someone tell me to sleep and not post fic at 3 am

After going out on our nightly patrol, I'd usually be all too eager to curl up and fall asleep, but tonight felt off. It wasn't the weather, and it was even less likely that anyone else is outside at night. Regardless, something inside of me felt deeply unsettled.

I felt a pull on my blanket, then something jumped on me. Whiskers was the cat my mom got me for my tenth birthday, and after more than a year he always liked to crawl into bed around the same time I did.

I took a deep breath and scratched under his chin. He leaned in and began to purr, walking onto my pillow. I then patted him on the head, and he looked right at me.

His eyes were pitch black, and he lunged for my neck.

I screamed, pushing him off the bed and causing him to fall into the nightstand. The lamp on it wobbled, then crashed against the floor.

Panting from fear, I looked at the floor to see that I had actually thrown my old stuffed cat toy. Whiskers was sitting at the foot of my bed with his innocent little eyes focused on me

It was a nightmare, but that didn't make the damage any less real.

Footsteps stormed up the staircase, and the door was flung open. "Connor, again?" my mother groaned.

I looked at the lamp, then back at my mom. My dad had also showed up, brows furrowed in disappointment, while Whiskers began to groom himself.

"I-I'm sorry, mom, it just happened." I said. While I knew that she wouldn't punish me for something I did in a nightmare, it still hurt to know I couldn't stop it from happening again.

"It's okay, Connor," my dad tried to reassure me. "At least it was just the lamp."

"Sorry." I repeated.

She looked at the lamp, and I moved to clean up the pieces.

"I'll get a broom." I said, and dashed out of my room. When I returned, I saw my parents huddled close, whispering as to avoid anyone overhearing. I hid behind the door frame and secretly listened in on their conversation.

"I'm not sure anymore." mom said. "Maybe we should take him to the sleep study like the doctor recommended."

"He doesn't need that." my dad insisted. "We should make him go to sleep earlier, or exercise. He's not healthy."

"We've been doing that!" she snapped. "We can't be expecting him to do everything. The least we could do as parents is give him the support we can."

Dad sighed, crossing his arms. "Fine. Sleep study. But you're taking him there. You don't understand how busy I am trying to support our life here." With that, dad stormed away, not noticing me as he walked past.

Mom stood in my room for a few seconds, then walked away. She briefly glanced at me as she walked past, and a look of horror flashed across her face before she chased after him. Not wanting to hear their argument, I went back to bed and wrapped my pillow around my head as their yelling echoed off the walls. Usually I would stay over at Greg's house….but it was still a little weird between the two of us. And there's no way Amaya's mom would let me stay over. So I turned on my side, shutting out the noise until I couldn't take it anymore.

"That's it!" I snapped, getting out of bed and tapping my bracelet. "Catboy!" A mysterious blue energy flew through my window and enveloped me, and I transformed back into Catboy. I jumped out the window and ran through the town, back to HQ. When I entered the door, I saw PJ Robot beep in confusion and rush over to me.

"Er, I thought I saw a nighttime villain running around, so I thought we could patrol….just in case."

It stared at me for a few seconds before beeping happily, and taking off for the Cat Car. I jumped in the driver's seat, glancing at Gekko's passage for a second before shaking my head and driving out the hatch. We took off towards the museum, which usually was a hotbed of activity, but nothing was happening other than Luna Girl working on one of her paintings. I then remembered that I saw her a couple weeks ago during the day, and thought to ask her about that.

I pulled over the car in front of the gate and told PJ Robot to stay behind, so it didn't look like I was trying to pick a fight. "Hey, Luna Girl-"

"What?" she asked, turning away from her painting of the museum to talk. Wow, it looked really great, compared to the one she made years ago. "Don't bother me. I'm not doing anything wrong."

"Yeah, I know." I said, trying not to set off her temper. "It's just, didn't I see you at school a couple week ago?"

"I don't go to-oh. That." she said, her shoulders slumping slightly. "It was nothing, okay? So stop asking about it!"

