Chapter Summaries

After Roy died and Martin was taken into psychiatric care, the injured narrator returned home with Freddy and kept the strange incident secret. Freddy began visiting the funeral home to handle corpses, driven by his desire to gain strength, and the chapter left him cutting open a frozen body.

• The narrator called the police and an ambulance, then learned that Roy was dead and Martin would likely be confined to a psychiatric hospital.
• Freddy waited outside the hospital until the narrator called him in, and they slept together there before returning home the next day.
• The narrator gave Freddy the brass dagger and later noticed that he disappeared each afternoon, claiming he went to read at a thrift store.
• Freddy secretly visited the funeral home, where Isabel Martinez let him examine corpses and use sterilized tools.
• Freddy ignored Roy's corpse and cut open a frozen body with a scalpel.

Freddy spent Christmas Eve recalling his abusive childhood before returning to a warm home with Klein. Though Klein had given him scalpels, Freddy asked about the sweater Klein had been knitting, and Klein handed him the crooked red-and-green garment.

• Freddy calmly assisted Isabel with a corpse at the funeral home, revealing his precise anatomical knowledge and growing desire for power.
• On his way home, Freddy remembered Underwood beating and starving him on Christmas Eve while he clutched a hidden shard of glass.
• Klein welcomed Freddy home with Christmas treats, decorations, and a set of scalpels as a present.
• Freddy told Klein that he wanted the sweater he had seen him knitting, and Klein gave him the oversized, uneven red-and-green sweater.

Klein’s worsening exhaustion resisted medical treatment, and he collapsed while cooking with Freddy. The chapter left Freddy crying out as hot oil spilled over Klein and he sank into darkness.

• Freddy treasured the oversized sweater Klein had knitted for him and promised to wear it at home.
• After winter break, Klein became increasingly sleepy despite spending long hours in bed, and his schoolwork and daily routine suffered.
• Freddy tracked Klein’s sleep and tried to help, but their efforts to regulate his schedule and wakefulness failed.
• Klein and Freddy visited a hospital, where a doctor diagnosed disrupted sleep and prescribed medication, counseling, and lifestyle changes.
• After months of treatment without improvement, Klein suddenly collapsed while frying burger patties, spilling hot oil as Freddy cried out, “Klein!”

After suffering a severe burn and remaining unconscious for two days, the narrator woke to learn that doctors suspected Kleine-Levin syndrome. His father then claimed the condition was an ability granted by a great master and demanded that he accept his inherited bloodline.

• When hot oil burned the narrator, Freddy gave him first aid and accompanied him to the hospital.
• Doctors ran numerous tests while the narrator remained unconscious for two days, then suspected Kleine-Levin syndrome after he woke.
• Freddy explained what had happened, and the narrator tried to reassure him before sending him to buy food.
• The narrator feared that his condition would ruin his future and burden Freddy with treatment costs.
• The narrator's father arrived and said the family expected him to contribute something.
• The narrator's father declared that the narrator's condition was an ability granted by the great master, not a disease.

Klein recalled his painful childhood and agreed to a deal with a man who needed him. Freddy discovered Klein had been taken from the hospital, waited for him at home, and then met men sent by Klein, still hoping Klein would return.

• Klein remembered how his father’s financial collapse led to his mother’s illness, cruelty toward him, and eventual death.
• Klein explained that Freddy had saved him from a life of loneliness and said he wanted Freddy to grow up safe and able to choose his own path.
• Klein agreed to the man’s deal.
• Freddy returned to the hospital with food and learned that Klein’s family had taken him away.
• Freddy waited at home for Klein, and the next morning men in black suits arrived, saying they had been sent by Klein.

Freddy remembered how he had been separated from Klein and later became a wealthy biomedical company president. After a secret society subjected him to a ritual involving Chaugnar Faugn’s three emissaries, Freddy’s suppressed memories and hatred overwhelmed him, while he learned that Klein was alive and recuperating in Germany.

