A/N: Ok, this one is kind of short. But it was a good breaking place for the chapter, and, besides, you did get a 2-for-1 with me posting 2 chapters at the same time :)

This chapter takes place about two weeks after the prologue.

Enjoy!

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Green. Flashes of light, interspersed in the darkness. The light had been bright only minutes before…where was the darkness coming from? More flashes of green, darker greens now as the light continued to fade rapidly. The flashes were all blurring together, shapeless forms shifting in front of his eyes…

Movement, the flashes were moving, faster and faster they kept flying past…or was it him that was moving? Not that he could feel himself moving. No, it must be him. He was most certainly running.

I can't feel my feet moving…

It was getting colder. His exertion should have kept him warm, panting, dripping with sweat even. Nothing seemed to be making any sense. His brain felt foggy, he couldn't clear his thoughts.

What happened to all the noise? How could it possibly be so quiet? At least there should have been some kind of roar as the flashes flew past, a gasp as the air swept through the shadows, something, anything. But no, it was only the silence getting louder, the air heavier and heavier as his lungs struggled to move, to pull in the breath he needed so desperately.

Darker…it keeps getting darker…the light all but gone now, shadows swirling in closer and closer.

Pa…where…where are you?

Alone now. Why, Pa? Where did you go? His brain struggled to think. He'd been right here just a moment ago…so close, his face…he'd been smiling…it must be some sort of joke. That's it, that's what it is…

Pa…help me, help me please…I can't breathe…

He was still running…but was he running towards something, or away from it? A wave of coldness suddenly engulfed him, the shock forcing even more breath from his body. He opened his mouth wider to swallow more air, his breath coming out in ragged gasps as his chest burned from the lack of oxygen.

It's so cold now…I'm…I'm all alone…

He suddenly tripped and lunged forward, he found himself lying on his back, staring up at the darkness that was swallowing the shapeless forms and remaining green flashes. The cold hit him again, wave upon wave that left him shaking, his breathing labored as he tried desperately to hold back the tears that now threatened.

His vision cleared for just an instant, enough to see the dim outline of what looked like a shack in the background. Panic seized him as a sense of foreboding came upon him, and he frantically tried to pull himself towards the building.

The darkness was on top of him now, threatening to crush him, the weight of the utter blackness unbearable.

Alone, so alone…

He pulled himself to the threshold of the tiny building, he was almost there. A tiny burst of hope surged through his chest…almost there…almost there…

He felt his heart suddenly stop at the sound…starting as a low rumble, the manic laugh growing louder and louder, almost drowning out the noise of the silence pounding in his ears. He jerked away frantically, trying to pull away from the sound, but it was as if his body refused to function.

Help…help, please…

He pushed the door of the shack open…there was light in there, it was warm. Safe. He would be safe once he got inside…he just knew it. Just a little further…

The hand coiled around his leg, jerking him backwards away from the light. He vainly struggled, the icy fingers refusing to yield, dragging him away, away from the light, away from where it was safe. He tried to fight, but it was as if his body was no longer his own to control. The laughter, always growing louder, dragging him away from everything. He was alone.

No…please…

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His body involuntarily shuddered, and the movement snapped young Joe Cartwright instantly awake as the remnants of the nightmare faded into consciousness. His heart hammering in his throat, he pushed himself to a sitting position as he peered anxiously at his surroundings.

It was still too dark in his room for him to make out any discernable shapes, and the young boy whimpered softly as another tremor recoiled through his protesting body. He pushed a hand to his mouth to stifle the noise, the quivering in his limbs subsiding a little as he clutched the blanket to his chest tightly. The rush of adrenaline quickly fading, he slowly lowered his hand from his mouth and sucked in a deep breath of air as he waited.

A full minute slowly passed and Joe finally released the breath he'd been holding as he made the realization that no one had heard him cry out. An audible sigh of relief escaped from his lips as his heart rate slowly returned to normal. It wouldn't have been good to wake the house up again.

Joe continued to clutch the blanket tightly to his chest as he allowed his body to drop back down against his pillows. His eyes darted back and forth in the dark room, straining to make out any shapes in the darkness but failing to see anything as the first rays of morning light were still hours away. He let out another small sigh of frustration, knowing that, no matter how tired he still was, he wasn't going to be getting any more sleep on this night.

His exhausted mind went about the motions of trying to remember the 'dream', regardless of the futility of the gesture. It was completely pointless for him to try to force memories of the nightmares that had been plaguing him; he'd been having them practically every night for over a month now, the results of trying to remember them always being the same. It was as if all recollection of what had happened in his unconscious had been sucked into some giant void, lost in some realm that his conscious mind was unable to reach. He couldn't even find a measure of relief in the fact that the dreams were at the very least consistent: always waking him up in the dead of night, always leaving his mind a complete blank when he tried to remember them, and always rendering sleep elusive for the rest of the night.

Not that the energetic ten year old was a stranger to bad dreams; shivers of fear would still run down his spine when he thought about all the nightmares he'd had in the months after his mama had died. Then the ones that had come after his oldest brother Adam had gone away to college. Haunting dreams, always similar in content, still so vividly burned into his memory. All preying on his worst fear—his being utterly alone, desperately searching for his family, success in finding them always eluding him. Yes, at both times in his life the dreams had been the same, but, each time, they had gradually diminished in frequency and had finally stopped altogether.

These nightmares were different though. Haunting, yes, in their ability to keep him awake at all hours of the night; frightening too in the loneliness he felt as he struggled to cope with them on his own. But that had been where the similarities stopped. He wasn't exactly sure why he felt so, but something told him that these 'dreams' were worse. While he hadn't the slightest memory of the subject matter of the nightmares once he awoke, he almost felt as if they were growing worse in frequency and intensity as each sleep-interrupted night passed. The chilling thought only served to increase the fear that was beginning to consume him, making him feel very vulnerable even as he lay in his bed. But for as much as he wanted to run to his father and cry out all his fears, he had kept it pretty much to himself—after all, he was too old now to be afraid of bad dreams.

It had been different after his mama had died. He'd only been five years old then, and everybody had expected for him to have nightmares. At that time, it had been oldest brother Adam who had provided the comfort: his then-teenage brother would hold the sobbing child tightly each night, surrounding Joe with such a feeling of complete safety, a feeling that he rather longed for right now. And, a year later after Adam had gone away, it had fallen to older brother Hoss to provide the hugs and words of comfort that the young child had needed. They had always talked out the nightmares, Hoss sympathetically explaining to the small child with never-ending patience that all would eventually be alright, holding him tightly until the shaking had stopped. But now he was ten years old, too old for all that hugging and stuff, and, besides, he couldn't remember what the dreams were about anyway.

That first night when this current series of nightmares had begun, after he'd been jolted from his sleep, his memory blank, he'd gone to his older brother. Adam had smiled at him and asked him what was wrong; Joe blushed slightly at the memory as he remembered how his brother had let him share his bed, just as he had done all those years ago when he'd been a little boy. It had made him feel better, and he had actually been able to go back to sleep that night. But the nightmares kept coming back relentlessly, and Joe was much too proud to beg his brother's attention every night.

So, here he was yet again, resolute in his decision to handle this on his own. Joe quickly threw the covers over his head as he tried to stop from thinking about it anymore. But he couldn't stop the shudder of fear that suddenly shook his small body, and a single tear escaped down his cheek as one thought suddenly materialized and kept echoing over and over again in his head.

Alone…you're all alone now.

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Awww, poor Little Joe. So, what do you think so far?