OON: Supernatural and the ChroD

I originally posted this on the 357th ID BattleTech blog, and it really belongs more over here now that UCC is a thing. But, I also posted it way back in 2015, and I realized there's so much more I could go back and do with it.

Biggest change (and not one I'm going to edit) is that New World of Darkness is now referred to as Chronicles of Darkness (Chrod or ChroD for short) as to distance itself from the game lines that came previously. It's a titular change and not one that impacts anything functionally.

Second biggest change is that whilst I have Mummy and Beast now, many of the game lines are on second editions, some of which have some significant changes in scope or tone, so bear in mind anything below is based upon 1e stuff.

So, onto the blog. I'll use breaks to separate the original from my additions below.

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To clarify the title, I'm referring to the following two items of media interest;

Supernatural - The WB/CW television series which follows a pair of brothers to Hell and back on their quest to rid the world of supernatural shit. Or, I assume. Do they actually have an end goal beyond just surviving from week to week? Stay tuned to find out!

The World of Darkness - A series of roleplaying games produced first by White Wolf and then by Onyx Path Publishing wherein players (generally) play characters as protagonists that would be antagonists in pretty much any other game. I'm solely referring to the "new" World of Darkness titles, released originally in the early 2000s, and not the "classic" titles from the 90s on.

• "Blue Book" or Core line, focusing on mortals
• Vampire: the Requiem
• Werewolf: the Forsaken
• Mage: the Awakened
• Changeling: the Lost
• Promethean: the Created
• Hunter: the Vigil
• Geist: the Sin-Eaters
• Demon: the Descent
• Mummy: the Curse
• Beast: the Primordial 

Of these, I have at least the main rulebooks for everything, except Mummy (not yet) and Beast (hasn't been released beyond the kickstarter text files). And I have all the seasons of Supernatural thus far, except for the most recent which isn't out on DVD. As a disclaimer, I'm not claiming that either side of this coin borrowed ideas from the other, just throwing out how if you like one, you may like the other too.

SECTION A - BIG STUFF

So let's start on the comparisons - first the "big two" categories for Supernatural, then the "big three" for the WoD.

1. Hunters/Mortals (SPN) - As I said above, Supernatural follows a pair of (mostly) mortal brothers, the Winchesters, that hunt the things that go bump in the night. They're the things that bump back. Er, wait, that's Hellboy. I forgot. Uh, anyway, so in a World of Darkness sense, Sam and Dean Winchester are mortal characters that could be constructed purely with "blue book" rules in the first season of the show. By season two, the introduction of more hunters than the Winchesters knew existed, in the form of "the Roadhouse," brings us to ways that Hunter: the Vigil's system of "hunter cells" could have been implemented. In that, you have a small core (Sam & Dean, Jo, Ellen, and Ash from the Roadhouse) that could be considered as your PC group. They make contacts with other mortals throughout their run and occasionally work together to solve an issue in the world at large. Basically, any human character that is not of the various "splats" could be considered to come in here. Sam and Dean, as the main characters of the show, have had various merits and flaws with a supernatural bent to them, which could be expressed from optional traits in various sourcebooks, but I'll get to that in a minute.
   
   ---EXPANDED; in the ChroD sense, PCs are built as mortals, with a supernatural template added based upon the gameline you're playing. So, your Vampire starts as a mortal, then the additions that make it a Kindred (see below) occur. You can see a couple of examples of this in SPN, when Gordon (or Dean, for that matter) becomes a vampire, or when Garth goes werewolf (ChroD, you're born one, but that's neither here nor there), and Bobby coming back as a ghost is akin to a ChroD Mage taking a spectral familiar. That he is tied to his flask is very ChroD as well. Cells, as I mentioned above, are the smallest "structure" of a Hunter in ChroD, but groups of Hunters that coordinate across regions are referred to as "Compacts" and anything that is crossing national borders or worldwide is called a "Conspiracy." The Men of Letters in SPN was very much a Compact, until the Brits came along and then, plus the amount of knowledge they have, pushed it firmly into Conspiracy territory. In fact, if you like the idea of the MoL, you might want to look at the Aegis Kai Doru or Cheiron Group of Hunter (depending on how much corporate you want in there).
   