"I only asked once!" I yelled. Geez, she can get really touchy sometimes. "Nevermind then. I'll take your word for it."

"Whatever." she sighed, turning back to her painting. "Now go away. I'm trying to concentrate."

"One more thing." I said, a certain incident popping into my head. "Uh, this may be a weird question-"

"Everything you PJ Pests do is weird." she interrupted, rolling her eyes.

"Just listen. When you stole those balloons a while back, did you say anything weird to Gekko?"

"What balloons?" she said, cocking her eyebrows. "I never stole any stupid balloons."

"But Gekko said you did."

"Then he lied, for whatever reason." she said. "What a jerk."

"...Thanks." I said. "Guess I'll be going now."

"You better."

PJ Robot was a little sad that he didn't get to do anything, but a little pat on the head comforted him enough that he went back to HQ without any protest. I parked the Cat Car back where it belonged and returned home. Mom and Dad weren't arguing anymore, so I took that as a good sign and tried to go back to sleep again.

The next day, I got up for breakfast by myself. Mom works at home, and Dad only leaves in the evening, so they usually only get up with me in a good mood. Fat chance as to that happening today.

I ate a piece of toast and rushed out the door to meet Amaya and walk to school together with her. Greg stopped walking to school with us after our talk, and it was hard to get used to. Amaya saw me leave my house and waved, then rubbed her eyes.

"Did you have any weird dreams last night again?" Amaya asked. Was it written all over my face?

"Yeah. There was a huge fight about it." I yawned. "You know how my dad can get."

Her face wrinkled at the mention of him. He's never like me hanging out with Amaya and Greg all the time. One summer, he even sent me to stay with Grandpa and be friends with my cousin's summer basketball team.

"I bet." she said. "I think I'm having those dreams too."

"Huh?" I said. "Are you okay?"

"It's fine. I'm fine." she said, rubbing her eyes again. "I woke up screaming and scared my mom."

"Sounds familiar." I said. "I can't keep letting this happen. Do you think there's a, uh-" I paused when we walked by another group of kids heading towards the elementary school.

"Nighttime villain?" Amaya finished, lowering her voice. "Are any of them capable of something like this?"

"I don't know. But we might as well give it a try, right?" I said. "Let's talk later. Kinda hard right now."

She nodded. "By the by, did you study for the foreign language test today?"

I nearly tripped when she said that. "D-Depends what you mean by 'study'." I said. "I mean, I would've, but it all kinda slipped my mind. Hah!"

Amaya didn't need to say anything. She opened her backpack and pulled out a small packet, handing it to me. "Here's a study guide on things to know I made last night. That's your last class, right? Looks like you have plenty of time to study."

I smiled. "Seriously, you're amazing. I don't try half as hard as you do."

"You can thank me later." she said. Once we reached the gate, we cut through the hedges and entered through the middle school entrance. Since the town was small, the middle school and elementary school are annexed into one building.

We went inside, struggling to get through the stream of kids and get to our lockers. Once Amaya put away her backpack, she said, "I gotta run. Student council stuff."

I waved. "See ya later."

"See you!"

I shoved my backpack away and intended to leave as fast as possible, but ran into an obstacle. A small, green obstacle.

"Ow!" Greg said, stepping out of my way. He rubbed his eyes, and I immediately realized that they were as red and puffy as Amaya's were. "Sorry." he quickly squirmed past me and shoved his backpack away at breakneck speed before darting off again.

"Greg, wait!" I yelled, but he already ran off who knows where. Some kids were whispering and pointing at me, so I decided to hide out at the elementary school playground and study before classes started.

Amaya read the announcements, then came back to class. We were partners in a science experiment that took up the entire morning class. Cameron caused a scene, his unfortunate victim being Greg, but what else was new? Other than that, the day seemed to pass in a flurry of boring work and desperate studying whenever possible.

"I don't think I completely failed." I said to Amaya as we walked out of school. Well, just me. Amaya needed to stay behind for council stuff.

