Whoo! Chapter three is out! :D I figured this story could use an update, you probably all agree too, huh? Anyhow, you all ready? :)
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~X[Chapter: 3]X~

I knew I would be in for serious trouble when I got home, but I didn't expect getting four swats, sent to my room, being grounded, and not allowed to play with Cloud for a whole day. So I sat alone on my bed, staring out the window, and trying to ignore the seering pain from the swats I had received.
I heard light thumping against my bedroom door. A small infantile voice let out a little whine and kept thumping against the wooden door. I heard my mother come up from downstairs and pause by my door.

"In." I heard my little brother say.

"Not today, big brother is in BIG trouble." Mom had told him as she picked him up. He began to whine louder, and he probably pointed at my door. "In, peas?" He asked, trying to say 'Let me in, please?'.

"No, Cloud. Not today." She said, a little firmer than the first time.

If anything, that was more punishment for him, not me. I remained seated on my bed, having a pretty good hunch about where this was going to end. I heard Cloud cry loudly, and babble nonsense and repeating the word 'In', over and over again. I heard his cries get faint when I realized mom was taking him downstairs. When I figured this out, I hopped off my bed and raced to my door.
I opened it slowly and quietly, freezing at every little squeaky creak the door made. When it was open wide enough for me to slip out, I did so, and cautiously peaked my head downstairs.

Cloud was sitting on the floor whining and crying, while mom tried to explain why he couldn't see me today.

"You're brother did a no-no today, so I had to punish him so he would learn his lesson, okay?" Mom explained.

Cloud refused to listen and just looked away from her as he whined and cried. She exhaled loudly. I wanted to speak up and explain it to Cloud myself, because I knew he would understand better if I told him, but at the same time, I didn't want to be scolded for leaving my room.

"Do you want to draw? Will that make you feel better, baby?" Mom asked.

That was the first time I had ever seen my brother refuse to draw. I blinked once. He was even more upset that I was about my own punishment. Mom gave out a loud sigh and turned in the direction of the staircase. I had no time to hide, because she had already seen me.

"So, how much have you heard Zackary?" She asked.

I swallowed a thick lump in my throat. "All of it." I quietly, but honestly, replied.

"See if you can explain it to him okay? Then go back to your room." She decided, and I watched her stand up.

Wow, that was a first. Usually if I had tried to do this before, she would yell at me to get back to my room. Was she okay? She gave me a soft smile before turning into the kitchen to fix lunch. I hopped down the steps and made my way over to my brother, whom was still crying on the floor loudly.
I sat down in front of him and ruffled his hair. He stopped crying and looked up, harboring the emotion of surprise. It was replaced with a bright and happy smile.

"Z'ck!" Cloud exclaimed loudly and he crawled into my lap.

I gave him a tight hug and smiled. "Inside voice, remember?" I asked. He blinked and smiled again at me, understanding my request.

"Okay, I can't talk for very long because I'm in trouble." I began.

"Z'ck n' tubble!" Cloud giggled, trying to say 'Zack is in trouble!'.

"You see, it was a bad thing to do for me to bite the doctor at the clinic, so I got put in a long time out. Because of that, I'm not allowed to play with you today." I explained as best as I could.

Cloud blinked, but then his eyes hardened and he became angry. He clamored off my lap and took wobbly steps over to his sketch pad and box of crayons. He ripped a blank sheet out of the pad and pulled out a black crayon, and he went to work on his angry drawing. I blinked. I had never seen Cloud all angry when he doodled before. It was kind of freaking me out a little bit.
He looked truly aggravated, and cynical too. He started pulling out all kinds of colors, even some he had never used before. It was the first time I had ever seen him use red, orange, and yellow in the same picture before. What on earth was he drawing?

He pulled out a brown and filled in one of his black outlines. He grabbed a grey crayon and scribbled it all over the top of the white paper. When he was finished, his look of hate softened a bit, and was replaced what looked to be smug pride. He looked up at me and saw the look of shock, and a little bit of fright on my face.
He slowly stood up and toddled his way over to me. He plopped down in front of me and showed me the drawing.

"Lo'k. Cloud said.

My face twisted in even more shock and fear.

In the picture was our old pediatrician, the one I had bit today, and he was on fire. Behind him looked to be a picture of a house, and that was on fire too. Dark grey smoke emanated from both the man and the house. And on bits and piece of the man, red blood and charcoal black flesh littered the ground below him.
White was showing through his head, and it wasn't his hair. It was his skull. Green grass around his house was burned brown, and there were firefighters in the background, they were watching him. Laughing at him.