   Supernatural takes place mostly in the midwest, with the hunters ranging all over the small towns and back highways, only occasionally going to really large cities (like Chicago, see way below). The WoD "blue book" makes no assumptions on where a game will be set, however, each game line as a signature city that is more fleshed out than most. For hunters, it is Philadelphia.
2. Angels/Demons + Heaven/Hell/Purgatory (SPN) - Do you live in the Western world? Then chances are, you know a little bit about Christian dogma and the believe in the idea of angels and demons, or that Heaven, Hell, and/or Purgatory are all places your soul may end up in the afterlife. Supernatural sticks with this theme and incorporates a shitfuckton of the Christian mythos into its seasonal writing. Angels are the winged avengers of Heaven and occasionally, when they aren't smiting entire cities, the protectors of His creations in man. Demons, created by Lucifer from humans that sell their souls, are the antithesis of that. Heaven is a place. Hell is a place. Purgatory is the place from whence the souls of all the monsters of the world come and go.
   
   Things in the World of Darkness, however, are a little different. Whilst there is no "metaplot" (up until more recent releases), in the WoD there exists the idea of the "God-Machine," an all-powerful mechanical construct that makes the universe march along. Angels do exist - they are the GM's biomechanical servants that carry out Its will, being created for a task and then recycled when the task is completed. But when one of them questions its orders, or fails a mission, or acts contrary to its nature, it falls... And then we have demons! Or, "Unchained" as they like to refer to themselves. As a PC option via Demon: the Descent (a game of techgnostic espionage), demons aren't the solely evil creatures they are in SPN. Not that they are necessarily good per se, any more than the average human is, but they aren't struggling to free Lucifer either. Probably. In fact, the whole Christian idea behind angels and demons flies out the window in the WoD. Demons have to maintain a "Cover" to hide them from angels and the God-Machine, as they work to find their own slice of paradise (Hell) on Earth. This "Cover" is procured by buying souls or making pacts for a portion of a person's life. Like Crowley and his ilk then, the Unchained are willing to partake in Machiavellian schemes to get ahead in this endeavor but (uh oh) the SPN character most like D:tD demons... Is Castiel. Boo hiss rawr wtf r u on?? Yes yes, I know that sounds weird, but Cas rebels against Heaven for Sam and Dean. He literally fights against other angels on their behalf. And whilst he doesn't do soul pacts, he does inhabit the body of a human that already had a life (Jimmy? JIMMEH!) and when he was "borrowing" grace, he wasn't much better than a demon.
   
   In their true forms, Zachariah (I think?) talks about how he has a bunch of lion faces and like, Voltron armor or some shit, but that even in Heaven, he takes the form of man so that Sam & Dean's soulfaces don't melt off. Castiel's true form is enough to burn a chick's eyes out. In that same idea, angels and demons of the WoD have true forms that are biomechanical wonders to behold. Terrifying and beautiful and maybe a little insane.
   
   So then, Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory aren't places that physically exist, or spiritually exist, or whatever/however they exist in SPN for the World of Darkness in the same way, BUT the Underworld is a place - a pooling of souls that have departed, per Geist: the Sin-Eaters (discussed more in the ghost section). The dead exist in cities much as in life and it is gloomy. As. Fuck. As it should be. The signature city for Demons (and angels, by default), is Seattle.
   
   ---EXPANDED; I forgot about World of Darkness: Inferno, which actually does deal with Hell and the Supernatural concept of demons, which was released far before Demon: the Descent. So, as a storyteller, you could actually have the traditional concept of a crossroads demon and an enemy of the God-Machine at the same time. Enterprising!
   
