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It had been three days of restless tossing and turning.

Melody was your fairly typical college student, one with a lot on her shoulders. Both her parents were doctors, her brother a lawyer.

If she was to ever measure up, she’d need to study, to absorb, to reach the top rank of her future career. And the stress of the whole ordeal was taking its toll.

She sat on the side of her bed, hands shaking as she sipped her calming tea to little affect.

She couldn't go on like this. All her hard work would amount to nothing. She’d never live up to her family's expectations at this rate…

Hurriedly she grabbed her phone from the side table, scrolling until she reached the bookmarked listing. There, just one confirmed purchase away, was her answer.

Moondrops. A discontinued candy that had gained some infamy in the past for their recall and subsequent ban. They were marketed as “Sleepy-time Candies” but were loaded with dangerous levels of melatonin for their child demographic, leading to hospitalizations due to low blood pressure, severe stomach pains and even vivid nightmares.

Of course, this meant little for adults looking for desperate insomnia relief. Not long after the ban an underground market formed, selling the remaining stock and, as the supply thinned, started trying to replicate the recipe.

Which was what Melody was staring at now, on some shady import site, alongside bootleg mascot horror plushies and ‘genuine’ diamond jewelry, was the listing for the most accurate recreation of the precious sapphire sweets.

It was a risk, but it was affordable, and she was willing to put up with near anything for the chance at precious, precious shuteye.

With a deep breath, she confirmed her purchase.

-

One week later…

“Another sighting?”

Neil looked at the blurry photos he had been sent, recognizing what earlier descriptions had recalled.

The red glowing eyes like LEDs, the strange blue satin clothes, and the sheer imposing frame of the freakishly all being…

It was official.

It was official, Emily University had its own cryptid, or at least it’s own strange creep on the grounds.

But it wasn’t human, at least according to sightings. It was tall, it appeared out of nowhere, was capable of contorting itself in ways a human could not, and its voice was an eerie, mechanical snicker.

It never hurt anyone, at least not yet. It almost seemed to just get enjoyment out of frightening people with its presence alone. It would steal after the fact, but never anything of value. A pen here, a plastic bracelet there, like some kind of strange trophy.

Neil paced in the editor’s room of the university’s student run newspaper. He was its main reporter when it came to campus activities, and he had become increasingly intent on solving the mystery of the Midnight Jester, as the being had been called.

He only paused when a beeping sounded from his phone, pulling it out of his front pocket to see the reminder for him and Melody’s movie night. Cripes time flew by, and he had made little progress on the article.

He didn’t want to just report on the whole ordeal, he wanted to crack the case, or at least find a plausible explanation for the encounters. Maybe Melody could provide her own academically minded perspective, or at least taking his mind off the story might let his mind rest and come back with fresh eyes…

-

A knock and a gentle push of the door announced Neil’s arrival, only to see Melody pacing and fidgeting, seemingly not noticing the young man’s arrival as she rapidly mumbled to herself.

“Melody? You alright?”

The young lady practically leapt through the ceiling as she startled, spinning around like she’d been caught red handed smuggling stolen diamonds.

“Ah! Neil, ah- I almost forgot, I uh, just need to get some- er, popcorn! Yeah! Lemme just-”

Neil crossed his arms and stared at her, eyebrow raised. Melody had done a comically poor job at hiding her worries.

“All right, what’re you stressing out about today?” This was far from the first time Neil had come across her threating about something or another.

Melody stood in front of Neil, hands wringing as she kept looking back and forth between Neil and her closet, before sighing in defeat.

“I…” Her eyes shifted behind her glasses, before weakly pointing to her closet, pointedly looking away from Neil.

Neil, now confused and more than a tad concerned, approached the simple wooden door, pulling it open to reveal what at first seemed to be a pile of odds and ends, slightly spilling out from how they had been haphazardly thrown in.

As he took a more cursory look however, his eyes widened in gradual realization. Pens, cheap plastic jewelry, hair bands, all the kind of things that the ever elusive Midnight Jester was said to take.

Melody… did know about Neil’s investigation. She had let him bounce ideas back and forth, going over what little information they had. She had been doing a lot better once she had started taking those sleep supplements, at least until this very moment…

And that WAS around the same time the sightings started…

“I’m… I’m scared Neil.” Melody confessed, looking up with teary eyes. “They just- just keep appearing on my bed, I swear I have no clue where they’re coming from!”

