((I'm eleven, take pity on me.))   

          She wore, with complete consistency, a dress of white, a white so pure it seemed luminous. Her dress had a portrait neckline, and the gorgeous silk barely tickled the ground, revealing that she was, now and forevermore, barefoot. Her chestnut-brown hair fell in slight waves to the small of her back, and her brilliant eyes to match her dress sparkled in the dark of night. Her skin was a deep and stunningly beautiful fawn. Between her enchanting appearance and the graceful elegance with which she moved and spoke, she was among the most entrancing and beautiful things on this earth. The name of this radiant beauty?
            Oneiro.
             Her name was Greek in origin, literally translating to dream.
             She had been around long before the Greeks, or anyone else. She was immortal, eternal, timeless. The Greeks had only been the first to name her.
             She, Oneiro, was the bringer of dreams, the weaver of fantasies. She is known by most as the Dreamweaver.
            And she had a rival.
            Efialtis.
            She, too, got her name from the Greeks. But hers translated to nightmare.
             Efialtis was as alluring as Oneiro, but opposite, somehow, a different kind of beauty.
The kind of beauty of an eruption of a volcano, the force of a hurricane, or the sheer power that a Bengal tiger, one of the most deadly predators to walk the earth, exhibits when hunting her prey.
Efialtis was known as the bringer of terror, the weaver of misery. Others know her simply as Nightmare.
            Her impossibly ebony dress was of the same design as Oneiro’s, silk with portrait sleeves, and her brunette curls were as long as Oneiro’s. Her eyes, too, corresponded with eerie accuracy to her dress, though they held none of the warmness and joy that Oneiro’s did. Hers held only malice.

            They had the same high cheek bones, the same long lashes, the same full lips. And why not?

            They, after all, were sisters.

            This two silent beauties of the world created the two opposites of the world, more different than water and fire, more unlike each other than black and white.

            One spun dreams and cast them into the world, instilling them into the hearts of young foolish girls and old wise men, giving them a challenge and a thrill as their eyes opened and they tried so desperately to relive what had been so real only seconds ago…

            And the other created nightmares, things that resided in the dank and dark crevices of the human soul. Things that paralyzed you with fear even after you woke up, even after you knew it wasn’t real…and suddenly every shadow was a threat, every noise from the hall was a peril…

            The rivalry between them had never been so intense.

            A world of terrifyingly real horror movie became a world of impossibly easy targets for Efialtis. A world of terrorism, a world of predators, a world gripped by fear from every source imaginable all played to Efialtis’s strengths.

            But in that same world emerged a new generation that was pure and untouched by much of the evil that Efialtis was so pleased with. Children rarely succumbed to nightmares, and the bliss they showed the world at large made them all but impenetrable for Efialtis.

            Still, Oneiro was losing ground fast.

            Dreams were an escape into a land of paradise, a personal utopia. They were a source of inspiration, determination, a place where one was reminded that the world isn’t such a cruel place after all.

            Think of how quiet and lonely our sleeptimes would be if we were abandoned suddenly by our dreams.

            This is why Oneiro fought with all her power and cunning to stop Efialtis from completely dominating the nighttime realm.

            This is why she sought out Zacchaeus.