   
3. Vampires (WoD) - Having watched any of the vampire episodes from Supernatural, you'll know that they live in "nests," are more or less just tired and irritated as hell by the sun, drink the shit out of your blood, and die by cutting their heads off. There is a scary-as-fuck alpha vampire but otherwise, they aren't much of a challenge for hunters. In the World of Darkness, vampires (called "Kindred") are THE preeminent movers and shakers of most metropolitan areas. Formed up into a series of Clans (based on your sire's Clan) and Covenants (based on your political or religious ideology), vampires, via Vampire: the Requiem are another type of PC. Much, much, much more powerful than the vampires in SPN, and not only because they are (on average) faster than mortals, stronger than mortals, able to shake off most wounds quicker than mortals, and with abilities that border on the ridiculous but also because they probably own the police in your city, can have your power shut off, your house condemned, and you arrested on trumped up child pornography charges rather than just make you disappear.
   
   ---EXPANDED; Vamp blood is super addicting in ChroD, and a human that uses it is called a "ghoul." But, like Sam drinking demon blood, it gives mortals a real boost to their performance, like a crimson Viagra. A steady diet of Kindred Vitae will keep an otherwise mortal person young and healthy, make them stronger and faster, and able to more quickly heal from wounds or display low levels of certain vampiric powers. So reimagine Ruby (pretty Ruby, not future Mrs Sam Ruby) as a Kindred (Daeva Clan, "renegade" Lancea Sanctum Covenant), keeping Sam on the hook by having him drain other Kindred, and yeah, similar outcome.
   
   The signature city for Vampires is New Orleans. Obviously. Thanks, Obama. Er, Anne Rice.
4. Werewolves (WoD) - The World of Darkness werewolves aren't tied to the moon. That needs to be said first because in most werewolf related media, that is a big deal. No, let me rephrase. Their ability to shapeshift isn't limited by being in the full moon. They are still tied to the moon in the idea of "auspice," ie the phase of the moon dictates a good bit of a werewolf's role in werewolf (called "Uratha") society. PCs via Werewolf: the Forsaken, Uratha are kind of spiritual policemen - when spirits cross over from a sister-realm to the real world (yeah, that isn't confusing), it is Uratha responsibility to deal with them. Oh, and to fight "the Pure," werewolves not "forsaken" because their spiritual ancestor didn't have a hand in the primordial Father Wolf spirit's murder, like the "forsaken" did. You know, out of all the WoD game to SPN comparisons, this one is the hardest just because of the cosmology and background history. Suffices to say, they are way different.
   
   There are only a couple of werewolf episodes for SPN so hard data is a lot sketchier. Werewolves here shift on nights of the full moon and eat hearts. Mmmm, nummy. One of the best episodes involved a pack of werewolves that worshipped the Fenris wolf of Teutonic mythology. W:tF also has the Fenris (Fenris-ur) as the founder of a werewolf tribe, the Blood Talons. The idea is the same, the mythology is more of less comparable. Except a couple of hunters would never take down this tribe vs taking down the pack in SPN. In comparison to everything WoD via SPN, mortals vs WoD "splats" are fairly weak, more so when talking werewolves than anything else. Werewolf: the Forsaken's sig "city" is the Colorado Rockies, centered on Denver more or less.
5. Mages (WoD) - "No, it could be anyone. Neighbor, coworker, man, woman. That's the problem Dean, they're human, they're like everyone else." I pulled this quote off of the Supernatural wiki in regards to witches. Mages in the World of Darkness are NOT witches in the sense of SPN. On the one hand, they are both basically mortal "splats." On the other, witches in SPN bargain away their souls (whether they realize it or not) in exchange for their power, and rely upon spellbooks where as in the WoD, mages are a supernal force in and of themselves, willworkers able to literally reweave the foundation of reality once they become strong enough. Of course, witches in Supernatural are some of the most powerful threats exactly based upon the above quote. In both cases, you NEVER know who could be a supernatural spell caster, as they don't have the traditional weaknesses of vampires or werewolves nor the traditional red flags. Of course, if you shoot them in the face (with a gun I mean), they die pretty quick.
   
