The fog rolled off the Ohio River in 1920, thick and heavy like wet wool, swallowing the cobblestone streets of Cincinnati. But in the grandest manor of the district, the air smelled only of scorched iron and ash.

Colonel C. Arnage stood before the vanity, adjusting his silk cravat with trembling hands. Once the toast of Ohio high society—a true gentleman of leisure—he now looked like a man carved from cold marble. He reached for his silver-topped cane and settled a pristine black top hat over his brow.

He didn't look like a monster. He looked like a grieving father.

"They promised to watch her," he whispered to the empty, shadow-drenched room. "They promised she was safe."

The memory surged: the boiler room of the local textile mill, the hiss of steam, and the horrific discovery of his young daughter, trapped where the workers had grown too negligent to look. Her favorite doll had been reduced to a blackened cinder.

Arnage hadn't turned to the law. He had turned to the old things that lived in the corners of nightmares. He had stood in that same boiler room, the heat blistering his skin, and offered his soul to the Original Dream Demons—ancient, faceless entities that hungered for the essence of the living.

They accepted.

Now, as the clock struck midnight, the Colonel didn't walk through doors; he stepped through the veil of sleep.

In a small brick house three blocks away, a former night watchman bolted upright in his bed. The room was freezing, yet the smell of coal smoke was overwhelming. Tap. Tap. Tap. The sound of a cane striking the floorboards echoed from the hallway.

The door creaked open. There stood the Colonel, his silhouette sharp against the moonlight. His eyes weren't human anymore; they glowed with the orange flicker of a stoked furnace.

"A gentleman always keeps his word," Arnage said, his voice a low, melodic rumble that vibrated in the watchman's teeth. "You gave yours to protect her. You failed."

He raised his cane, the silver head glowing white-hot. As the watchman tried to scream, the walls of the bedroom began to melt away, replaced by the thrumming, glowing pipes of a spectral boiler room. The Dream Demons swirled in the steam behind the Colonel, their elongated fingers reaching out.

"Now," the Colonel tipped his hat politely as the floor turned to red-hot grate. "Let us see how you handle the heat."

The only thing left in the morning was a bed full of soot and a lingering scent of burnt lavender. Ohio went to sleep in fear, for the Colonel’s carnage was just beginning, and he had an eternity of dreams to harvest.