dreams. His aspirations. His destiny. "Dee"

This dirt was his. This village was his. These people were his. This world was his, and he'd toy with it, and twist it, and turn it as much as he damn well pleased. This creature... He wasn't just any old perverse nightmare monster! Shambling into the local tavern, bursting unto the seams with all the bravado of an angry tyrant... It was Doctor Destiny's world. For the first time in three miserable days, the creature's face was exposed. In a of it's vivid grotesquery, this was John Dee. A shriveled up corpse of a man, it was not the face of a man... But of a dried husk. Dry and rugged skin with the texture of burlap, ripped and shredded like an old tarp. It limply hung from his face, dangling like string or curtains, and thinly veiling exposed muscle and tissue. Slimey and pus slathered muscle, which oozed a mucousy concoction of some unknown green sludge and blood over his teeth and dribbling down his shredded up lips. And then... Those eyes... There were no eyelids to speak of, only surgical stitches lacing all around his brow and under his cheeks (those stitches may have been the only think keeping that flakey grey sheet of skin on his face). The stitches all traces back to a single origin. Massive, shimmering ruby eyes, luminous and red as though it were both the light of heaven and fires of hell clashing inside two crystalline orbs inside of a human skull. They were... Exactly like crystals. Crystals bulging out of an open eye socket.

The taverns patrons (what few there were) gazed on in horror, disgust, and dread as the creature waltzed in. The thing reeked of death (and looked an awful lot like it as well). It strolled in casually. Disinterested in the perturbed stares and the disturbed glares of the other patrons. John didn't care. Putrid horrible smelly people were merely an inconvenience. A mild annoyance. Irritating gnats and nothing more. Defeating silence blanketed the premises. A palpable aura of fear and paranoia radiating across every iota of the building. None dared step forward. The cowards. That is, none but one man. His name was Herbert Howards. An elected official, of sorts. He was the closest thing that ramshackle town had to a mayor. Or a leader. He owned that tavern, and folks seemed to flock to him for guidance. An elder fellow, he and his wife, Shelley were attempting to remove the local drunkard. "Don't know how you've survived out there these past few nights... But you'd best take shelter somewhere, we've been havin' some.... Disturbances lately" Herbert. The bravest of the bunch. Brave brave brave Herbert.

Herbert was brave. Far braver than most. But he didn't care for conversation. His wife, Shelley on the other hand? She was perturbed, and disgusted, but she cared for pleasantries. When Herbert offered up no other niceties, she was forced to fabricate a conversation where there was none. "Say, what brings you to our little corner of the west anyway?" John didn't answer. They weren't even sure he'd heard them. All it did was heave in heavy and disjointed breaths of oxygen, as if he were having some miniature asthma attack. "Well, at got any reason to stay?"

"I'm gonna parasitically leech off your hopes and dreams."

The entire room befell into a deafening silence. Was this a confession? A plead of guilt? What's this... Thing behind all this!? Neither Herbert not Shelley knew how to respond. All the drunkards and the damned in the room gazed on in astonishment and horror at the creature, and it's cruel and malicious response. Anxiety clouded the atmosphere. No one was quite sure what to do. Should they kill him? Demand this madness to end? "But I can't..." It at long last elaborated "My... Beautiful... Gorgeous... Mat-er-i-op-ti-kon won't work on you"

"Your... What?"

"My Materioptikon! My, beautiful, beautiful, dreamstone...." John's talon like claws scratched at his crystalline eyeballs, causing an ear damning screech to rupture the air. His nails scratching against the stones like a chalkboard. The entire room cringed in discomfort, but Herbert pressed on. "Your.... Eyes?" John chuckled like an innocent child, with a gleeful little grin on his twisted and malformed lips. "Oh, these aren't my eyes!" The twisted Doctor Destiny cupped his hands. His glimmering eyes suddenly bagan to crack and crinkle. Slowly, chiseling itself away. Red suddenly began streaming from his eyes like tears. Blood red. Dribbling down his cheeks and around his mouth and dripping into his cupped hands. Both massive red eyes oozing away into a slimey, smelly, water. "I gouged them out!!" John declared cheerfully, the red ooze water forming a pool in his hands. A watery, wavy pool of red. "See, I wanted to always wanted to look at my lovely, lovely, rock, so I stabbed my eyes with them." The last of the red slush slithered down his cheeks, and finally dribbled into the pool with small serene ripples. It solidified. Morphing into a massive red gems of indescribable splendor. Destiny's fingers cupped it lovingly. Tenderly. Groping it. Rubbing it. Massaging it. But he frowned. "Now it's always here... But I can't see them....." John Dee finally looked up from that magnanimous ruby orb. Staring directly into Herbert's eyes. Herbert saw... Everything. There was nothing, but there was e writhing. He saw his family. His friends. He saw ceaseless worlds and nameless monsters. The earth. The cosmos. Everything in between. All of the horror. All of the beauty. Everything. "I can't see anything anymore............"

