It was a moment of dire crisis and the wounded warrior felt the sting of his wounds as he pressed on through the dusty stone hallway. His vision was obscured by the trickles of blood that had streamed down his face, making him wince as he brought his hand up to wipe it off. He had to keep alert for any other surprises that the dark wizard that awaited him at the end of the dungeon may have lying in wait.

Before long he came to a large wooden door at the end of the hallway. Exhausted, the warrior leaned on the wall next to the door. His hand grasped at his side where he felt the large gash in his ribs. He clutched his sword tightly as he desperately tried not to think of how much pain his injury was causing him. Regaining his senses, he reached for the door.

Without warning, the ground fell from beneath him. His hand snagged the handle of the door just in time to keep himself from tumbling down with the fake flooring that had caved away. His sword came free from his other hand and he heard it plummet downward, bouncing off the walls and making a loud crash as it finally hit the bottom of the pit. The warrior looked down into the depths of this new trap he had sprung and saw nothing but blackness.

The strain of his body's weight was tearing the bloody wound in his side further. Pain flared from within his tired bones and muscles and the warrior found his grip weakening. He reached with all his strength for the doorknob with his free hand, but before he could take hold, there was a loud snap and the knob came free from the door, releasing the hero to fall into the void beneath him.

"No!" Rex shouted as he jerked the controller in frustration. It was too late however. The Demon's Eye "game over" screen faded onto the television set accompanied with very morbid sounding game music.

Rex threw the controller on the floor and lunged forward at the console, jamming his finger on the power switch as hard as he could. The screen flashed and was emptied into blackness. He sat back and stared at the floor pouting. It didn't help that his father was away on a GL assignment and his mother was called away roughly two hours ago on a League mission. His sister had shortly gotten home after their mother had left as she had to stay late today at school because she was starting some kind of project for History class. Something about writing a report on the history of any member of the Justice League. All Rex knew was that she was doing hers on their mother. But she was in such a terrible mood when she got home that he didn't even bother to ask her to play a game with him. If only he had someone to do something with he wouldn't be losing to this stupid video game again!

This wasn't the first time Rex Stewart had gotten mad at his video game console since he had gotten it for his eleventh birthday six months ago. He didn't like to lose. It was simple as that. The first time he had gotten mad at it, his mother had turned it off and told him not to play it anymore. He didn't listen of course. One time he got so mad at one of his games, he decided to punish the game by hiding it in his father's sock drawer and not allowing it to be played for a month. That idle threat didn't stop him for more than a day or two either.

This case wasn't as bad. He wasn't frustrated enough to take authoritative action over his games this time. He popped the Demon's Eye disc out of his console and grabbed Magician's Land 2 from the shelf next to his television. He was just sliding it into his game console when he heard his parents' door being opened down the hallway.

"Mom's back," Rex said to himself as the game started up. He picked up the controller and began playing again. He had played and beaten Magician's Land 2 a lot of times already but he didn't care. The game was so long it always took him a few weeks to get through it and he was out to try to find some more of the hidden stuff he hadn't yet found in all the previous attempts.

He didn't get far beyond the title screen before there was a knock on his bedroom door. The door opened and Rex's mother came in.

"Hey Rex," she said as she entered.

"Hi Mom," Rex answered, his eyes never leaving the screen nor his hands the controller.

"What'cha doing?" Shayera asked as she planted a kiss on the top of his head.

"Nothing much," He finally paused the game and looked at his mother. She was wearing the same yellow and black tracksuit that she always wore but today it returned tattered. Now that Rex took notice of it, his mother was sporting a nasty looking bruise on her upper left cheek and she also had a cut on her bottom lip that was also sporting a bruise. She looked tired but was smiling softly as if nothing was wrong.

"Did you get all your homework done before starting your little quest?"

"Yup," Rex returned smiled. "All I had was math."

"Good," Shayera said as she glided her hand through Rex's short hair. "Is Emma home?"

Rex resumed his game and continued playing. "Yeah she came home right after you left." Shayera left out an exhausted sigh and left his room, leaving him to play his game. She pulled the door to his room and it came just shy of being closed.

