Author: feral-kuga (formerly Risika Kiisu Seto)
Title: Nightmares of the Worst Kind
Word count: 690
Rating: T
Warnings: Death, Blood, nightmares, ANGST

Yes, I'm alive. I haven't had any ideas for Feral Trauma. So I apologize to everyone waiting for the next chapter. (I've spent all of my time on Tumblr. Kuga's really grown as a character, but most of you haven't seen it since it's been in role play threads)

Just a short one-shot I wrote. Background: Kuga is married, with a child on the way. Her husband, also a mutant, had a child with a woman, and Kuga's taken him as her own. The child-Jie-is 5.

I only own Kuga. Koji, Jie, and the Boss are all the characters of a friend. And I don't own Marvel. Just putting that out there, since Kuga's a mutant.


More often than not, Kuga had nightmares. The few times she didn't have a nightmare were the times she'd worn herself to exhaustion, or was in a healing coma. Recently, the nightmares came less often—mostly invading her sleep when Koji was away on a job. She wouldn't complain, wouldn't mention that she had only gotten an hour or two of sleep when he came home. She would love to go with him, but she had to take care of Jie, and with the cub on the way she had to take better care of herself.

Kuga had tucked Jie into bed, kissing him good night. "Daddy'll be home tomorrow. You need to get some sleep so we can go to the park together, Cub," she persuaded when he tried to convince her to let him stay up. She was going to have to talk to Koji about letting him watch House… The boy was hooked.

Jie relented, wanting to spend time with his parents. She smiled, turning out the light and closing the door most of the way. Padding through the hall to the room she shared with Koji, she sighed. 'When is Boss going to stop sending him out? I'm half-way through the pregnancy, and I can't protect myself or Jie if someone decided to rob us or anything…'

Kuga shook the thoughts away. She had a gun, and knew how to use it. It wasn't much, but it was better than just her claws. She slipped into bed, curling around Koji's pillow and slowly nodding off.

Jie woke up, as was usual for him, and shuffled to the kitchen for a drink before returning to his room. He was about to go climb back in bed when a noise drew him to his parent's room. "Mommy?" he asked tentatively, pushing open the door.

Kuga was tossing and turning on the bed, pillows tossed everywhere and blankets kicked to the foot of the bed. She was growling and whining, the sounds that had drawn Jie to the room in the first place. The boy scrambled to her side.

"Mommy! Mommy, wake up!" He reached for Kuga, trying to shake her awake. Kuga shot up with a snarl, lashing out with her claws as she struggled to pull herself out of the nightmare.

The first thing she noticed as she shook the dream off was that the scent of blood didn't disappear like the phantoms that had haunted her. No, instead it got stronger. She felt something warm on her fingers. Kuga looked at her hand, a knot of cold fear in her stomach. Blood ran down her hand, looking black in the dark.

Her gold eyes landed on the small body laying beside the bed. Kuga flew out of the bed and knelt beside her cub, scooping him in her arms. His throat had been torn out, and he was quickly bleeding out. Despite that, he didn't look scared. He smiled up at his mother, reaching up to pat her cheek with a small hand.

"Jie… I'm so sorry… I… I'm sorry…" Kuga forced out, nuzzling his hand as the light left his eyes and he stilled.


Kuga flew out of the bed with tears streaming down her face. She frantically looked around for her cub, running down the hall to his room when she couldn't find him. She looked inside, seeing the young child resting peacefully in his bed.

She sat on the edge of his bed as she cried, relief making her shake.

"Mommy?" Jie asked, voice thick with sleep. "Mommy, wha's wong?"

"Mommy just had a really bad dream, baby. I'll be alright. Just go back to sleep," Kuga whispered.

The boy blinked up at her before scooting over in his bed, patting the side he just vacated. She laughed, a choked sound, before crawling in next to him. Jie curled up against her side as the feline gently ran her hand through his hair, watching him sleep as she watched the sky outside slowly lighten. She made a mental note to tell her cub to never try to wake her from a nightmare.


Thank you for reading. Sorry for the feels. I'd really appreciate if you guys could review, since I haven't written anything this long in a while.

Would you like for me to write more in this 'verse? Because I have a lot of one- or two-shots I can use.