When I looked back up at Cloud. He still had that angry, yet victorious looking smile. This was probably the freakiest thing I had ever seen in my life.

"Mom! Mom! Look at what Cloud drew!" I cried out.

My brother still sat there, smiling like he was when he was drawing the picture. That eerie and creepy smile.
"Mean' maan won' g't yoo in tubble noma'." Cloud said, his tone dead set and serious. He had said 'Mean man won't get you in trouble no more'.

That freaked the holy hell out of me. He had never looked or sounded so evil before. What happened to the sweet boy drawing flowers and animals?

"What is it Zack? Are you scared or something?" Mom asked with a soft chuckle.

She froze when she saw Cloud and the way he looked. She looked at me, and saw the horror on my face as I held up the drawing to her. She observed it, and her eyes widened as well.

"Cloud drew this?" She asked in shock, as she looked back at me. Her black hair falling in her face to mask her horrified bright blue eyes.

I only mutely nodded. She crouched down to our height and looked at Cloud.

"Baby, why did you draw this?" She asked, showing him the picture that he had drawn.

"So mean maan don' g't Z'ck in tubble noma'. Cn't g't in tubble iff mean maan dyz." Cloud told her, really trying to say 'So mean man won't get Zack in trouble no more. Can't get in trouble if mean man dies'.

Mom looked even more horrified than I did, and I was pretty sure I was scared to death. Cloud crawled himself into my lap and let out a little yawn. He looked up at me, and the hate from earlier had left his eyes. He looked like himself again. Sure, he was himself again, but that was a picture that couldn't go unseen.
Especially the one in mom's hands. He let out another yawn and snuggled himself closer to me, he rested his head just below my left shoulder and closed his eyes.

"Evr'tng b btt'r 'morrow." He said sleepily. 'Everything will be better tomorrow'.

With that, he took a nap against me. I looked back up at mom, and she was staring in the picture, picking out every little detail. What had gotten into Cloud today? Maybe a good night's sleep would make everything alright...

~X[-0-0- VII -0-0-]X~

Saturday morning. Last night's sleep had really made me feel better, and forget most of yesterday's freaky events. I stretched and let out a loud sleepy yawn. I glanced over to read the time on the clock. It was a few minutes til nine thirty in the morning.
My favorite cartoon show should be on in a couple of minutes, and I didn't want to miss it. I threw the covers off of me and ran to my door, I opened it up and hopped outside, thankful that I was no longer in trouble as of today.
I looked across the hall to Cloud's room. His door was cracked, so I decided to peek my head in. He appeared to still be sleeping.

I tip-toed my way into his room quietly and peered over his bed. I rested my hands on the rails and smiled. He was still sleeping away. I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. He stirred slightly and let out a sleepy little giggle as his eyes opened.

"Sorry I woke you Cloudy. Go back to sleep." I said to him, tucking him under the covers a little tighter.

"No!" Cloud exclaimed with a smile as he kicked the covers off.

It made me giggle a little bit, so I picked him up and held him in my arms.

"Well, did you sleep good?" I asked him.

He laughed in response. So I took it as a yes and carried him down the stairs. I figured he might want to come down and watch cartoons with me. When arriving in the living room, I set Cloud down on the couch and went up to the TV. I turned it on and went to channel four, where the show Mog the Moogle was just starting.

"Yay!" Cloud exclaimed as he clapped his hands and kicked his legs up and down quickly.

I sat down next to him and he crawled into my lap and hunkered down with a big smile on his face. We got no more than ten minutes into the show until an emergency news broadcast cut into the program. I groaned.
I didn't want to watch the stupid news, but I was too lazy to remove my brother from my lap to get up and change the channel. But then the title of the broadcast made my eyes widen. The newscastor began to tell the story,

"A freak house fire? That's right. No one knows how it happened, but police are investigating a robbery gone wrong. There was no signs of struggle, but something had to have gone wrong.
58-year-old Truman Tucker was killed in this tragic house fire last night at eleven fifty-nine P.M., The firefighters arrived on the scene, but they had just came back from getting slammed at the local bar.

So while the poor man was running around on fire with his house burning down, the firefighters laughed at him and watched as the flames ate him alive. The corpse was found in the front yard early this morning, and signs of third degree burns were present. His skin had slid off and bits and pieces of bone were showing. We now turn you live to our..."

I tuned out the rest because I was so frightened. What Cloud had drawn, actually happened! This was all kinds of freaky.

When I looked down to check on him, he was smiling widely, and that horrible freaky look returned in his eyes...