Rex concentrated on searching through Magician's Land 2. He had already found two of the six special keys he needed to get into the mystery town but he had a lot of searching to do before he could get the other ones. The first two were always easy to find. He didn't really like wandering all over the place following difficult clues to try and find the stupid things but he really wanted to get into the mystery town this time.

"That's where all the really good stuff is," He said to himself.

As he searched, he could hear his mother and sister from Emma's room. His sister was talking loudly. He couldn't hear what they were saying but they were talking very fast and interrupting each other a lot. Finally he heard his sister yell out "DON'T START" so loud Rex could hear her clearly even over the sound of his game.

Rex paused the game, silencing it. He was a little nervous. Whenever his sister yelled like that, it usually meant he was in trouble for taking or breaking something of hers. Well he did borrow her notebook the other day and he may have damaged the spine of it a bit. Rex waited for his sister to come bursting in his room and start yelling at him. She didn't however but Rex could still hear his sister talking loudly.

They were talking about things he didn't understand. He could tell that they were arguing about something. He heard his sister say something about their mother being nothing but just a boldfaced liar and traitor. Shayera was trying to tell Emma something about how she didn't know the whole story.

Their voices quieted and Rex unpaused his game and continued playing. Rex didn't like to hear it when people fought so he pressed on through the world of Magician's Land 2, avoiding as many of the monsters he could and collecting as much gold coins he could get his hands on. Once he had enough gold coins, he could trade them in for more clues about where the remaining four keys were, so he was sure not to leave a single area unchecked.

As he played along, Rex began to start thinking about what he would be doing in school the following week. It would be a Monday so that meant that he had gym class and English in the morning, then he would be doing math again in the afternoon. He hated math but he was looking forward to his gym class. And on Tuesdays he had-

"I HATE YOU" the loud voice of his sister startled Rex. He quickly paused Magician's Land 2 again and looked towards his doorway. His mother and sister were talking loud again and he began to really worry now. Both of them were trading fast snaps at each other, hollering about all kinds of things that he didn't understand.

"Why are they fighting?" He asked himself.

He remembered when this big kid Jack in his gym class called him a nerd and was threatening to beat him up one time during recess. Rex started yelling back at Jack to leave him alone but that didn't solve anything. Luckily the principle was out walking by the playground so Jack didn't bother attempting anything. That was different from what he was hearing down the hall though.

Rex sat in the silence of his room as the argument escalated and filled the whole apartment. He wondered if maybe he should go and ask the two of them what was the matter. He thought about it for a long time but just continued to sit and listen.

Minutes passed and still the argument continued in full speed. Rex got up and went to his door and closed it all the way shut. The sounds were muffled so much that he could no longer make out what they were saying at all but he could still hear them. He rushed over to his controller and unpaused the game again. He leaned forward and pushed the volume increase button on his television set. The bouncing game style music filled his room and Rex resumed his coin hunt, trying desperately not to think about what was going on outside his room.

He was having trouble getting around the monsters. Normally he had no problem just knocking them flat on their backs but Rex was constantly running into them and losing life. There was no frustration this time however. His attention was too focused on the possibilities of what his mother and sister were saying to each other.

He paused the game again, hoping to maybe hear if anything was happening. He quickly unpaused it again and played along a little more. As he continued along, he couldn't hear anything over the game's music but that didn't stop him from trying.

It was getting late now. Four hours or so had passed since his mother had gotten home and Rex knew that his bedtime was quickly approaching. His coin hunt was over and he was saving his game when he heard the sharp call of his mother from. "Rex, you should have been in bed already! You can play that game tomorrow!" She hollered towards his room. Rex could tell she was angry. His mother, more so his father, sometimes would get upset when he stayed up too late on a school night in his room. He wasn't about to not listen to her this night however, even if it wasn't a school night. Quickly, he turned the TV off and changed into his pajamas.

Rex opened his bedroom door and stepped out. The apartment was still and quiet. There was only the slightest bit of light coming from his sister's room. The boy stood in his doorway waiting...waiting for something to happen, or someone to say something. His hands were sweaty and he rubbed them on his pants.

"Where's Mom and Emma?" He wondered before finally walking down the hall to the bathroom. The white light of the bathroom's overhead light bulbs came on as Rex flicked the switch on the inside wall and closed the door. He saw himself in the mirror but only looked for a second. His attention was on the door once again and he listened keenly for whatever it was he had been waiting for while he was still standing in his bedroom doorway.