   You see a lot of fate manipulation and extended ages with witches in Supernatural. Mages have the same base abilities with random chance and luck, but only certain maga (with a Life focus) extend their lives dramatically. Mage: the Awakened's signature city is Boston. Beautiful Boston.

Now then, we've covered some of the more prevalent themes between the two universes here, but I want to take a moment to talk about Chicago.

SECTION B - CITY STUFF

Chicago has been featured multiple times on Supernatural, usually as background but also as a main city in two notable occasions. The first of these revolved around the first noted serial killer in the United States, H.H. Holmes & his infamous "murder castle" as the impetus for a spectral haunting. The second, and even more infamous than the murder castle, is the episode that was to serve as the pilot for a one-city based Supernatural spin off called Bloodlines, where the city is divided up amongst the vampires, the werewolves, the djinn, and shapeshifters. I think. I'm not entirely sure because it was the only episode in the entirety of Supernatural that I've never finished watching. In fact, to this day, I still have no idea how it ends. Any way, so the supernatural creatures are supposed to be pulling the strings of the city from behind the curtain so to speak and Sam & Dean featured for about five seconds to assist in some stuff or other. I dunno. It felt flat.

At any rate, this is notable because there is an entire book, World of Darkness: Chicago, that is of the "blue book" mortal line, but is actually a second signature city for Vampire, Werewolf, AND Mage. It covers how the three supernatural "splats" interact with each other, and to a lesser degree, with the mortals of the city. And it does so in a much better way than the Bloodlines episode even did. In addition to WoD: Chicago, there is a companion novel "Three Shades of Night" that take this sourcebook & give it some fictional context (and is a good story), three Vampire novels ("A Hunger Like Fire," "Blood In, Blood Out," "The Marriage of Virtue and Viciousness") and one phenomenal mortal (?) novel ("Strangeness in the Proportion") that all build the idea of this city at the center of the United States. Moreso than any of the signature cities, Chicago lends itself well to crossover games and stories involving numerous types of supernatural creatures.

 SECTION C - SMALL BUT PREVALENT STUFF

Getting that out of the way, we're left with a ton of real estate to cover both from the show and from the World of Darkness, not all of which I can even touch on.