Neil’s expression softened, stepping over and placing a hand on her shoulder.

“I’ve no clue what exactly is happening Melody, but I promise I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay?”

Melody looked up at Neil, smiling slightly before asking. “But… Why me? What does he want?”

“I don’t know…” Neil admitted, before straightening. “But I’m going to find out. I’m staying here tonight, keeping an eye out. If anyone or anything breaks in, I’ll be the first to know and protect you… and finally catch this clown.”

Melody looked at him wide eyed, seemingly wanting to question him, before stopping herself, instead simply opting to hug the taller man.

“Thank you… Now,” They separated, Melody giving an uneasy smile. “Now, you feeling A Nightmare On Elm Street, or Akira for the night?”

-

Neil jolted awake, having almost nodded off in the armchair he’d set up not far from Melody’s bed. He needed another cup of coffee to make it through the night.

Melody had gone to bed not long after they’d finished their movie duology, taking her sleep aids as usual and soon entering a peaceful sleep, breaths steady.

At least, that was before Neil had nodded off himself. It seemed that what jolted him awake wasn’t his own head bowing, but Melody tossing and turning, mumbling.

Neil stood up, seeing Melody’s face scrunched up in evident discomfort. A nightmare? Should he wake her up-

Then he saw her hand.

With a gentle creek it was stretching, the fingers longer, skin paling as it took on an undeniably plasticy sheen, nails tapering into fine, clawlike points.

Neil rubbed his eyes, making sure HE wasn’t the one dreaming. Whatever was happening to Melody didn’t cease, her arm shrinking in on itself, becoming almost bony looking as the skin stiffened into hard, artificial material, lengthening to an inhuman degree.

“Melody… Melody!” Neil reached to shake her awake, only for one eye to snap open, a glowing, monstrous red, causing him to stumble back in shock.

“Neil…? What’s-” She looked down, her other eye still human, seeing her mutated arm, looking ready to scream…

But no sound came out. One side of her mouth hung open in terror, but the other stretched into a maniacal grin, teeth bared in a sick glee as if amused by her own fear.

“Wh- whaaaatss… ehehehe… hap- happeninINggg..?” Her voice warbled as she clutched her uneven feature, shakily standing up as if against her own will, peaking and cracking between her soft, feminine voice and a raspy, sadistic tone not at all her own.

She groaned in pain as her legs creaked as they grew, pajama pants riding up to reveal deep blue fabric flaring out from her very skin, dotted with yellow starry patterns. She wobbled on her stilt like limbs, toes melding into a single brown lump on each foot, tapering and curling into elven shoes.

“Shhhhhhh…” Melody hushed herself, raising her unchanged hand to her lips as it started to warp to match its sibling. “Go back to sleep little one… ehehehe~”

Neil stepped back as realization dawned. The blue clothing, the gangly, inhuman frame, the giggling, almost fiendish voice…

Tears streamed from Melody’s unchanged eye, staring, pleading for help as she lost more and more control over her twisted body, a ruffled blue clown’s collar sprouting like leaves from her neck as it lengthened, pajama top shrugged off of her slimmed frame to reveal a metallic chest coloured in white and black akin to a yin yang, or even a vest, faux buttons visibly popping through what was once flesh.

“Help…” She rasped, before the other side of her mouth curled into a toothy, vicious grin, the blue eye freezing as life seemingly faded from it, soon replaced by another glowing red LED. Her nose both stretched into a sharp point and flattened, smeared across her compressed face, the right side darkening as if in permanent shadow as the left paled into a bright white, just like the moon on a dark night.

The figure before him, limp limbed and looming over him, head easily scraping the ceiling would he had been upright, stepped forward, Melody’s hair growing out and melding into a blue, starry patterned nightcap to match the Jester’s pants. Bells and belts sprouted as if natural extensions of the fiend’s body, twitching with life all their own as he crouched, face to face with a terrified, uncomprehending Neil.

Staring into each other's eyes, the mechanical clown put a finger to Neil’s lips.

“Shhhh… you didn’t see anything newsboy~”

In what felt like a blink, the figure had opened the window and deftly made his escape, hopping from rooftop to treebranch to street light with an acrobat’s grace, leaving Neil in stunned, horrified silence.

Releasing a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, he stared down at Melody’s side table, at the package of blue candylike medication.

The… the story would wait, at least for now…