One story can destroy everything.

August Shelley's voice is intoxicating. One word will paint a vivid image in your mind. A sentence will imprison your attention. Listen to an entire story, and you'll question what's real.

The first time Nelly Huggett hears "Never Fear" at a school assembly, she's drugged by his voice, hypnotized by his words, and utterly petrified. But she's not just hypnotized.

She feel like she's been trapped, inside the story.

When Shelley takes his show to the Sterling Renaissance Festival in upstate New York, the mystery of the man's unusual artistry deepens. For his hypnotic tales don't just enrapture audiences, but propel them into horrific nightmares.

Nightmares about a beast, just like the one in Shelley's signature story. Nightmares that hint he isn't just any storyteller, and everyone in his audience is in danger. If the Frontenac sisters don't stop him, the whole world might be next.

For August Shelley proves that stories aren't just an escape. Dreams aren't nonsense. Nightmares are very real. And truth is just as strange as fiction.