User blog comment:Raidra/Creepypasta Nightmares/@comment-4849011-20141111131739

Thank you for that, for all of that. I know that if I write solely for others then I'll lose something important. My fans like my stories, so that would be a losing proposition for everybody. Incidentally, the original story is "Kumiho" (which, as you can see on the page, already has one semi-related story called "White Lady"). My other stories are listed on my user page (along with some scary movie thoughts which I might post as a blog someday).

Oh, what the hey! Here's what I have so far of the story draft in question. Ironically, it's also about bad dreams.

"Van's Nightmare"

Van Rivera turned off his television set and pulled up the bed sheet to cover his frame. He looked at the clock radio and saw that it was just past two in the morning. He let out a sigh. It hadn’t been a good night so far, and he had the feeling it wasn’t going to improve all that much all that soon. He thought about how he used to spend his nights during the highlight of his playing career. He smiled as he reminisced, but within a few minutes a feeling of sadness and loss came over him.

He turned onto his side. Critics had made an issue of the time he was found asleep in the clubhouse during a game. After his drug use came to light some speculated that his late-game nap was the result of that. Maybe a dose of something had worn off too early, they said, or maybe he had taken too much of something. The truth was he had experienced sleep problems before. There had been previous occasions in which he’d nodded off during a monotonous task. Most of the time it was merely embarrassing. However, there was that time that he’d nodded off while driving home one night. He didn’t like to think about that, about how he could have died that night. Last week, when Genie had given him the car keys and told him, “I trust you,” he became notably moved. She commented on this, but she didn’t know the full reason for his gratitude. He hadn’t told her about his accident years ago. He didn’t think she needed to know about it. He didn’t think anyone needed to know about it.

The last few weeks had been intense. At first he was unsure of Genie’s offer to treat his addiction with her experimental drug, but she had convinced him of her sincerity and concern. Within days of their first meeting he began aversion therapy using her drug – the drug which caused adverse side-effects whenever he injected himself with his poison of choice. When he injected himself hours after receiving a half-dose of the medicine he became nauseous, washed-out, and delirious. It took him a full day to recover. When he injected himself hours after receiving the full dosage, he immediately found himself rushing to the toilet to vomit as nausea hit him like a mallet. It took him four days to recover. [I plan to expand this part] In addition to the vomiting, the drug also induced weakness and hallucinations. At times he imagined that evil spirits were tearing him apart, starting with his arms and moving on to his back and legs. At other times he imagined his body was falling apart or wasting away, atrophying as he watched in helplessness and horror. The whole process had been nightmarish, but thankfully Genie was there to support him every step of the way.

The aversion therapy helped cement Van’s determination to get and stay clean. He loo