1. Urban Legends (WoD) - This one book is basically Supernatural season 1. It features stuff like Bloody Mary, the Woman in White, the Hook Hand, so on and so forth. It's not only entirely a required WoD book for mortal games in my opinion, but it also makes a great read whilst watching the series.
2. Midnight Roads (WoD) - Do you -really- like the idea of driving across country to fight the "monster of the week?" You're in luck! Midnight Roads is "Supernatual: the Roleplaying Game" (not to be confused with the actual SPN RPG) in one neat package.
3. Cursed Objects (SPN) - There were several episodes that involved cursed objects getting loose in the world, like the (un)lucky rabbit's foot or shit from some guy's lock up. Reliquary is a World of Darkness book that delves into the idea of these cursed (or blessed) objects for inclusion into your gaming world.
4. Ghosts (SPN) - Whilst the above listed stuff is the big headlining acts, ghosts in Supernatural are the most commonly interacted with supernatural beings in the entire series. More episodes ("We're the Ghost... Ghostfacers!") are devoted to researching, laying to rest, or helping to move on of spirits than anything else. As I mentioned earlier, Geist: the Sin-Eaters deals with ghosts in the various forms pretty much, and details the Underworld where ghosts probably belong. I have the core rulebook but have honestly only skimmed it. WoD: Ghost Stories and Book of Spirits touches on a lot of the concepts of poltergeists and angry earth bound spirits as well. Though, again, not to the degree that Supernatural looks at the afterlife.
5. Promethean: the Created (WoD) - Frrrrrrrrrankensteeeeeeein!!!!! Or his monster at least. Promethean is all about created beings, and deals with the mythological origins of things like Galatea and golems, in addition to the more modern idea of a mad man's attempt to play God. Supernatural had a really, really good episode involving Nazi necromancers and a golem that could provide a degree of inspiration here but the tops, in my book, go way back to season three wherein to keep Dean out of Hell, Sam was looking for a doctor their dad had hunted, who had found the key to immortality by replacing his body parts regularly. The science and alchemical ideas found in that episode are really pure Promethean in their execution. |
6. Shapeshifters (SPN) - I... Don't think there is an equivalent to these guys in the World of Darkness, but Skinchangers come kind of close to the "turns from a dog to a man" type. As far as taking on the form with memories of another person, Unchained from Demon do this with a soul pact that they collect upon, though the original is gone forever. I think. I assume.
7. Merits and Flaws (WoD) - This came up at the start, for the mortal characters. Sam and Dean both end up with supernatural abilities, like the demon blood or the Mark of Cain. World of Darkness has points in stuff like this, like "Unseen Sense: Ghost" or "Writer Fiat" (that isn't real) that beef up normal humans. Much of World of Darkness: Second Sight walks players through psychics or telekinetics, things of that sort.
8. Cain (SPN) - Man, that was a good character. There is a Hunter Compact (a larger group than just a cell) that think vampires are descended from Cain (they were, in the "classic" World of Darkness Vampire: the Masquerade) and constantly paint or ask "who is Cain?" before killing a vampire. It's a small thread, I just really liked that actor on SPN.

That there then is an incomplete and not even remotely exhaustive but super incredibly long comparison between some of the popular topics in Supernatural and the World of Darkness roleplaying games. I skimmed the surface but highly recommend both things to all of the peoples.

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Now, to expand on a few things, since it's 2018 and I can.

A2, Angels/Demons - Dude, now that I've spent a whole lot more time reading through Demon: the Descent books, let me just say that Dean's assertions about angels being dicks TOTALLY holds true in the Chronicles of Darkness. Don't misunderstand that statement - Unchained Demons in D:tD are NOT necessarily "the good guys" by any stretch of the imagination, but they're almost always the lesser of two evils. And D:tD has so many examples of splinter timelines and alternate realities that, do you remember the episode where Sam and Dean end up in the "real world" to escape Raphael as a diversion for Balthasar? Yeah, D:tD has shit like that. Not so much in the comic relief sense, since the God Machine and techgnostic espionage is spr srs bizness, and whatnot, but the concept of accessible realities for Unchained willing to rip between worlds is kind of cool. Also, I may or may not have statted Castiel up as a Messenger Incarnation Demon. Turns out, pulling a soul from Hell is way less hard than you might think. OH! And yeah, so the Heaven/Hell/Purgatory thing, I guess if you look at the Abyss and the Lower Depths from Mage and Geist and whatnot, Hell could metaphysically be an actual place.

 C7, Merits/Flaws (ChroD) - Having reread Second Sight, Antagonists, and Reliquary a few times since posting this, I'm fairly convinced you could turn the last three or so episodes of Season Two SPN into a ChroD Battle Royale between mortals looking to become a Kindred's newest Childe or something similar.

C9, The Mother of All (SPN) - Eve was not, sadly, the "big bad" for Season Six, the way she was built up to be. In fact, it was a typical "massage without the happy ending" that SPN loves to pull, which was a damned shame. I liked the Khan worms and still, to this day, find ways to mention them. There are a couple of analogs in ChroD that one could look at like TMoA, such as the titular Crone that the Circle of the Crone Kindred Covenant refers to, but I like The Dark Mother from Beast more. See, one of the driving themes of Beast is that ALL monsters, whether Beasts or Uratha or Kindred etc are all family, all relatives tied together (at least spiritually) through being offspring of TDM. On the one hand, it's a way to do "Super Friends" crossover chronicles with a bunch of different monster splats, but on the other hand, because ChroD doesn't have a true metaplot or solid origin stories for any type of supernatural, it's as possible as Atlantis being the source of all Mages.

