The Night the Devils Came

Tommy was having the most terrifying dream. At first, everything seemed normal as he walked down the familiar streets of his neighborhood in the city after dark. The streetlights flickered, casting an eerie glow over the sidewalks and alleyways.

Suddenly, all the lights went out, plunging everything into total blackness. Tommy froze in his tracks, his heart pounding. In the distance, a bloodcurdling screech pierced the silence - a sound that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It was followed by another wail, and then another, rising higher and higher in pitch until the whole city seemed to be alive with the haunting shrieks.

A cold sweat broke out on Tommy's forehead as he strained his eyes, trying to make out any shapes or movement in the inky darkness surrounding him. That's when he saw them - pairs of glowing red eyes emerging from the shadows, darting through alleys and around corners, stalking ever closer.

Tommy wanted to run, but his feet felt rooted to the pavement. As the eerie eyes multiplied by the dozens, Tommy's sense of dread grew. The sounds of flapping wings and guttural snarls filled the air. The devils were coming.

The first one lunged from an alley, a terrifying beast with leathery batwings, a skeletal body covered in spines, and fangs dripping with venom. It landed mere feet in front of Tommy, rearing up on its hind legs to reveal a mouth filled with row upon row of serrated teeth. Opening its maw wide, it unleashed another deafening screech that made Tommy's ears ring.

Despite every fiber of his being screaming at him to flee, Tommy remained frozen in horror as more devils emerged from the shadows. They poured out of every nook and cranny, their glowing red eyes surrounding him like a hundred hellish spotlights.

That's when the screaming began. The cold night air was pierced by shrill cries of terror echoing from every direction. Tommy could hear the sounds of the devils descending upon helpless citizens - a heavy thud followed by shrieks of agony that were swiftly silenced. The rending of flesh and crunching of bones made him want to be sick.

Forced to watch as the nightmarish horde massacred its way through the city, Tommy saw human bodies being flung about like rag dolls, spattering the pavement with gore. The devils showed no mercy, their roars of bloodlust echoing endlessly.

One particularly massive devil, with wings spanning twenty feet across, snatched a woman in its talons and took to the air, dangling her helplessly above the carnage. Tommy could only look on in mute horror as the beast began ripping her apart with its jaws while she screamed.

The little boy frantically looked around for any means of escape, but the horde was closing in from every angle, cutting off any path to safety. Claws and fangs bared, the beasts closed in around him, hissing and snapping their jaws.

Just as one of the monstrosities pounced towards him, jaws agape, ready to tear Tommy apart...

...Tommy sat bolt upright in his bed, gasping for air. He was drenched in a cold sweat, his pajamas clinging to his small frame. Looking around wildly, he saw that he was back in his dark bedroom, the only light coming from the full moon peeking through the curtains.

He reached over to switch on his lamp, but it remained dark. The power must have gone out. Flashes of his nightmare came rushing back, causing him to shudder violently.

Peering nervously out of his window into the inky blackness, Tommy couldn't help but imagine those same devilish red eyes glaring back at him from the shadowy spaces between streetlights. He pulled the curtains closed tight and huddled under his covers, trying to block out the memory of those gleaming fangs and talons.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Tommy willed himself to go back to sleep, repeating over and over in his mind: "It was just a bad dream...just a bad dream..."

The next morning, the bright sunlight filtering through his window assured Tommy that the terrors of the night were behind him. When he went to the kitchen, he saw his mom pouring a bowl of cereal.

"Hey Tommy, I heard you had a pretty wild dream last night!" his mom said with a wink. "The power went out around 2am and you started shouting in your sleep. I came to check on you but didn't want to wake you up."

Tommy recalled the last few moments of his nightmare with a shudder. "It was awful, mom. The whole city was attacked by these horrible devils with glowing eyes and fangs! They were killing everyone! I've never had such a bad dream before."

His mom gave him a comforting hug. "Well, it was just a night terror brought on by the strange circumstances. Dreams can't hurt you - even the scary ones eventually end when you wake up." She ruffled his hair affectionately. "But if it made that big an impression, it'll probably make one heck of a story to tell your friends at school!"

After downing his cereal, Tommy hurried off to catch the bus, his mind replaying the vivid images of devil monsters winged demons swarming through the city streets. He didn't even want to imagine what his subconscious might have in store for him the next time the lights went out.

At school, Tommy recounted every haunting detail of his nightmare to his best friends Jake and Emma while they were hanging out at recess.

"No way, Tommy! That's so messed up!" Jake exclaimed, his eyes widening behind his glasses as he listened with rapt attention. "I've had some weird dreams, but nothing with devils and people getting torn apart like that!"

Emma shuddered. "Seriously, where does that even come from in your mind? I'm gonna have nightmares now just hearing about it!"

Tommy shrugged. "I don't know, it just felt so real! I could hear everything, I could practically smell the blood and horror! I've never experienced a dream quite like it before."

Jake suddenly got a mischievous look in his eye. "You know what would be sick? If we could make one of those Roblox horror games with a nightmare scenario like that! People would go crazy for it!"

"A game? About that?" Emma looked skeptical. "I don't know, the gore and stuff seems a little much."

"Aw c'mon, nobody really gets hurt, it's just for fun!" Jake insisted. "But we'd have to make it super realistic, with all the crazy sounds and graphics Tommy described. Can you imagine?"

The three friends spent the rest of recess spitballing twisted gameplay ideas, fueling each other's imaginations with increasingly demented details about infernal realms, satanic rituals, and unholy abominations. By the time the bell rang to go back to class, they were all harboring visions of hellish landscapes and apocalyptic devastation dancing in their heads.

As he trudged back to his classroom, Tommy couldn't help but feel a little shaken by how enthusiastically he and his friends had indulged in entertaining his terrifying nightmare. A part of him was struggling to process just how dark and disturbing the human mind could become, even in childhood fantasies.

He found himself hoping he wouldn't have a repeat performance of those hellish visions when he went to sleep that night. Otherwise, who knew what horrors might be unleashed in the imagination of a ten-year-old boy?