• Freddy recalled that Klein had been taken abroad for treatment and had left him in the care of another family.
• Freddy grew up, left his adoptive parents at seventeen, and eventually became president of a biomedical equipment company.
• At forty, Freddy joined a wealthy secret society and followed an introducer to an underground facility.
• The society’s members bound Freddy and subjected him to a ritual invoking Chaugnar Faugn and the emissaries Som, Morphe, and Ino.
• The three emissaries entered Freddy’s body, unleashing memories of his separation from Klein and overwhelming hatred toward him.
• Freddy remembered discovering that Klein was alive and recuperating at a laboratory-sanatorium in Germany.

Freddy investigated the disappearances of wealthy families’ members and was drawn into a cult devoted to Chaugnar Faugn, where an evil power transformed him into an emissary. After learning the cult’s rules and asking how sacrifices were chosen, he suspected Klein’s illness had been the sign that marked him for sacrifice.

• Freddy found the German sanatorium where Klein had been treated in ruins, then founded a biomedical research company and uncovered regular disappearances among wealthy families.
• Freddy connected the disappearances to the seasons when Klein had fallen ill and began studying the occult, prompting the cultists to confront him.
• An evil power changed Freddy, and the cultists brought him to their bishop, who welcomed him as an emissary of Som, Morphe, and Ino, servants of Chaugnar Faugn.
• Freddy witnessed grotesque rituals, took an oath, and learned the church required annual sacrifices from members’ families or wives, while its victims were kept dreaming underground.
• After Freddy was allowed a glimpse of the cult’s lord, a gentleman who had earlier acted superior treated him with fear and deference.
• Freddy asked how sacrifices were selected and, hearing that signs usually came from the bishop, wondered whether Klein’s illness and endless sleep had marked him.

Freddy learned that Klein and his mother had been sacrificed for their special dream abilities, and an incarnation of the Lord of the Great Abyss offered him a way to destroy the forces behind Klein’s suffering. Freddy became a nightmare after burning himself to death, then spread dream killings beyond Elm Grove Town as authorities tried to contain him.

• Freddy heard that Tilinas Rheinhill and Klein Rheinhill had been sacrificed to the Lord, and his hatred and despair broke through his carefully maintained composure.
• An old man appeared in Freddy’s locked villa, revealed himself as an incarnation of the Lord of the Great Abyss, and said Freddy could help save Klein by destroying the power stolen from the Lord.
• The old man gave Freddy a spell, and Freddy returned to Elm Grove Town, where he prepared to act before the evil god’s sacrificial ritual began.
• A month later, Freddy killed more than twenty descendants of the people who had bullied him by attacking them in their dreams, then burned himself to death.
• Freddy emerged from the ashes as a nightmare and began killing people through dreams, driving Elm Grove Town’s survivors to flee.
• Authorities established mental blockades and sleep-control systems, but Freddy’s power crossed their defenses and followed the fleeing survivors.

Freddy exploited the cultists’ summoning ritual to break free of the dream dimension and slaughter them inside their underground hall. As he spread his nightmare through the complex, a cell of Chaugnar Faugn rose from beneath the structure.

• Freddy used the believers’ chanting and summoning array to shatter the barrier between the dream dimension and reality.
• Freddy transformed the ritual hall, impaling and burning the cultists while the hanging corpses became zombies.
• Freddy mocked the lizard-faced bishop, then left him to be attacked by zombies and sent his shadows through the underground structure.
• Freddy hummed as screams spread through the complex and the survivors’ minds succumbed to hallucinations.
• A cell of Chaugnar Faugn emerged from beneath the underground structure, releasing nightmare power through the space.

Freddy fought the evil god and embedded a soul-killing dagger in its body, but the cloaked old man revealed that he had manipulated Freddy and planned to reclaim the god’s flesh. The old man approached the weakened body, only for a seemingly dead Freddy to ambush him.

• The evil god attacked Freddy with tentacles, distorted reality, and nightmares while Freddy mocked it and fought back.
• Freddy used his glove to drain the evil god, but the god struck him apart with its tentacles, and Freddy disappeared.
• The cloaked old man revealed that he was a fragment of Chaugnar Faugn who had secretly influenced Freddy and manipulated events involving Klein and Valia.
• The old man explained that he intended to reclaim the evil god’s body and described the dagger embedded in it as a weapon forged to kill souls trapped in flesh.
• The evil god’s consciousness faded, leaving its body as a living mass of flesh, and the old man moved to take it away.
• Freddy suddenly punched five holes through the old man’s chest and surprised him.