Well, it was Friday morning, and it was one of those summer days best spent indoors on account of the heat. But as usual, my buddy Mordecai and I were out doing chores—lawn mowing, to be exact. See, last week we did something stupid and Benson was pissed as usual, so he was working us to death to make up for it. Mordecai woke me up around five (the sun wasn't even up), and we set out to do chores all day.

Now, if you can believe this, Benson refuses to trust us with the riding mower. Instead, he gave us each a crappy push mower. Try mowing acres of grass with one of those things sometime! Trust me, it sucks.

Anyway, that's not the point of the story here. See, while we were mowing away, something weird happened. I couldn't stop watching Mordecai do his job. I don't know what it was—whether it was the sight of my bro hard at work or the craziness of the summer heat or what—but I just stared at him and smiled. I was really happy just to be there with him. I guess Mordecai noticed, because when I finally snapped out of it, he was standing in front of me with an angry look on his face.

"Dude! What the H?" he said.

"What bro?" I said back.

"You've been standing there in some weird voodoo trance for the last ten minutes!"

"Really?"

"Yeah, really… What's wrong?"

"I don't know. It's probably just the heat, man."

"Well, you wanna take a break?"

"Yeah, but if we stop now, we'll never get this done! And I'm sick of Benson calling us slackers."

"Well dude, I'll take care of it. You don't look so great."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, just go lay down or something."

So I left him and went back to the house for some Strong Johns to clear my head. After about an hour or so, he came in sweaty and exhausted, and he sat down on the couch next to me.

"Hey man, I think I'm gonna take a nap. I'm beat," he said.

"Yeah? Okay. You still up for movie night?"

He let out his trademark "yay-yeah" and then went off to bed. Friday night was movie night, but it occurred to me we still hadn't picked out something to watch. I definitely wasn't in the mood for Shy Guy again, so I went downtown to the video store.

Now, if you'll recall, the last time we watched a horror movie, things didn't turn out so great. It took me forever to get that stupid taxi out of my head! But still, I conquered my fear, and now, I figured, I could handle anything. So, like an idiot, I went straight to the horror section and picked out the cheesiest thing I could find.

The Corpse Returns. Just the name of the thing was ridiculous. But I'll admit, it creeped me out a bit. Basically, it's about a guy who gives his wife some potion and then murders her, just to see if the potion works. Well, work it does, and she comes back to life and murders her husband and half the townsfolk. Standard B-movie fare and all. And, as usual, Mordecai dozed off until the end.

Anyway, after that we went to bed—him on his mattress and me on my trampoline—and I fell asleep pretty quickly.

Sometime afterward, I woke up screaming and, though I hate to admit it, with tears streaming down my face. I quickly dried my eyes and prepared myself for Mordecai's wrath.

"UGH! Dude, I told you we shouldn't have watched that. You always get nightmares!"

Well, he heard my whimpering and looked to see what was wrong.

"Dude, are you…crying?"

"NO!" I said defensively.

"I'm sorry, man. Are you all right?"

"No! I had the worst nightmare ever."

A moment passed in silence, before I asked him something I would never normally ask.

"…Can I sleep with you?"

What was wrong with me? Why would I want to sleep with my bro?

"Uh, sure dude…"

After he said that, my heart started beating really fast and I had to struggle to keep from blushing. Something was wrong with me today, and I had to figure out what it was. Anyway, I hopped in bed with my bro. It was really awkward, as you might imagine. We had to keep from making physical contact, as that would be disgusting and all. But there was no way I was going to sleep, not after the dream I had.

It was not, as you might expect, about The Corpse Returns. I forgot some of the details, but this is basically how it went:

Mordecai was getting married to Margret. I was his best man and all, and I couldn't be happier for him. But then, after some time passed, I realized I was losing him. We didn't hang out anymore, and after they had kids, I was basically an afterthought. The last thing I remember was me being old and alone watching Mordecai and Margret from a distance.

While I was thinking about my dream, Mordecai rolled over in his sleep and was facing me. Unconsciously, he wrapped his arms around me and sort of snuggled against me. Now normally, I would be grossed out. But, for some reason, I enjoyed having him close to me. It was warm and his feathers were soft and I felt safe.

Yeah, something was definitely wrong.