Snow was once something that interested me.

The white softness that fell from the sky was like nothing I had ever seen, and I took joy in watching it cover all that it touched. It seemed as though all that could be harmful, all the things that I knew must be set right, were possibly held motionless in their place, if even for a moment, by this beautiful pale and cold substance. It felt like all the evils in my sight could be suspended temporarily and brought into new light by that shining off of each unique crystal.

But that time has long passed, and now the thought of snow, the act of the frozen precipitation, the sight of light flakes blowing through the air sickens me.

That which was once beautiful now serves only as a taunting reminder that I am not at my home. Perhaps, once, I would have considered Earth my home. But no longer. I have seen the ways of its inhabitants. I have learned of and saved the lives of countless humans, and when I look back, I realize that I was blind. They do not need saving. They need, and deserve, oblivion.

My hood is pulled as far and tight over my emerald brow as I can comfortably wear it, and I keep my head lowered and facing the ground, only looking up to see that I do not collide with another pedestrian. The long jacket I wear clings to my body tightly in the front as a strong wind pushes it against me, and I keep my green hands within its pockets.

Once, I did not have to hide my existence or keep my presence secret. When Rick Sheridan slept, I awoke, and I tried to cleanse the world of its inevitable evils. And now, I am always awake, at the expense of Sheridan's life.

He is not dead. Merely sleeping. My life was in danger*, so I gave him my burden so that I may survive. Luckily he survived too, now in a vegetated state.

(*These events occurred as a result of the final issue of Sleepwalker. -Will)

Simply another casualty.

I cock my head in the direction of a random sound, and with my large red eyes I spy an unforgivable act. A thickly-built woman bats at her young daughter as chastisement, and the small girl had yelped with pain.

"But mommy...I just wanted to see the toys!" the young one pleads as she is led forcefully by her hand.

"Vinnie, you keep your mouth shut or I'll shut it for you! You keep throwing tantrums like this and people will begin to think I'm a bad mother." Her response is enough to halt my walking.

"Please, mommy, it's almost Christmas and I still haven't gotten to see any toys..."

Another blow, even more powerful and aimed at the child's face. A few others look to observe the source of the sound, but quickly they go back to their previous attentions. I draw closer, and tears flow down the reddening cheeks of the girl.

"Shut up, girl!" her mother commands, "I'm sick and tired of your..."

"Are you trying telling me how to handle my own child? Because if you are, so help me..." I shift my neck to lift my head, and my face comes into her view. She stops speaking and gasps at the sight of me.

"Who.....what are you?" There is fear in her voice, and there is good reason for it to be placed there. My eyes do not leave her rounded and unpleasant face, and hers do not leave mine, studying my own inhuman features.

"I am the reason that you are told not to watch yourself die in your dreams. I am a being of the Mindscape, a land just outside your waking conscious. I could make you dream of your daughter's death every night, or have you never sleep again."

Still she stares. Snowflakes are beginning to collect on her face's various curvatures to form small designs of semi-liquid randomness. My face is left untouched by these things of Earth. And the girl's tears are drying. The ignorant mother stays silent.

"I ask once again that you do not strike your daughter."

And finally the ability to move returns to her, and the mother nods, quickly grabbing her daughter's hand and leading her away as fast as her body will allow.

Each human I meet commits such self-indulgent and pointlessly negative acts, and few if any have managed to prove my beliefs incorrect. The people of Earth cannot be trusted with each other, let alone this planet, or even this state of being. I used to be their willing and conscious protector. Like all things, this changed. I lower my head once more to the icy pavement below me and push my itching hands further into the unknown caverns of my jacket pockets.

I begin walking once more, for it is in my nature to do so. I am a Sleepwalker, and I protect the human race so that some distant day from now, they may bubble, boil, and evaporate from existence like some retched, unwelcome puddle of aged rain water, and with them the worthless memory of their existence.

"Trading in Pain"

By Will Short

My base of operations has not been changed along with so many other things. Rick Sheridan's apartment remains a place for rest when I am not walking. Although, I do not truly rest, for I do not sleep.

The window bursts open and lets both the snow and myself in. I float in slowly, and I do not sense the presence of humans...only the dog, Rambo. He turns his head to look to me, and I lower my body to the ground slowly as he rises and walks over to me.

It is by chance that I still have this living area to come to. Rick Sheridan's sister continues to pay for the use of the apartment, and she is rarely here. Although once there was a chance meeting...