"Remember what the principal says. Confidence is the key to success!" she said, laughing. "I'm sure you did fine."

"Yeah. Guess there's no point worrying about it now." I said, rubbing the back of my neck. "I'm gonna run home and take a nap. When you're done, we can go play at the park."

"Sure!" she said. "I'll see you then."

I ran all the way home, and said goodbye to Dad as he got into his car. He didn't even look at me. I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my chest as I went inside the house. My mom saw me and quickly put a hand over her face. She was vacuuming the living room, and I helped her clean the rest of the house before crashing for an hour. At least during the daytime, I don't have any of those stupid nightmares.

I slept my way through most of the afternoon. Homework wasn't a problem, since it was Friday, so I could be as lazy as I wanted.

Until I heard a knock on the door.

"Connor, honey, can you get it?" I heard my mom yell, her voice accompanied by the clattering of her keyboard. I rushed downstairs and opened the door, expecting it to be Amaya, but instead there was this strange lady.

Not that she looked strange, but it-it didn't feel real. Was I dreaming? Some kind of waking nightmare?

She smiled, and pressed a letter into my hands. She wore an oversized coat that nearly glittered in the daylight. "For your mother. Please have her read it."

"I'm sorry, who are you?" I said, but the moment I blinked, she was gone. I heard my mom come down from her office, and she looked at the door in confusion.

"Who was at the door?" she asked. I didn't know how to answer, so I handed her the letter instead. She tore it open and glanced at it, then slammed her hand against the wall.

"But they said-!" she gasped, then looked at me. "C-Connor, how about you go play outside for a little bit?"

I went outside. It was more like I was kicked out, but I didn't want to make mom more upset. The sun hung high over my head, so I decided to go to the park. I grabbed my skateboard so I could use the ramps and rode it all the way there.

Along the way, I rode by Cameron's house, and came across a strange surprise. I stopped riding when I was far enough away that they wouldn't notice me, and stared at them in bewilderment.

Is that Greg? With Cameron? Greg was saying something to him, and Cameron had his hand on the doorknob. Then he opened the door and slammed it in his face. I was staring for a while, until Greg noticed me. Then, I ran as fast as possible.

That night, Owlette and I set out on our usual nightly patrols. Without Gekko, it took us longer to clear the whole city, but it's not like we lived in a particularly big place. The museum was clear, as were the streets, the school, and HQ, along with any other places that trouble happened.

Or so it seemed.

We ran into each other on the roof of the school. "Not finding anything so far." she said. "You?"

"It's quiet."

"Too quiet." she added. I couldn't help but laugh.

"So, we're clear?" I said.

"Seems like it. But, first-" Owlette began, but suddenly her eyes grew wide and she tackled me to the ground. My back hit the pavement, and I heard something collide against the school.

"Hey!" I cried, pushing her off me. "What was that for!?"

"Up there!" she shouted, pointing at the roof. Or what remained of it. The entire thing was blown off completely, and two bright lights lit up the inside of the building. A second later, those lights shot up into the sky, continuously bashing against each other before taking off for the other side of town.

"We need to follow them!" she yelled, spreading her wings and taking off into the sky.

"R-Right!" I said. I used my Super Cat Speed to chase after her on the ground. "Hey, I'm supposed to be the speedster around here!"

"This is an emergency!" she cried. "There's no time for jokes!" The two lights hurled themselves towards the ground again, dragging themselves towards the lake-towards HQ.

"We need to stop them!" I yelled. "Owlette, get their attention!"

"Right!" she said. They landed in the lake, and she waited until they emerged again. Once they did, she fired a barrage of sharp feathers at them. I heard a hiss, and the shadowy looking light of the two separated itself from the yellow light and lunged at her. She flew away before it could get her, and I ran as fast as I could to catch up. They escaped into the woods, and I barely managed to set off my stripes and tie up the creature before it could get to her.

She landed on the ground and fell to her knees. "I don't think I've ever flown that fast before." she sighed.