He turned away from the door and plucked his toothbrush out from the holder next to the sink. Dabbing a spurt of red, white, and green toothpaste on the top and then running it under the tap, Rex began brushing his teeth hastily but then paused momentarily. He didn't want to try and get away with just running his brush under the tap and returning it in order to save time, not tonight. His mother was in a foul mood thanks to his sister.

He brought his brush back into the scrubbing motions, moving it slowly back and forth across his teeth, slower than he had been doing before. He wondered if maybe Shayera and Emma had gotten so mad at each other that they had started to fight. 'But there wasn't a bang or loud noise,' He thought. If they were fighting like Jack and he had almost done, there would have been a bang, wouldn't there? But his mother would never hit him or his sister, no matter how angry she got. She would yell like there was no tomorrow but she never resorted to physical violence with them. She never even spanked them when they were younger and did something really bad.

Rex finished up in the bathroom. He clicked off the lights and paused for a second in the silent, dark bathroom, before opening the door. Down the hallway, past the door to his room, he could see the doorway to his parents' room. The door was closed but light was coming out from beneath the door frame. Rex could swear he heard something that sounded like muffled crying coming from the room. No it couldn't be that, his mother never cried. He never once saw or heard her cry. So it couldn't be that, not in a million years.

Slipping into his room, he closed his door again. He went over to his bed and pulled the covers away. He wasn't tired but he wanted to be asleep very badly at that moment. He wanted it to be morning and not this tense night that he was still a part of anymore. Sliding underneath the sheets, he reached over to his spaceship shaped lamp that was still on and clicked it off. He pulled the covers tight against his chest and sat there in his bed.

Rex began to listen. He wanted some idea of what was happening in the other parts of the apartment but there was nothing but silence for the longest time. It wasn't until he heard footsteps coming towards his room that he finally moved a little bit, turning himself over so that he was lying on his back.

There was a small sound of the door's handle being turned. He looked quickly to the door. There was a crack of light that widened as the door opened and his mother appeared behind it. "Did you brush your teeth?" She asked.

He nodded accordingly as his mother sat on his bed next to him. She smiled contently and looked at him. "Okay, goodnight Rex." She kissed him on the forehead like she did every night. She then hugged him, a bit too tightly for Rex's comfort, and he heard her shakily exhale as she finally released him after a few moments. As she rose, she peered across the room. He turned his head over to try and see what she was looking at.

"You left your game on again. Turn it off before you go to bed." She reached for his door.

"Mom?" Rex almost whispered.

She slowly turned back to look at him. "Yes honey?"

"Um..." Rex at that moment noticed that his mother's eyes looked puffy and he realized she had been crying. Now he wasn't sure what he wanted to say. He felt the same way he did when he was called on during class to answer a question he didn't know.

His mother's smile slowly withered but she spoke softly, the way he always liked hearing it. "Don't worry, Rex. Everything is okay. Go to sleep, we'll talk about it tomorrow." She didn't say anything else. The door was closed and Rex was in his room alone. He heard the sound of his mother clearing her throat and then a few seconds later he heard the same muffled crying sound again.

Rex waited until he heard the door, to his mother's room, shut before reaching over to his lamp again. He switched it back on. He looked over at his game console and saw that the little red light was still shining. He climbed out of bed and went over to his television. He turned it on and waited for the screen to come to life. The screen lit up slowly in the stillness of his room with a giant "PAUSE" label in the middle of it. He must have forgotten to actually turn the system off after he finished saving his game for some reason.

Rex stared at the screen for a short while. He believed his mother. Everything would probably be alright tomorrow. He would get up early in the morning like he did every morning and have his breakfast before playing his game again. His dad was probably going to be back some time tomorrow afternoon or evening. Hopefully his sister would be in a better mood tomorrow and he could play a game with her.

He pressed the power switch and watched as the Magician's Land 2 images on the set turned to a black screen. He then turned the television's power back off and returned to bed.

Lying there in his room, Rex closed his eyes but not his ears. He was still listening but didn't hear anything else that entire night. All he did was remember that his mother had told him everything was going to be alright. He replayed that message in his mind over and over and it wasn't until just before he actually fell asleep that he finally believed it completely.