Such a strange place to live, an apartment. To make your home a part of a single, small community that you cannot hide from anyone or anything. It must be like laying naked in the rain...or in the snow. The windows are still open and the snow is coming through in fair amounts and falling on the floor of the room. Lifting my body once more I drift through the air towards the open glass pane, and I reach for it. But as I do so, I look to the snow on the ground, turning quickly to a puddle, and.....

In the puddle I see the face of a beautiful raven-haired young woman. She smiles, she laughs, she frowns, and she cries. And she runs away into the far reaches of the puddle to rid herself of me, so I feel longing. I reach out my hand for her...but it is not my own arm. The arm is human, with light brown hairs covering it. Then I see myself in the puddle, and I see that I am not Sleepwalker, but I am Rick Sheridan reaching for my former love Alyssa. This does not matter. Only finding my way back to her...

Diving into the puddle, I chase after her, and I wish I could fly like Sleepy, but I know that that can't happen. She stops running at the end of what looks like a long, darkened hallway, so finally I can catch up with her, almost falling as I stop my sprinting. Hand outstretched, I grasp her shoulder and turn her around quickly. Yet it is not Alyssa's face that I see, but mine...Rick Sheridan. And then I look at my arm again, and I see a long blue sleeve and a purple-gloved hand, and I know once again that I am Sleepwalker.

My hand's grip increases its force and it moves from Rick's shoulder to his thin throat. I add another hand, and I choke him. I strangle him. I watch his face transform, his eyes bulging and his mouth forming a depraved shape with grunts escaping from it in an attempt to stop me. But I will not stop.

Rick's face turns to Alyssa's, and then to that of the mother from earlier, and then her daughter, finally there is any number of faces combining on top of the body like a hideous hydra, a hydra that is a parasite to itself and its planet...and slowly, surely, I am killing it.

Then I blink, and I am back in the apartment, shutting the window. And I know that at some hospital nearby, Rick Sheridan lies comatose with his arm outstretched.

The window is shut now, the snow melting quickly on the carpet. I seem to have aroused Rambo with my shared hallucination-like dream, as he has come to my side to comfort me. I pat his head again, and the dog bends his neck to lap at the puddle of water on the ground. The only face in it is Rambo's...and mine.

I feel nauseous, and my head feels like it is spinning, as though I were being pulled in all directions at once, including inward. My body goes limp, and I do not fall, but I float higher into the air. I can see through my hands...and my feet...and my head is moving massless and upwards through the ceiling. Rick's dream must have roused him from his coma...and now I feel the familiar feeling of being called back.....

Back to what always seems like an endless sleep that refreshes as well as depresses.

Inside Ridgehill Community Hospital, Nurse Renda Halby cares for her favorite and least troublesome patient, the college student Rick Sheridan. The young man has been in a coma for more than a year, and he is usually very quiet and completely still.

But just now, for the first time in a while, Rick moved, and now he is convulsing. And his sister's screaming is not helping things.

"Oh my God! What's wrong with him? What did you do?" says Stella Sheridan loudly, gripping the barred side of the hospital bed.

"Please, Ms. Sheridan, just step back and let me work...try to fetch one of the doctors!" the nurse replies, half-annoyed, and tries to sooth the suddenly active patient.

"But his hand...and he was talking..." Stella reasons, and Renda looks to her.

"If you care for his life, then please, go get a doctor." And Stella finally obeys.

"Sleepy.....Alyssa.....Sleeeeeeeeeeep.....sleep...Sleepwa....." the young man's voice is like a moan in his semi-unconscious state.

"What is it, Rick? Can you hear me?" the nurse asks hurriedly, yet the mindless yelling continues without notice to her efforts. Stella tries to ignore it as she hurries to the door to call for a more qualified medic.

But the sudden absence of the moaning is almost as frightening as its presence, and Stella decides not to call a doctor. She turns, and her light auburn hair twists with her. The tresses flow around and out from her eyes, which look to her brother. He is still once again, and the nurse actually looks a little relieved.

"Is he...?" Stella wonders aloud with concern, and Nurse Halby shakes her head.

"He's not dead...but he's sleeping again."

"What was that all about? Does it mean me might be getting better?"

Once more, the older woman shakes her head. "I'm afraid not. Just sometimes comatose patients have very realistic dreams...or even surreal ones. It can be a very good or a very bad experience."

"Oh."

Once again Rick Sheridan is cold and nearly lifeless on the bed, and for seconds, the two women take time to stare at him. "I hope he's resting easier now..." says the nurse, and Stella slowly agrees.

"Me too."