Horrified, Herbert could barely stammer out "Wha... What are you!?" There were so many things John could respond with..... Your worst nightmare... The Dagon of Dreams... The ceaseless killer of worlds... Master of illusions.... The Nightmare King... Boring old John Dee... But he chose... "A doctor."

"I know you've been having trouble sleeping, Herbert."

"I know you all have."

"But don't worry."

"Doctor Destiny is in."

"And he's accepting new patients."

"N-No.... No!!" What Herbert saw in those eyes... I cannot say. But it wasn't nice. He couldn't understand it, but it was horrible. Mind numbing and maddening. He screamed bloody murder. A haunting ghostly shriek which echoed out into the void. Doctor Destiny shifted his demanding gaze towards Hervert's wife with a twisted grin. "You want my prescription, Shelley?" She back away out of fear and disgust. Sweat trickling down her forehead, and angst gripping every soul in the room. "Your husband could use a nap!" Without a moment's hesitation, Doctor Destiny firmly gripped the sides of a neighboring chair, and, wielding it like a hammer, he smashed Herbert's skull in. The old man went limp, and fell to the ground....

Let's see what he dreams up...

Shelley shrieked out in horror, and the men of the bar took an offensive stance. "What?" Destiny shrugged. "He couldn't sleep before... Now he's asleep!" You can't deny the results. But... Everyone knew what came next... Everyone knew what happened Paul... In a horrified frenzy, Shelley sprinted off to bar the door. This was going to get interesting. Most folks coward. Others heaved whatever weapon they could. Shoppe's and houses across town suddenly locked up and slammed their windows shut. This was it..... Here we go!

Anticipation was rising, it was all about to crescendo. Doctor Destiny could not bare the wait... Silence blanketed the bar, angst and an unspeakable level of dread and terror. It was quiet. Too quiet. For a moment, John figured that might have killed the poor old bastard. But then... From above, there was some deranged chitter. Like a squirrel, or a bird, except evil. Very evil. There was creaking on the wood above, like a step. A very large and very heavy step. Then another. Then another. Then. With the thunderous roar of God himself, it collapsed through the ceiling. A massive pulsating bestial form. It was coated in a thick layer of black tar. Oozing and gurgling in a daze. It lurched, haunches over yet incredibly massive. A thin torso lined with jagged fangs. A ballon like head, oozing on a slithery black tar dripping and dribbling its grotesque juices across the floor. The entire thing wreaked of curdled milk and cheap perfume. "Wooooow!!" Doctor Destiny gawked aloud like an astonished child. The monster shrieked this horrible and ungodly alter, then stampeded towards the bar patrons. It was bigger than they'd ever seen... Far bigger than any of the ones before... It ripped them to shreds... Not eating them, but... "Why!? Why have you been doing this to us!?" Doctor Destiny gave a twisted and psychotic grin. That husk. That corpse, it looked so evil. It looked so foul and ugly.

"Because I can."

"Because I want to."

Arkham Asylum

In not deserts of nowhere on earth. In not the empty vacuum of space, nor the chaos of a battered old bar. But rather, in Arkham Institute for the criminally insane. The guttural and grotesque walls of screaming, flailing inmates. Whining, crying, and moaning crazies echoing the empty grimy walls. There was the cell of John Dee, and in it, a shriveled up husk. An old man. Limp, and drooling. Wheelchair bound and practically dead. His hair, thin and practically bald. His skin, quaggy yet also dry. "Mother, is that you?" He spoke, but his lips did not move. "Mother... Please!" He pleaded with a pathetic little voice.

"I just want to dream again..."

Author's Notes

Player Alias: Overlord

Other Characters: Mirror Master | Penguin | Kid Zoom

How did you find ARFD?: Guess you could say it was... Destiny