DISCLAIMER: I do not own Freddy Krueger, the only character that's mine is Freddy Jr., Jordan, and the Kelligan family.

A young man woke up suddenly after falling asleep in class. In a daze, he shook his head and looked around the classroom to see it not only completely empty, but also completely trashed. From the floor to the ceiling, the room gave the impression that it had been burned. Ash gently pattered down like snowflakes. Confused, Brad stood up out of his chair and looked around for any sign of life.

A chunk of ash from the ceiling fell on his head making him jump and shaking the dirt out of his shaggy red hair. Suddenly, he heard a faint scream from down the hallway.

"What the hell?" he whispered to no one in particular as he wandered out of the classroom and into the hall. He glanced up and down the charred hallway and followed the scream. The floor crunched uncomfortably beneath his black converse high tops, picking up dust behind him.

The screams grew louder, but still he followed the direction of the noise.

"Hello?" he called out. The screams of a girl being his only reply. "Hello!" he called again. The lights in the hallway flickered. He looked around nervously at the flickering fluorescent bulbs. He looked back down the narrow hallway. "Hello?" he called just barely above a whisper before the lights disappeared altogether enveloping the fourteen year old boy.

His breathing got heavy as he started to panic.

"Found you." A deep, gruff voice echoed through the hall. Suddenly, a man appeared behind him. He quickly whipped around to see who it was, but jolted awake in reality. Just then, the bell rang and the students were dismissed. Brad held his head and shook off the reoccurring nightmare he had been having.

Brad flung his backpack on his back and headed off to his next class.

"Hey! Hey Brad!" A fellow jock ran up behind him. "Did you hear what happened in the chemistry lab?" Jordan asked.

"What are you talking about?" Brad asked.

"Someone found Rachel literally ripped to shreds in the chemistry lab! Come on!" Jordan and Brad ran down to where a large crowd had gathered as the paramedics came in to clean up the bloody corpse.

"Oh my god." Brad said as he managed to get a glimpse of the blood splattered classroom before the teachers shooed the curious students away.

"I wonder if this was Freddy's doing." Jordan thought out loud.

"Who?" Brad asked. Jordan looked at Brad as if he had two heads.

"You've never heard of Freddy Krueger?" Jordan asked shocked by his friend's lack of knowledge. "He was a child murderer. He butchered nearly twelve kids before the parents killed him in his basement. Some of the kids here think that these recent killings were him. They interviewed some college chick, Nancy something about it." He explained.

"Do you think she may have something to do with it?" Brad asked.

"Don't know. She says that her friends were all killed in their dreams by a man with knife hands wearing a Christmas sweater and a brown leather hat." Jordan said. Brad's eyes widened.

"Jordan, I've seen that man before!" Jordan stopped and stared at him. "I've been having this dream a week since my fourteenth birthday and every time, there's a burned man with a knife glove and all that." Brad started to panic. "You think that, if he is real and he is killing the teenagers, maybe, " he swallowed, "I might be next?"

Jordan said nothing and they started walking again. They both knew the answer to that question.

Brad managed to stay awake for the rest of the school day, but the idea that a supernatural murderer may be coming to kill him didn't stray away from his mind.

The walk home was uneventful and the moment he got home, he collapsed onto the couch and sighed. He kicked off his shoes and tried to unwind with a little tv before his parents got home from work.

It wasn't anything particular. A couple a lame cartoons and a few unbearable sitcoms until finally he found something that seemed interesting. It was a horror film that appeared to be a game show, but there was a person tied over a cauldron of bubbling oil. The rope started to lower the screaming victim into the hot liquid. Brad changed the channel not really in the mood to watch a horror flick.

The next channel was another horror program. A man very closely resembling Johnny Depp was walking through what seemed to be a boiler room. The man jumped when hot steam shot out of one of the pipes behind him. The man relaxed when he saw the source of the noise, but when he turned back around, he was met with the burned face man in the hat and sweater. In a panic, Brad quickly changed the channel as the burned man, Freddy Krueger raised his knives to slash down his victim.

The next channel was full house. Brad let out a sigh of relief. He hated the show, but there would be no chance of gore or terror on the show. The doorbell to the Tanner home on the show rang. Stephanie tanner jumped off the couch and smiled back at her uncles Joey and Jesse who had just given her some great advice. As she skipped up the single step to answer the door, the front door swung open smashing the blond teen into the wall. Freddy Krueger strutted in.

"I'm home!" he called sounding cheerful. The color left Brad's face.