"We'll up his medics intake later...for now, why don't you go get something to eat and take a rest? You've been here for two days straight." Renda suggests, but Stella is reluctant.

"I don't want to just leave him after something like that..."

"Come on, dear," the nurse pleads and takes Stella by the arm gently, "It's not healthy for you to spend that much energy on this...and without some decent food, no less! You need a real bed and a real meal."

"Well...maybe just for a little..." Stella finally agrees as she is led out of the room. The nurse stops shortly outside.

"Honey, he'll still be here when you come back. Just go, okay?"
"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow then, Renda."

"Sure you will, sweetie."

And Stella Sheridan smiles, then walks slowly away from the hospital room, restless and tired.

Back in Rick Sheridan's room, the nurse tucks her favorite patient tightly back into the stiff hospital bed, and smoothes out his hair, observing his features closely, and she smiles.

"A handsome boy...it's a shame he's been out for so long."

Assured that he is fine for the moment, Renda begins backing out of the room. Before she turns out the lights though, she looks at Rick one last time, and she is terrified.

A long, lanky, hooded green figure, draped in purple and blue cloth seems to melt out of Rick's body, coming to full visibility in front of her and carrying a shock to her that is strong enough to stifle. There is no noise when the being escapes the human vegetable, and it looks to Renda as she does to him, with surprise and unexpected intimidation. And the wrinkle leaves the creature's brow when it realizes that the figure before it is nothing more than a human.

Like a weightless feather caught in the updraft of winter, the green creature lifts itself into the air and floats away quickly. Immaterial and phantasmal, he phases through the ceiling, and inevitably through other floors.

But left in the room feeling alone and confused is Nurse Renda Halby. She shivers from the combined cold and fear. And then she decides that it did not happen.

No damage done, after all.

I feel refreshed, and I am happy to be free of the nebulous darkness. The bitter cold almost feels pleasurable on my skin, which tightens against my build while flying through the air. I could enjoy it more without the snow.

My flight is swift enough to avoid the sticking of snow, and I fly almost as high as the clouds which spout their creations like so many unwanted children. I move over the city, or from my perspective, the city moves at a snail's pace below my petrified body, and even being so far above the area does not divert my attention.

Eyes glowing like overflowing spouts of energy, I descend slightly and look to the numberless streets that make the maze of my city. Within the city are the vermin that lurk its walls and corners. And within them are the seeds of hate and destruction.

It all seems so close under my enhanced gaze, like I could reach out to touch it. Not that I would care to. The scene is one I have seen many times before, and I have been desensitized to its drama.

"Alright, girly," the man begins to command and points his firearm at the scantly clad woman, "You're gonna give us your purse, your keys.....and then a taste of whatever you have under that skirt..." His partner agrees quite anxiously with him, stepping closer with blade in hand.

The woman, obviously a prostitute, is pressed tightly back against the brick wall, her voice loud enough to hear with or without my abilities. "Please...oh God, please don't do this...I've got kids....."

The second man, wielding his knife, uses his native language of violence to speak with her. He pushes her strongly against the wall she already rests on, causing her short grunt and whimper in pain.

"Shut up! I don't care 'bout your kids...besides, you probably don't even know who the fathers are." Both criminals smile widely and laugh with cruelty.

I could easily avert this event. But why should I? Simply watch and see what occurs if I leave it be...

Loosening his belt and chuckling, the second man is very satisfied with his find. "Keep watch while I take this whore to town, okay, Jer?" His accomplice does not matter. "Jerry?" he asks for his friend, but the man does not answer. "What the Hell is the problem, man?" Annoyed now, he places a firm hand on the woman and keeps her held against the cold wall. His turn is cut short by the painful caress of lead biting into his hide.

He screams painfully, as the woman would have, had he raped her. I see the source of the firing.

Atop the neighboring building's roof stands a costumed man, with guns hanging from most parts of his outfit. Most of the costume is made from dark red spandex, with bits of yellow on it, and a black mask covering his entire head. There is a tank attached to his back. I have seen him before. The poor creature calls himself the Conflagrator.

The prostitute is still nervously anxious, especially with the appearance of this vigilante, and I can hear her deep breath while she slumps her weight on the wall still. Both she and I watch the Conflagrator reach behind him and retrieve a trigger and barrel connected by tube to the pack he wears. He has no reason to have impeccable aim with the object. Fire is all-consuming and indiscriminant to that which it burns.

The two corpses of the former criminals flare, and the stench is common of burning flesh. This is why he is called the Conflagrator.