C10, Dragons (SPN) - Season six also introduced dragons into the SPN mythos. And that HP Lovecraft wasn't just a writer. That's unrelated though. Anyway, the dragons in SPN are only ever shown on-screen as humans, with Eastern European accents, that live in sewers, and abduct virgins, and like gold. I can really see myself a lot in these guys. ALSO, since I mentioned Beast with TMoA stuff, SPN dragons are almost exactly like Beasts. Right down to having a lair and being nightmare inducing stuff of myths. Beasts are more... Literally nightmare inducing, as that is how the Beast part of an individual feeds, and their lairs are less physical (usually), but they also have to deal with antagonists called, appropriately, Heroes, much like Sam and Dean.

C11, The Colt (SPN) - A "magic" kills-anything-it-shoots gun, built by Samuel Colt in the 1800s during an eclipse for a hunter, that hunted unstoppable monsters in the New World, before Colt himself went on to make a Devil's Trap to lock a gate to Hell (quite possibly an Avernian Gate in ChroD)? This is some pure Reliquary (see Cursed Objects above) or D:tD Gadget type shit right hurr.

C12, The Fairy Tale Coma Girl (SPN) - Changeling: the Lost. In an episode. Fairy tale aspects, and mother fuckers dying from poison apples.

C13, Mysterious Places/Asylum (ChroD) - How many episodes of SPN have dealt with abandoned asylums or up to date psychiatric institutes? At least a handful. I've touched upon Asylum in the write up to Grand Meadow, as well as glimpses in other writings (it's a continuing thread) and SPN followed a lot of the same tropes that I did/that the writers of Asylum did, in episodes featuring one.

Therapy

"Height, hell, time, haste, terror, tension. Life, death, want, waste, mass depression."

And thus, he told his dream to everyone;

"I was angry. Angrier than I've ever been. The kids were getting on my nerves and the cats were constantly under my feet. So I was yelling. And throwing things. I flipped the mattress over and there were cats under the bed, digging at my tool box. I just lost my shit and opened it super hard. It hit one of the cats and it yowled this terrible sound. That's when the demon came. I could feel its hand inside of me, squeezing my organs. It whispered in my ear that I needed to stop being such an asshole. I knew I was dreaming at that point, so I tried to wake up but I couldn't. I could feel my liver and kidneys turning into pulp and I tried to scream. I opened my mouth wide and hoped that my sleeping body was doing the same in the real world, tried to squeak out any kind of scream so someone would come and shake me awake but the demon wouldn't let any sound come out. It laughed at me. It told me it would come back over and over again as many times as it took, as it had done for years and years and I knew that it was telling the truth, I could remember the dreams of the demon and the torment going all the way back to childhood."

"And why do you think that is?" Dr Harris barely looked up from his notepad during the group sessions. This time was no exception.

"Why do I think that is?? Because the demon has been attacking me in my dreams since I was a kid? Making sleep randomly feel like Hell?" He became visibly agitated as an orderly came and put a hand on his shoulder. 

Several of the patients in the circle inched away from his outburst, whilst others nodded along to the things that he said. Each one had their own story to tell, some not that dissimilar to his.

"We've talked about this before, Dustin. There is no demon, no supernatural force tormenting you. It's your sleeping mind creating a metaphor for the anger that destroyed your marriage. Until you start to take responsibility for your actions, the dreams will continue."

"'Taking responsibility' doesn't change shit!" He shouted. "I can be the goddamned Saint of taking responsibility and it still comes into my dreams!" The orderly pushed him back down into his chair, clamping tightly and preventing him from rising again.

