Nightmare Alley: The Nighttime Fears of Yep, you know who.

Yep. You know who he is. Instead of dreams filled with sugar plums and pleasant melodies, Yep has a knack for stumbling into one bizarre and outrageous nightmare after another. Why? Because Yep is convinced that his nighttime escapades held the secrets to his most ridiculous fears and helps him run the country..

Each night, armed with an arsenal of sleeping aids—some questionable concoctions he felt would keep him from waking in a panic—Yep settled into bed, ready for whatever shenanigans his brain had in store for him. Little did he know that tonight, the stakes were particularly high.

The Dog of Darkness

On this fateful evening, Yep was about to face his greatest fear: being chased by a big black blind dog. But why was the dog blind, you ask? Well, Yep had a theory! He thought a dog without sight would rely on its other senses, making it unpredictable and even more terrifying. He awoke in a fit of sweat, heart racing, as the giant black blur flopped around the room, sniffing and barking at absolutely nothing. “You can’t catch me, you unseeing critter!” he shouted, leaping over his bed with the grace of a gazelle—if gazelles were a tad clumsy and a lot more panicked.

The Children’s Home of Blindness

After evading canine doom, Yep next found himself in an equally outrageous predicament. He was suddenly transported to a children’s home for blind kids. “What’s the deal?” he thought, surrounded by delightful children giggling and playing games he’d never heard of. “Are they playing hide-and-seek or just hiding?!” As a giggling child tripped over his feet, he could only yell, “Watch out for that imaginary wall!” resulting in an uproar of laughter that confused him even further.

The Wrong Rally

But wait, there’s more! Just when he thought it couldn’t get any wackier, Yep found himself on stage at a Democratic rally. Dressed in a huge elephant costume (because, of course, how dare he wear anything else?), Yep panicked, convinced he had misplaced his party. “What do I do? Should I start chanting or do I just throw peanuts?” he babbled in his sleep, waking up again, heart pounding—this time contemplating a career as a political jester.

Choking Hazard

Apart from his political faux pas, Yep carried a ferocious fear of choking on a chicken bone. He had even gone so far as to instruct his trusty Secret Service—err, friends—to de-bone every chicken meal set before him. Alas, during one night of heavy feasting, Yep bit into an imaginary chicken leg and started choking only to discover the whole thing was a rigorous exercise in fear.

“Just my luck!” he yelled, “To be a vegetarian at a BBQ!” and promptly turned into a panic-stricken noodle, flailing around on the floor until he fell back asleep.

The Ant Army

But nothing could prepare him for what awaited him next. In the deepest corners of his slumber, Yep imagined an army of ants, with tiny, determined military hats, marching up his leg. “I swear, they’re trying to take me away!” he shrieked, waking up once more, tossing pillows and blankets to throw off the phantom ant brigade. “I just need to keep these pests away…with candy!”

So, in a hilarious turn of events, Yep began to dream of covering himself in chocolate to attract the ants and then promptly devour them in a bid to “gain their powers.” “That’ll show them!” he cackled in his dreams, a newly-crowned Ant King well on his way to ruling the kingdom from his bed.

A Night of Silly Fears

Finally, Yep fell into a dream where he found himself in a massive field full of rubber chickens, interspersed with giant, balloon rabbits. “Balloons are scary!” he thought as he tried to dodge the bunnies who unpredictably hopped in his direction. Yet, he found himself cracking up every time he stumbled, which only fueled his laughter. “Now this is my kind of party!” he exclaimed, finally feeling the weight of his ridiculous fears lifted.

With every night, Yep learned that his fears may be outrageous, but they were also a big part of who he is. So, as he drifted off to sleep, he yelled to himself, “Can’t wait for tomorrow’s shenanigans!” and with that, he embraced the fears of his Nightmare Alley, confident that every weird dream was just a new opportunity to laugh… or at least try to escape clumsy blind dogs, unpredictable children, and an imaginary army of ants.

And so, underneath his bed of surreal metaphors and the silliness of life, Yep became—against all odds—the king of his own hilarious dreams that he fears, ready for whatever bizarre escapade awaits him next!