"I must be dreaming!" Brad realized aloud trying to shut off the tv with the remote, but the tv didn't respond. He started to panic. Freddy looked in his direction and smirked. "Ah! Come on!" he demanded of the remote as Freddy walked toward the screen. Quickly he abandoned the remote and pressed the actual power button on the tv set. Nothing happened and Freddy was getting ever closer.

"Shit!" Brad yelled as he dove for the plug and yanked it out of the power outlet. The tv went silent and the picture went black. Brad stopped to catch his breath, relieved that the tv was off. He chuckled to himself thinking maybe he had just imagined the whole thing.

Suddenly, the gloved hand broke through the glass tv screen and sparks went flying. Brad scrambled to his feet and backed away from the tv as Freddy emerged from the set. Brad turned to run down the hallway, but discovered that there was nothing but brick wall behind him.

"Oh, Bradley." Said a voice behind him. Brad whipped back around to see Freddy Krueger standing before him. Everything that had been in the house before was gone. Freddy smirked and drew out his knived glove.

"Now, boy. It's time to stop running and come to me." Freddy said slowly approaching him.

"Get away from me!" he screamed. Freddy started to reach out his hand to him.

"Listen to me!" Freddy demanded.

"Get away! GET AWAY!" he bolted awake in his living room on the couch. He panted and gulped, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. It was just another dream.

That night at dinner, he said nothing to his parents. He went up to his room and sat in bed trying to do everything to keep himself awake and prevent Freddy from being able to kill him.

For the next few days, Brad had made friends with coffee, but soon started to find that he was drifting in and out of sleep. Everytime he drifted off, Freddy would come to him and try to talk to him, but everytime he would find a way to wake up.

"So, how much longer do you think you can last?" Jordan asked Brad over the phone. Brad groggily wiped his forehead.

"Dude, I don't know. It's already been seven days. It's really getting to me." He replied.

"How're you feeling?" Jordan asked. Brad chuckled.

"Would 'dead tired' be an appropriate response?" he said trying to sound alright about the whole thing. Jordan chuckled on the other line.

"That was horribly 'punny', man." Jordan commented. "Look, just try to hang in there until someone can figure out how to stop this bastard."

"I'm trying." Brad responded.

"I'm gonna get going. See tomorrow."

"Bye." Brad hung up the phone and rubbed his eyes and sighed. The minute he took his hands away he was in the boiler room he had seen that Johnny Depp look-alike in a little over a week ago. Brad stood up out of his chair and looked around. The air was humid. It was already making him sweat as he walked down the metal floored passage along the burning pipes.

Hot air shot out every now and then by the surrounding pipes, each time making him jump. His bare feet ached as he continued to journey along to try to find an exit. He bit his bottom lip as a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face. Not to far ahead, a pipe burst out the cloudy hot air followed by an eerie clicking noise as if someone was drumming a set of knives on the metal handrail one by one. An evil chuckling accompanied the noise and a black silhouette appeared in the cloud.

"Freddy." Brad whispered.

"Hey, Brad." Freddy said in a rather taughting tone. "Daddy's home." He chuckled. Brad burst into a run back the way he came. Every which way he went, he was met by Freddy's laughter. Among the pipes and around the flights of stairs he ran, but there was no escape. "Is it too much to ask for a word with ya?" Freddy asked, but Brad didn't stop moving.

"Stop." Freddy demanded. "Stop running!" Freddy yelled appearing at the end of the corridor he was running and splashed some kind of liquid on his face. Brad turned around, but Freddy was toe-to-toe with him. "I. Said. Stop!" Freddy yelled and suddenly, parts of Brad's face caught fire. Brad screamed in pain and tried desperately to extinguish the flames. "Hey, got a hot topic for ya." Freddy joked and laughed. "But no seriously, why don't you chill out?" Freddy asked splashing a bucket of water on him.

Brad crouched down onto the floor and held his face. With every once of strength, he held back his tears of immense pain. Freddy cocked his head and hoisted the boy back onto his feet.

"Sorry, Brad. But I need your attention." Freddy said looking directly at the burned boy. Freddy gave a devilish smile. "Well, well, well." He rose his knifed index finger and brought it to one of the burn patches on his face. "A chip," he scraped away a chunk of flesh making Brad let out a cry, "off the old block."

"What do you- what do want from me?" Brad asked fearfully. Freddy grinned.

"It took me years of searching…but I finally found you…son. It's funny. You really do look just like I did at your age." Freddy said putting a hand on his shoulder. Brad jerked away.

"Son?" Brad asked. "Is that…why you've been coming after me? Killing the kids at my school? You think I'm your son?" Brad asked. Freddy nodded.