"What is this thing?" I said. It was tied up in my stripes, so it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon….whatever it was. At one moment, it looked like a ferocious lion, then it grew wings, then those wings changed to legs. The only thing that was consistent about it was its beady, black eyes.

Black eyes?

"I have no idea." she said, walking closer to it. It snarled, and she jumped back in fright.

"It's some kind of monster." I said.

"Where's the other one?"

"The other one?"

"There was another light, wasn't there?" she continued. "But it didn't chase us."

"So?" I said. "Maybe they were fighting, and-or…."

"Hmm. How about taking it back to HQ?" she said. "If we can."

"That thing'll tear your arm off." I said. "I'll grab it." I moved closer to the creature, and in response it grew a lion's paw and swiped at me. Owlette grabbed me before it could attack and pulled me away.

"You need to be careful!" she snapped.

"What are we supposed to do then!?" I said. The stripes were set to disappear at any minute, and I knew I couldn't let this thing rampage in the streets any longer.

"I don't know, but don't get killed trying to be a hero!" she said.

I crossed my arms. "I know what you're thinking."

She looked like she was about to punch me. "What?"

"If Gekko was here, he could use his shields and his strength to bring him back, right? But he isn't, so we need to handle this ourselves!"

Her look of anger faded into one of realization. "I already know that." she said. "You don't."

"Yes, I do! I'm the leader!"

"Recklessly throwing yourself into danger isn't something a leader would do." she shot back. "Listen, you need to run back and-"

Before she could finish her sentence, the stripes finally broke, and the creature broke free. It transformed into a cheetah, staring at us with those eyes.

"Don't move." I said, but Owlette didn't look like she was ready to run anytime soon. She and the creature locked eyes for a moment. It then looked at me.

Those eyes. I knew I'd seen them somewhere before, but it was something I didn't want to remember.

"Stop looking at me like that!" I yelled. "And leave our home alone!"

It didn't try to maul me like I expected. It growled, then turned away, transforming into an eagle before taking off.

"It's gone." Owlette gasped."Catboy….what just happened?"

"I don't know." I said. "I'm just thankful that I didn't die."

Owlette didn't say anything. "If they're not causing any more trouble, we should go home." I said. "I don't want that thing coming back."

"Yeah." she said. Without a word, we went back home. Owlette flew me back up to my window, and I climbed into bed.

I didn't have any nightmares that night, but I dreamt I was trapped under a bright light.

Can cages bring comfort?

I stopped going to school with Connor and Amaya a while ago. Er, it was more like Connor started to avoid me. I don't know what Amaya thinks. Maybe she'd rather avoid me too.

….It's not like I have any self esteem issues, but I wonder if there's something about me that makes me so pathetic. If it was obvious enough that Night Ninja of all people could figure it out, then I bet it's something that everyone knows about me. Not that I can blame them. I'm almost the youngest person in my grade, and I can't do presentations, I'm not good at talking to strangers or doing phone calls. Is there anything I can do right? I can't even be a good superhero.

I brushed my hand against the wristband I still had. I couldn't figure out how to take it off, and there's no way I feel safe to dispose of those PJs. The last thing I'd want to do is cause more trouble for Catboy and Owlette by having them fall into the wrong hands. Thinking of them again, I couldn't help but glance at Connor and Amaya as they entered the school gates.

I try not to think about them anymore as I head to school, but it's hard not to. They were the only friends I had, and now I stuck out as some loner. At least I was lucky enough to not go to school with mean bullies. Once I got to school, I shoved my backpack away as fast as possible, but couldn't avoid running into him. Literally.

"Sorry." I mumbled, running away from him.

"Greg, wait!" he yelled, but I ignored him and showed up early to science class. I sat in the back, since Amaya would probably sit with Connor in the front.

Hm. Was Connor the one avoiding me, or was I avoiding him?

Nevermind. Class started before I could finish that train of thought. As everyone slowly filtered in, I saw Cameron trudge towards the back and take a seat next to me.

"Hey, Cameron." I said.