"Stan, it's okay, Dustin is just a little tired. He'll remain quiet and behave. Won't you, Dustin?"

"Yes, Dr Harris, I'm sorry for my outburst." He looked down at the floor sullen.

"It's quite alright." The doctor closed his notepad and looked around. "Now, everyone, this is an important learning moment. We all have our demons. Figuratively. Everyone has something that tempts them or that they try to escape from. The key is to never let these demons control you. Ah, but that's group for the day, so we'll have to discuss this more next time."

******

"Hey, Dustin, you awake, man?"

Sitting in bed, back to the wall, Dustin was indeed awake. The nightmares and dealing with the stress of group almost always guaranteed a restless evening for him.

"You ever notice how therapist broken down is 'the rapist'? That's how my mind always feels after group. Like being non-consensual mind fucked."

A forced chuckle escaped his lips. Vaughn always knew what to say to drain the tension out of the room. "Never looked at it like that, but you ain't wrong. Least the doc could have done is wear a condom when he went that deep."

"People think we're crazy 'cause we have a few issues, but that quack is nuts. Anyone that emotionless has to have some really fucked up 'figurative demons' of his own." Vaughn laughed at himself before rolling over.

"Probably dresses like a gimp and pays for a dominatrix to fuck him like a pig."

Vaughn abruptly stopped laughing. "Shit, you think so? Huh. Maybe that's what we all need."

This time, Dustin's chuckle was genuine. Vaughn, like himself, was in Grand Meadow for anger problems. His manager at Burger Hut had been convinced that he was going to blow up their restaurant and his parents forced him to check in for observation, not unlike Dustin's ex-wife as a condition for him ever seeing his kids again.

"Sure, if you can't beat them, pork them. Good night, man." Laughing into his pillow, Vaughn gave a thumbs up.

Dustin stretched out across his bed, watching a slender shaft of moonlight appear and disappear on the floor at the whim of the clouds. It held a certain nighttime rhythm. The on and off nature of the light, the whistle of the breeze against the window, Vaughn's snoring. Everything combined to form a hypnotic pattern that Dustin could lose himself in, even if only for a small while.

Eyes glazed over in a thousand yard stare, he started to feel the familiar chest-tightening sensation. It never happens this often, he thought as his pulse quickened and the panic set in. The caress of claws pressing into his flesh was swiftly followed by the tickle of words against his ear.

"Such a terrible, vulgar, immasculated little man. This is why they left you. This is why they will always leave you." The demon purred as the skin on Dustin's back shredded as easily as paper, exposing vital organs and viscera. He could feel his blood spurting with each twist of its wrists, the pain mind-numbing when his organs popped like grapes in its hands. He tried everything he could to wake himself up, every trick he had spent years combing books and articles to find.

Fingers like cold fire gripped his arms and held him firm as the demon continued to violate his entrails. "Shhh, shhh, shhh, you're too weak to break free." He could feel every inch of his intestines as they were tugged from around his spine, his jaw aching from the silent scream he couldn't release.

The pillow hit him in the face from across the room. "Dude, I'm too tired, keep it down." Exhaling sharply, Dustin rolled onto the floor, running his hands across the smooth skin of his lower back as he stared at his bed. The terror was getting progressively worse and the medications Dr Harris had prescribed weren't helping at all. He knew without a doubt that he would truly go insane if it didn't stop.

It wasn't until the pain had passed, until he lay there gasping in great lungfuls of air, that he realized he had never fallen asleep.

******

Vaughn died three days later. It was unrelated to anything happening with Dustin, and by all accounts was his own fault. A fight with another patient became physical. He tripped after shoving the patient, falling into an overturned chair, the leg of which penetrated his ocular cavity all the way until it touched the inside of his skull. There was nothing anyone could do and he was pronounced dead on the scene.