"Like it or not, you are, Junior and I want to teach you…how to be like me." Freddy explained. Brad shook his head and chuckled.

"No, no. You got the wrong guy. I mean, my parents were, are not psycho killers. I'm just Brad Kelligan. I ain't no son of Freddy Krueger, pal." He replied sounding like he was just talking to some guy off the street. Frustrated, Freddy shoved him hard against the wall.

"Don't believe me? Lemme show you somethin." He said. The world around them changed. The pipes vanished and it was no longer muggy and humid. They were on a quiet street. Brad looked around at the surroundings and was greatly confused. The birds chirped happily in the trees. Brad turned around and saw a Victorian home with several kids playing happily in the grass in the front. He quirked his eyebrow and turned to look at Freddy only to find that he was gone.

Brad turned back to the large house and headed for the front door. A wooden sign painted in dark green lettering read, "Springwood Orphanage". He walked up the steps and simply opened the door. There were children of all different ages skipping and running around playing games in the foyer and the connecting living room. A familiar couple sat happily and anxiously on a wooden bench as they watched the children play.

"Mom? Dad?" Brad walked towards them. "What are you guys doing here?" he asked. They didn't move. "Hello?" he waved a hand in front of their faces. "Can't you hear me?" Just then an older woman came out of a room.

"Mr. and Mrs. Kelligan? I've got the papers for you." She called. They glanced at each other happily and walked hand in hand into the room. Brad quickly followed them as the door shut behind him. Inside that room in the dark corner, Freddy stood leaning against the wall with one foot crossed in front of the other. Brad was startled, but Freddy simply pointed to the scene taking place.

"Now, Mr. and Mrs. Kelligan, this is Freddy." The older woman got up and pulled out a babbling baby from a nearby crib. Mrs. Kelligan 'awed' at the baby.

"May I hold him?" she asked.

"Why of course, dear." The woman replied carefully handing him over.

"Isn't he just darling?" she said admiring the rather confused looking child.

"Well, if you can just sign these papers, Mr. Kelligan, we'll be all done and Freddy is all yours."

"Wonderful, but we were thinking of renaming him Bradley." Mr. Kelligan pointed out as he scribbled on the papers. Brad's eyes widened.

"But of course." The woman said cheerfully.

Brad quickly looked over at Freddy who just simply smirked at him with his arms crossed. Brad looked back at the old woman.

"I mean, it seems perfectly reasonable to rename him after what happened to his father." She pointed out.

"What's that?" Mrs. Kelligan asked her smile not leaving her face.

"Oh nothing, dear, nothing." She said knowing all too well about the secrets behind the child. The world faded back to the boiler room and Brad was speechless. Freddy stepped in front of him. The two were silent for a moment as Brad tried to take in all that he had seen.

"So know you know." Freddy finally spoke. "You know who you are…and most importantly…who I am." Brad nodded and finally, a tear escaped him. "I never wanted this to happen to you." Motioning to Brad's burned face. "I never wanted any of this. They took you from me, but now…I have you back." Freddy smiled almost a creepy soft smile.

Brad, not sure of what to do, let more tears roll down his face.

"Dad." Brad whispered. "It's hard…to explain, but I feel like…I remember." Brad explained, a smile creeping onto his face. Freddy opened his arms and Brad wrapped his arms tightly around him. Freddy chuckled and stroked his son's hair.

"I promise. From here on in…nothing is keeping you from me." Freddy said. Brad broke away.

"Then…this whole time…my entire life has been a lie?" Brad asked in a rather irritated tone.

"'Fraid so." Freddy replied trying to sound sympathetic towards him.

"I want nothing more to do with the Kelligans. They're nice enough people, but…I'd rather stay with my real father." Brad informed him. Freddy smiled.

"I was hoping you'd say that." Freddy chuckled. "How about, we stage your death and you can come back with me…to Elm Street?" Freddy asked.

Brad sighed and looked back at him.

That night, there was a loud scream from Brad's bedroom. Mr. and Mrs. Kelligan leaped out of bed and ran for their son's room where they found him gurgling in a pool of his own blood on the floor.

The next afternoon at the funeral, the grey clouds loomed overhead as they slowly lowered the dark wood coffin into the ground. Not far off, Freddy stood beneath a tree wearing a long dark blue trenchcoat and leather hat and beside him, stood his son, sporting a familiar green and red sweater underneath his black leather jacket.

"Rest in peace, Bradley Kelligan." Brad said putting on his own brown fedora. "Altough, you're gone now, Freddy Krueger Jr." shall take your place.