A Boy Against Hell (Early Conflicts)

The nightmares were the worst. They never ended. In the first nine years of his life, the boy dreamed of being trapped at the mercy of the Rocking Chair, ghosts, strange television static warped men who sought to end him, and a million other terrors. Many times, he was eaten or killed. But the memory he most remembered was the sheer helplessness of knowing he could not win.

He fought. He always fought. He armed himself with bricks, sticks, and any other tool at hand. He remembered the rule: so long as he stayed with his parents, he was safe. But his Parents always disappeared in his dreams, or left him to his fate. He tried to run, but his legs always failed, or the enemy simply proved inescapable. The stuffed animal armed volunteers could not help him here. No one could.

But there was a dream that did not go away. The one good dream during all of these years. He remembered being with an insane boy and a blonde girl, going down into the depths of his house's ancient basement. This aws a rescue mission. They quickly encounter a skeletal master of the depths, an ancient and powerful being who looked somewhat human at a distance. He wore black robes, his skin was rotted, and he sat upon a log that had never existed in this basement before.

The boy said, "Return her to us."
He was confident. He'd never felt so strong in his life.

The skeletal master just said, "So be it. You may take her."

The boy walked over to her. She had a cut on her forehead She was alive but unconscious. Insane boy and blonde girl picked her up, and the boy was keeping his eye on the skeletal master. he didn't trust this thing.
The stairs up the basement complicated things. But the group persevered. The boy did as he had to do, watching for any threats as they made it to the ground floor.

The ghostly figure of the skeletal master appeared before them, small and afraid.

"I've changed my mind", the skeletal master said, "I need her! Give her back!"

The boy shook his head, and he shouted, "No way. We're out of here."

The house started coming down around them, and the boy took his friends out of the steps, taking them to the first floor landing. Debris and stone could have flatted them in an instant, they were getting lucky.

Blonde girl said, "She's in really bad shape. We've got to get out of here!"

The boy yelled, "Come on!"

He forced everyone up the stairs to the second floor, gritting his teeth as they did. They would make it. They had to make it. All they had to do was get to his room, and they'd be safe...

The dream ended.

The boy would wonder why he thought of insane boy as insane boy. The only feature he would remember of blonde girl in the future was that she was blonde. The injured girl they were rescuing had black hair. He would remember this dream, and think of it sometimes. The memory kept him alive. On some level, he knew that The Rocking Chair was coming for him. It would not stop until it had won. But these were the things he did not think about. Thinking about The Rocking Chair was dangerous. Thinking about it could attract its attention