Raising a Nightmare (G/T Short)

Prologue

It wasn't everyday that you adopted a baby, that was found in the middle of the woods, and liked to chew on fingers.

Cameron was a member of the Remorian Defense Force, a small but powerful government-owned organization created to defend against the Nightmares.

Nightmares were giant, hulking, inhuman beings. They were wreathed in self-produced black smoke, with hard, armor skin. They were hard to kill, and killed hard. Every ten or so years, Nightmares would rise up from the earth and attempt to storm the city of Remorei. Sometimes they failed.

Most times, they didn't.

So in came the RDF, ballistae and longbows raised. Before, they'd been able to push back the Nightmares that had breached the defenses. But as the decades passed, the Nightmares seemed to grow in number, and there was only so much hundreds of men could do to Nightmares.

Soon, it became a desperate search of a new place to call home. The Nightmare-filled lands of Kylos was just too much. There was rumored land that they called "Losga", but there was yet to be any proof of its existence.

Cameron had snuck behind a tree, ears open to any Nightmares.

While Cameron liked to think he was extremely important to the Remorian Defense Force, he wasn't. In the end, he was only a scout with the most basic of crossbows, making sure the Nightmares didn't rise while the humans' backs were turned.

It had been glaringly obvious where Nightmares would emerge.

It wasn't like they tried to be subtle.

The ground would be disturbed greatly, scorched and scratched. Any nearby greenery would be torn up and uprooted, laying nearby.

And Cameron had been standing at that exact spot, where the dirt was loose and breakable. The place was dangerous, and no human should've been there.

So his surprise was unimaginable when he saw a little human-like head poke out from behind an uprooted tree.

When Cameron moved closer, he'd recognized the creature as human. It had human features, and certainly looked like the average human toddler. Chubby little cheeks, a boyish frame, and strangely light green eyes. Cameron had assumed that the child's guardians had hidden the child away.

It was a common practice for parents to hide their young, helpless children among the trees and forests lining Remorei, trying to keep them safe from the Nightmares, and coming back later to retrieve them. It was surprisingly effective, and Cameron had figured that he might as well stay with the child and wait for their parents to arrive.

Minutes became hours, and Cameron's back had begun to hurt. There had been no sign of a guardian. Cameron had begun to suspect that the toddler had been abandoned.

So he'd asked the toddler - not that he'd be able to respond - whether he'd like to come with him. And the child simply had giggled and clung to him, which Cameron had finally decided was a yes. So he'd left a Nightmare emergency site with a child clinging onto his back.

...

It had been not an hour since they had arrived at Cameron's home, and the child, which Cameron had called Ley, had acted strangely. He had first grabbed Cameron's fingers, and nibbled on them as though they were food, and Cameron had to pull his hand away before his fingers would be reduced to stubs. He found it strange, but it wouldn't be long before he learned why.

He had been making soup for Ley when he heard a loud crashing sound in the room where Ley had been in. He had rushed into the room to find Ley, no longer as a tiny baby, but as an enormous giant of a child. His pudgy fingers were the size of buckets, and he was almost making a hole in the roof. Cameron knew he wasn't the most intelligent human in the world, but it didn't take a genius to put two and two together.

The toddler was a Nightmare.

The child only stayed as a giant for a while, shrinking down like a balloon releasing its air, and waddling next to Cameron's side, gurgling happily, completely oblivious to just how frozen and pale his so-called adoptive parent was.

Cameron had contemplated killing the nonhuman child before he started killing humans, but as he watched Ley burble and coo, his fear faltered, and he couldn't help but wonder if he would be doing the right thing, killing off a child.

He had eventually given in to the urge to protect the child, no matter how dangerous he might have been, and began to raise Ley as his own.