That it had nothing to do with his nightmares was of no comfort to Dustin, however, who was filled more and more every day with a creeping sense of dread. Nor did it make anyone more chatty in group, as everyone became quieter and more reluctant to speak out. When someone finally did speak, it was to talk about seeing Vaughn's ghost, bloody eye gouge and all, and they were quickly silenced by the hospital staff.

"We're all sad about Vaughn's untimely passing, but he wouldn't want any of us to dwell on it. He'd want us all to move on and focus on getting better." Dr Harris lectured the assemblage.

"What if... The demon pushed him to torment me?" Dustin thought aloud, for the first time potentially blaming himself.

The doctor sighed. "Dustin. When I told you that you needed to take responsibility, it was for your actions, not the actions of someone else. Vaughn's own personal demons are to blame. Yours can only hurt someone else if you let them drive your actions."

"But what if you're wrong?? What if there was some way that I could have... I don't know. Done something. I could have saved him!"

"Stan, Dustin is clearly overwrought today. Could you take him back to his room, please? We'll continue this conversation privately."

"Yo, c'mon, man." The orderly reached a bear-sized hand down and helped Dustin to his feet, more jerking him out of the chair than actively aiding in the endeavor.

"Doc, I think you're right, I think I do have to take responsibility. For all of it."

"That's good, Dustin, but we'll talk more later." Dr Harris' eyes were devoid of any empathy as he watched Stan pull Dustin from the room.

******

 "My time is a very finite resource, you see. It's precious to me and the patients that can be saved."

Dr Harris stood to one side of an old fashioned examination table. Dustin would have nodded or given a verbal response, but the rubber bit in his mouth and the straps across his body prevented him from doing either.

"I haven't given up on you, you know. Just because group therapy and private sessions aren't getting to the root of your delusions, there are more drastic options we can try."

Tears formed in the corners of Dustin's eyes as he vaguely remembered being injected with something to help him sleep before experiencing nightmares stronger and more vivid than he'd ever had in his life. The demon eviscerated him and used his body parts to make esoteric images, explaining in minute detail what each piece of him was meant to represent. None of it made sense to him, nor should a delusion, of course. He just wanted it to stop and was thankful that Dr Harris had a plan.

"Stan, make sure the connections are tight, please." He motioned for the orderly to double check that all of the electrodes were firmly in place.

"I'm on it, doc."

"Now, for many years, electroconvulsive therapy was utilized by medical professionals to 'shock' the brain into working correctly. It's nonsense and barbaric, you understand, the process they used. This, by contrast, is a work of art. You see, for the current to properly stimulate the brain, the connections must go deeper."

The needles in his temples made his head throb, as Dustin followed along with the explanation. Tiny droplets of blood escaped from the holes, only to be absorbed by sponges at the ends of a wired harness.

"Yes, it's theta waves that are the root of your nightmares. Once this device realigns how your brain transmits these, you will see a great improvement. In fact, they may stop altogether. Wouldn't you like that?"

Dustin blinked rapidly and mumbled around the bit that he would, the throbbing in his head building into a solid drum beat.

"Good! Stan, shall we begin?"

"Any time, doc!"

Dr Harris nodded and the orderly made several adjustments on a control console, directing how much of a current to send to start. Once the settings looked correct, the doctor nodded again, and the orderly engaged the machine.

A soft whine emanated from the equipment as the first jolts hit Dustin. Immediately, the world went white and unfocused, his body strained against the straps. He could hear Dr Harris as if from a long distance yelling for Stan to stop, that it was too much power too fast. The words were jumbled and eventually drowned out by the voice of the demon.

"Done? So soon? But we had so many more years of fun to look forward to." He could almost hear the pout in its seductive tones. "That's okay. Broken toys aren't worth playing with anyway."

Eyes rolling into the back of his skull, the electricity seizing his muscles in a vice-like grip, sparks danced before Dustin's blackening vision. Moments prior to losing what little remained of himself, he heard maniacal cackling driven by pure bliss, as the demon attached itself to Stan, intent on repeating the same process unto eternity.