[Author's note: A short chapter this time. This was originally meant to be part of the last chapter but that one ran too long so it got cut and moved here.]


He had made a legitimate attempt at sleep. He had laid down, closed his eyes, but the thoughts in his head kept on churning, wondering: Had he picked out the right fears for Riley to best handle the Haunted House? Had he picked out enough? If he needed to pick out more, would he be able to handle another round with Disgust, Anger and Sadness?

Having the others involved did help to accomplish filling the discard box, although they had also managed to drag him well outside his comfort zone in the process. Every one of those binders had been a life-long work-in-progress. And having each and every potential threat to Riley's well being organized on paper was one of the few things that gave him peace in his anxiety-riddled life. It really was the only time he felt he was in control of anything, which had made watching his coworkers disassemble his volumes right in front of him so extra stressful.

While the others had been distracted at lunch with whether Riley should pick chocolate pudding or a fruit cup, he had tried to lessen his turmoil by sneaking away with the Hockey binder and a few others he had decided where just too important for Riley not to be wary about, like Earthquakes and microwave radiation. Things had gone smoother after that, though Anger continuously gave him glares, which gave him the feeling the fire-brick was holding a grudge over the argument from earlier.

Which was why, when he snuck from the bedroom to the lockers downstairs, he was extra careful to not be seen or heard as it was Anger's turn for Dream Duty.

"You have got to be kidding me." The cantankerous emotion snarled at the screen, "Like I didn't get enough of this today already."

It appeared that the writers down in the dream department liked Riley's rope climbing escapades just as much as Joy had, as tonight she was dreaming about being in gym class. Only now the ropes were dangling jungle vines and the gymnasium was overgrown with trees that seemed to endlessly reach into the sky through a wide hole in the ceiling. The actor playing Coach van Saders had announced that he was so in awe of Riley's rope climbing prowess that he was putting her in charge of gym class. This alone wouldn't have bothered Anger, but it was the annoying congratulatory squealing of her dream-world classmates that he found irritating in their over exuberance.

"OMG Riley, you are #the coolest." One girl gushed. "Can you, master rope climber, teach us how to be as awesomesauce as you?"

"Do I smell pork? 'Cause somebody's hamming it up down there." Anger criticized.

Fear too had to roll his eyes at the actress's over the top performance. Seeing that Anger was distracted with ranting about the heinous abuse of slang, he carefully opened his locker, took out his typewriter, and closed it without a sound. He started making his way back up the ramp, but a loud bang and a scream coming from the monitor instantly claimed his attention.

On the screen a horde of zombies had burst into the gymnasium and were now shambling after the students.

Anger was dumbfounded. "This again?" he argued, "The zombie movie wasn't that scary!"

Frozen on the spot, Fear bit his lips together to keep from screaming; barely remembering that he didn't want to alert Anger to his presence. He hugged the typewriter to his chest, which was all he could do to keep himself from dropping it upon first sight of the zombie invasion. His eyes fixated on the screen, watching compulsively as zombies lunged left and right, students fleeing for their lives.

A pair of police officers rushed in and started shouting orders for people to get to safety. They attempted to contain the situation by beating the zombies back with their billy-clubs, even though they were obviously outnumbered.

As expected, one of the officers was overwhelmed and knocked to the ground. The undead mob lumbered towards the downed officer, obscuring the camera's view with their uncountable numbers. The camera maneuvered around to try to get a better view of what was happening, but its movement caught the attention of one of the zombies who spun around and snapped towards the screen, mouth wide to take a bite. There was a scream, and the picture went dark.

Silence lingered. That was it. The nightmare was over.

Anger frowned, disappointment strong in his words, "What kinda stinker ending was that? At least let's see a zombie eat the girl who kept saying 'awesomesauce'. It's not even a word!"

Fear hadn't stuck around to form an opinion of his own. Instead, he had sprinted up the ramp as fast as his shaking legs could carry him, not even caring that the typewriter made clacking noises as he clutched it to his chest.

He ducked into the breakroom, shut the door behind him and leaned against it, panting. His heart pounded as he whimpered to himself,

"It's only a dream, it's only a dream…"

It took a solid fifteen minutes to finally calm down. He placed the typewriter on the break room table, his arms slightly numb from holding it for so long. He set the kettle on the stove in the little kitchenette, tea was a must now. After retrieving his notes and the discard box, catching the kettle before it could whistle, pouring himself a mug and getting comfortable at the table, he started clacking away at updating his files on Riley's fears and phobias.

He wanted to log the entries that were slated to soon be removed. Having a back-up just in case of an emergency would help to ease his mind as he moved forward with his plan.

Saturday was coming up fast and there was no time to double guess himself. He had to take the next step.

[To Be Continued]