Unlike traditional possession stories (like The Exorcist ), where the demon seeks to destroy the host, the Nightmaretaker’s possession is seen as a symbiotic, albeit horrific, relationship. The devil inside him uses the man’s physical form to "harvest" the energy of human fear.
To look at the Nightmare-Taker is to see the end of humanity—not death, but the end of the human claim to the self. He is the nightmare that has learned to walk in the day, wearing a man’s face like a ill-fitting mask, smiling with a mouth that no longer belongs to the owner, whispering secrets in a voice that echoes from a place where light has never been. the nightmaretaker the man possessed by the devil