"To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to dream,
But there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled loose this mortal coil..."

~ Hamlet

It was so dark. All she could make out through the darkness was the network of copper pipes as she ran down the catwalks of some old boiler room. Though she couldn't see him anywhere, she knew he was lurking around, somewhere, and she needed to find someplace to hide. If only she could find her way through this labyrinth of pipes

Screeeeeee

She heard it again, that horrible, unnerving sound of scratching against the pipes, like nails on a chalkboard. He was close. She quickened her pace and dashed down a long corridor, coming to a dead end.

"Nancy..."

She spun around as she heard a voice calling her name, so distant it sounded like a whisper, but saw no one there.

"Nancy," the voice whispered right beside her head.

A hand grabbed her shoulder, and her eyes finally opened, awakening to the sight of being back in her classroom. It seemed biology had put her to sleep once again.

Every other one of her classmates were rising from their seats and leaving; class had already ended. Nancy looked over to see that the hand on her shoulder belonged to her friend, Lance.

"You fell asleep again," he said to her with a small smile on his face, one that showed him trying his best not a laugh at her.

"Thank you Captain Obvious," she responded, rolling her eyes at his continued ability to point out the obvious. "I'm just glad this was the last class of the day," she then said as she pulled the strap of her backpack over her shoulder, "Not to mention the last day of the week."

"TGIF," Lance chuckled like the geek he was.

Nancy scooped her textbook and binder up from her table and joined Lance as they both exited the classroom.

Nancy Thompson was always a rather introverted kind of girl, always letting her long dark brown hair fall over her face, hiding her from view. She usually avoided being around people, or otherwise did her best to just blend in; a true wallflower. For some reason they just made her really nervous, especially the guys. Lance, however, was the only exception.

Lance was a genuinely great guy, as sweet as they come, a regular boy-next-door. He was also as geeky as they come too; every day he would dress in preppy pastel-colored polo shirts he always had tucked into his cargo pants, his short ginger-brown hair always gelled and combed nice and neat, a pair of oval-rimmed glasses on his face and loafers on his feet, his socks always folded neatly over his ankles. As good as he was with keeping a neat wardrobe, he was even better with his schoolwork. He was such a model student, in fact, that he was bumped up a whole grade, now being a high school freshman instead of an eighth grader. This, naturally, came in handy for Nancy during class, since she was hardly an A-student herself. Because of this, and because of his non-threatening, good-natured personality, they both ended up becoming good friends over the school year.

As the two packed up their books into their lockers, which were only two spaces apart from each other, Nancy's mouth involuntarily widened in a yawn.

"Was biology really that boring?" Lance asked, zipping up his jacket.

"Yes," Nancy answered in an almost matter-of-fact tone as they both made their way down the hall towards the exit, "But it doesn't help that I already have trouble sleeping at night. Nightmares."

"Boogeyman trying to get you?" Lance teased, tickling her ear. Nancy rolled her eyes and brushed his hand away.

"No," she said, shrugging her shoulders, "I don't know."

The two friends walked out through the front doors along with the herd of a thousand or so other students bustling through, all eager to leave so they could get to their weekend festivities. They then separated as Lance shuffled onto the school bus, while Nancy hopped onto her bike and wheeled onward towards home on it.

here it is, my official re-imagining of A Nightmare on Elm Street

this is a more in-depth, more thorough version of my original story Don't Fall Asleep

uses Wes Craven's original core plot with Samuel Bayer's concept, but with my own storyline and my own version of events

includes some elements from the series, but i'm making it more original and even more realistic and hopefully even scarier and more disturbing than either version

let me know what you think