"Leave me alone." he said, shuffling through his pocket and checking his phone for a few seconds before putting it back.

"Sorry." I muttered. The teacher, who had gray, ruffled hair and had an aura of negativity, scribbled the assignment on the board before plopping behind her desk to read for the rest of the period. The assignment was to measure the heat energy of various foods.

I had a hard time setting up the burner that we were supposed to use, even with the handout she gave us. "Can you help me, Cameron?" I said. He was staring intently at his desk, and when he looked up, it was like I kicked him. He slammed the desk, then yelled at me.

"I don't care about this stupid class!" he snapped, grabbing the attention of the other kids in the class. No one wanted to sit by Cameron anymore because for months, he's had an explosive temper and got angry at the littlest things. Of course, that meant I was the only one willing to be his lab partner since the year began. Usually he'd just ditch and I'd work with Connor and Amaya, but that obviously wasn't an option. Some people in the front turned back to their work after realizing it was business as usual.

"Please, can you set up the burner?" I said, lowering my voice and pointing at the instructions. "I'm sorry for, uh, interrupting your….your-"

"My 'what'?" he said, grabbing me by my jacket. "Finish that sentence, I dare you!"

"I'm sorry!" I yelled.

"Cameron!" I heard Connor yell.

"Excuse me!" the teacher snapped. Cameron finally put me down, looking at the floor as the teacher stormed over to our desk.

"What?" he grunted, causing the teacher to slap her hand against the desk.

"Office. Now." she said, lip quivering. Cameron loosely shrugged his shoulders and headed out the door. I got sent to a different group, the two kids shooting me a sympathetic glance before going back to work.

Despite his threats, I couldn't help worrying about him. Those thoughts consumed me throughout the school day. What's wrong with Cameron? I doubt the teachers or any other students ever bothered to ask him how he was doing. Not that I can blame them, but there's anyone that he needed to talk to, I didn't mind being that person.

I waited until after school. Last year, when we were still in elementary school, Cameron would stay to play in the soccer field. After school nowadays, he'd usually stay at the tables in the courtyard if they weren't destroyed by….someone. So, I waited by the gate. He sat under a tree until most of the crowd had filtered out, then made his way home.

"Hey!" I shouted. He flinched when he saw me, so I took a step back.

"It's you." Cameron said. He looked at his shoes, not wanting to make eye contact. "What. What is it."

"Do you wanna walk home together?" I said. "If you don't mind."

"No." he said, and walked away. After making sure that I was a safe distance away, I followed him.

"I said no!" he shouted.

"But we live the same way."

"Then-Then don't stalk me." he shouted. "I'll walk, then say when you can start walking again."

"...Alright." I said. After he'd nearly turned a corner, he looked back at me, and I started to walk. I kept going the same way he did, until I reached the houses closer to the park, where Cameron lived. Looking behind, at me, he quickly darted through the front door before I could stop him.

"Cameron, wait!" I yelled, getting as close as his backyard before realizing this wasn't a good idea. But when I stopped in front of his house, my foot lightly kicked an object on the ground.

"Huh?" I said, reaching down and grabbing the toy. It was a posable action figure of a ninja, from that action show that came out last year.

I hesitated, but decided to give it back. I went up to the door and knocked on it. "Cameron, you dropped something."

I heard some shuffling, then the door opened a crack. "What?" he snapped. He looked at my hand, snatching the toy away, then opened the door and ran right past me.

"Hey!" I said. He was searching his backyard for any more fallen toys. Once his search turned up empty, he immediately turned around and tried to go back inside. "Wait!"

"What!?" he yelled, his hand on the doorknob. "We're not friends, and we won't be, no matter how much you bug me! So leave me alone!" With that, he slammed the door shut.

No matter what I said, he wouldn't open the door, so I decided to head home. But when I turned around, I caught sight of Connor on his skateboard. We met eyes for a second before he ran away.

I've wondered lately if there's something about me that makes people avoid me. Now, I'm starting to get some ideas why.