Such an action disturbs the woman, and she cries for help as she flees, not realizing that she has just been saved. But on a world such as this, how can one tell who is saving and who is in need of saving?

My theory is proved once more. The root of all humankind is evil, each untrusting of others or trusting too much. Yet they thrive as a parasite of the earth, and somehow their luck thrives with them. I ignored the possible aid I could have given to the scene I just watched, yet I stayed completely detached from the situation. What happened is what always happens: the humans were saved from evil. And by an evil act, murder, no less.

So I watch the humans, and I walk among them. I observe. What I have observed is that humans have a tendency to be a part of a problem in one way or another at all times. Whatever trouble they may make for themselves and for each other is always averted by some god-like or self-heroic being. This ensures the life of humans.

For a long while, this angered me. The evil are constantly protected by some force? Will they live forever in the ever-lasting cycle of birth, sin, and death? I asked myself these questions often as I watched their race. One day, it finally came to me: longevity is their downfall, not their blessing.

The only thing that can truly destroy humanity is itself. And as long as I and others continue to make them believe they are protected from outside sources, they will continue to grow, and fluctuate, until finally one day they will cave in on themselves. On that day, I will be able to rest.

I fly along once more, back to the apartment of young Rick Sheridan, contemplating my living conundrum. I protect them so that they may die.

The thought of their final die almost makes me smile.

Stella Sheridan climbs the stairs of her brother's apartment complex, with five floors to go.

Five years ago, her brother Rick hadn't even known that she existed. Their parents had put her up for adoption five years before Rick was born, and she was lucky to have received such a fine set of parents to live with. Her upbringing was, as some would say, pampered and pure. Her adoptive parents allowed her to do what she wanted, within reason, and she was a good girl. Until the day she found out that she was adopted.

Four floors to go.

Four times she had been away from her adoptive city of Boston before she found her biological parents. This city was no Boston...there is more crime, less friends, and the reason that she came: family. She found her father. And she found her comatose brother. And in his apartment, she found many things of Rick's.

Three floors to go.

Three floors Stella used to run to keep in shape. She needed to be in such physical shape for all that which she used to take place in. Cheerleading, volleyball, track, soccer, gymnastics...her life seemed like a jumbled, rushed mess of workouts, studying, and trying to be polite by going out on at least one date with every boy who asked her. Stella developed a solid life for he in Boston. And she gave it up for this place. For this family.

Two floors to go.

Two hours ago, Stella was at the hospital looking over my brother Rick. He's been in a coma for more than a year, and why, they cannot tell her. His mind seems to be in a constant state of activity, and he almost always is having REM. But he rarely speaks or moves, and he is dead to his sister. Still she visits him, though, for days on end, maybe in some vain attempt to justify all those years she never saw her little brother. Or maybe just for something to do.

One floor to go.

One time, and one time only, Stella Sheridan saw an apparition in her brother's apartment. It was when she first began staying there. The creature looked at her with large, shiny red eyes, like an insect's, and she had felt cold. She feels that coldness now.

When she opens the door, after fumbling with her keys for a moment, she can already feel the wind blowing in, and she sees the snow. The window is open...and there is something in the air.

Stella gasps. "Oh my..." she says lightly to herself, and fades from audibility. It is the creature, the ghost...the thing, whatever it is. And it is in the apartment again, floating in place without motion.

The green, blue, and purple figure turns to her, and she once more is allowed to catch sight of the large red-sectioned ovals of eyes. Neither speak, neither move, and the dog Rambo slowly walks to his female master for attention, which she does not give.

"...you? Again?"

It felt like Rick had been there, and she had never felt his waking presence.

I will return to Sheridan's apartment sometime soon. Until then, I will walk like a restless man lost of all care and responsibility save movement.

Once again dressed in more traditional human clothing, I am traveling the same streets as before. The snow is beginning to fade and die as some noble, tired god would, fading with each passing second but leaving its imprint on all that it has touched. I watch. I walk. I observe. I walk.

And I see the woman and her daughter from earlier. The woman looks happy, almost blissful, leading her daughter around to the various windows of botch closed and opened stores. The child's tears are long gone, and the red cheeks she bears are from the cold, and possibly from glowing happiness. Could this mother have been so changed by my words?

A nervous feeling takes my stomach as though I had lost faith. But I have not. I know that they will never change, and that I will always walk among them, even as they sleep, for I am a Sleepwalker. And someday, all who have touched Earth will destroy humankind.

Only then will I rest. Only then will I be satiated. Only then will I finally be done.