AN: And Chapter 2 is finally here! I never thought that I would get it finished today and I thought I would have to release it tomorrow, but anyway, hope you guys enjoy it :)

Chapter 2 - A Reassuring Brother

I shrieked and opened my eyes wide, remembering every single second of my traumatising nightmare. Thank god I was lying in bed in the dark, and not motionless on the dining room floor, surrounded by a pool of blood; although I thought it was unfortunate that I had died in that dream on an empty stomach. Trembling, I slowly eased myself to sit up in bed, pulling the duvet around my shoulders in an attempt to keep warm. That seemed to do the trick. Well, it did the trick physically at least, but not mentally. I squinted into the minor distance and I saw a little something wriggle from the foot of my bed. It was the family dog, Buddy. He gave a small whine, padded across the duvet and flopped down against my legs. Maybe he must've known that I was frightened out of my wits and what I thought was sweet was that he had offered lots of cuddles to make me feel better. Gradually, my breathing slowed to its typical pace and as I gently traced my fingers down his neck, I felt as if my heart was less full of steel and lead than it was about thirty seconds ago. Some of the time, Buddy was somewhat naughty and he often ended up getting in the way, breaking things and quite generally, being a little pest, however now, I was deeply remorse about all the times I had ever yelled at Buddy for such things, because I was ever so grateful for his comfort during this unbearable time where I had literally just risen from a nightmare about me being killed by my own mother.

After dreaming up this horrendous scenario, Pauline didn't feel like my mother, but even though I had listened to Iggy tell us all about her actions during the past, I still didn't think he was telling the truth. I don't really see why I should be blamed for that, because I had never seen Pauline do anything bad before, since the last time I saw her was when I was a preschooler and I probably would've been a bit too young to remember anything, and besides, that dream was basically me picturing what Iggy had told me. I couldn't think logically on why I thought he was all lies, but maybe Pauline was hiding something from us.

All of a sudden, my thoughts were interrupted by what sounded like a fingernail being tapped against my bedroom door. I gasped and clutched the duvet covers up to my chin, my heart half still. The door opened with a soft creak and the figure in the doorway, from my angle, looked quite subtle, but as soon as I heard his voice, I knew I was in safe hands. It was my little brother, Lemmy. For a minute, I cringed because it came to my mind that my loud scream of terror had most likely woken him up.

"What's wrong?" came his voice in the darkness.

"Oh!" I let out an exhale of extreme relief and buried my face in my hands.

"Oh, Lem, you have no idea how happy I am to see you, right now!"

The next sensation I felt was Lemmy wrapping his warm arms around my vibrating body. I did the same back because knowing that he wouldn't tease me for being terrified, not even jokingly, I wanted to express all my fear and terror. I held onto him and whimpered.

"It's okay," he whispered, "I'm here. You know, I have just the thing to cure how you're feeling. Come with me,"

Lemmy gently took me by the hand and gestured for me to get out of bed and I did what I was told. We silently crept along the hallway, down the stairs and into the living room so as to not wake up Iggy and Wendy. I stopped for a moment to look around at the scenery. The downstairs looked a little different, because everything was dark and gloomy and I was mostly used to seeing it bursting with light and alacrity. Next, Lemmy led me through the kitchen and into the dining room. I felt a huge lump form in my throat, since that was the very place where I had died and for a moment, I was half expecting Pauline to jump out from a hole in the wall and kill me a second time. I remembered sitting in the very chair to the left of me, feeling that sense of foreboding and within a minute, my life had ended. Not wanting to feel like I was in potential danger, I huddled close to Lemmy, and least expectedly, he slid open the glass back door and we both entered the backyard.

Immediately, I was hit with fresh, cold air that I honestly couldn't be more grateful for. Inside the house, memories of my nightmare were still lurking around and I had felt suffocated by them. Now I was safe because I was breathing in fresh air that wasn't contaminated with maliciousness, evil and vice. Lemmy looked at me, smiling supportively and he took my hand and we both sat down on two of the patio chairs.

"Shall we talk it out?" he asked.

I hesitated for quite a long time before nodding slowly.

"So we were all at the dining room table," I began after taking a deep and shaky breath, "Pauline was there,"

As soon as I said this, Lemmy's eyes widened and his face fell a tad. Part of me wanted to stop talking because I wasn't sure if he was going to be able to hang onto the whole explanation but instead, he gestured for me to continue.

"Basically, she kept being really weird towards me,"

"What was she doing?"

"Talking to me in a very creepy way and she kept asking me questions. I think at one point, she said something along the lines of, 'As long as he's not afraid of me hurting him in any way. I wouldn't do that, not now, at least,' and that bit was sort of weird. Sometime later, I saw her pull a knife from her pocket but you guys didn't see it. I warned you that Pauline was about to kill us all and then, she got all…angry and vicious,"

By this time, I saw that Lemmy was chewing his fingernails and he had quite a worried expression on his face.

"And then what happened?" he asked, sounding like he couldn't bear to hear more.

"She started running round the room, throwing the knife in my direction, a few times I managed to dodge it, but eventually, I got cornered and she stabbed me in the stomach, but after a couple seconds, I fell down, dead,"

I bit my lip and looked up into Lemmy's face. For a moment, it looked as if he was going to faint.

"Wow," he muttered after some hesitation.

"Are you all right?" I asked, feeling like I shouldn't have explained everything in such detail,

"Have I scared you?"

"No," Lemmy replied, shaking his head rapidly but slightly,

"Just…that was quite a dream to say the least. I feel awful, you shouldn't have gone through that, no wonder you sounded so frightened,"

To tell the truth, I was actually quite touched that Lemmy felt bad for me because him trying to get me to talk things out with was actually starting to make me feel better and most of all, getting some fresh air had all but cured my mood. I let out a sigh, so relieved that I had finally got this massive weight of worries and pressure off my chest. Lemmy rubbed me on my shoulder before saying,

"I'm glad you're all right now. Are you ready to go back to bed?"

He proceeded to let out a huge yawn.

"Because I sure am,"

I nodded. I had to admit, at that moment, my eyes started to feel really quite heavy and at last, I felt like I was ready for my head to hit the pillow once again. Me and Lemmy dragged ourselves into the house and it seemed that I had completely forgotten about the germs of my horrific dream still left inside the dining room, but since Lemmy had just given me the cure of reassurance, I was now immune to those germs.

I stifled a yawn as I opened my bedroom door with Lemmy following me close behind. Weakly climbing into bed, I rubbed my eyes and pulled the duvet up over my body and my little brother gave me the most sleep provoking hugs ever.

"So, no more nightmares," he whispered, softly,

"Don't worry about anything else, you're okay,"

He let go of me, allowing me to settle down into bed and he proceeded to the door.

"Goodnight,"

"Goodnight," I managed to whisper back, and with that, Lemmy exited my bedroom.

It was shortly after then when I noticed my alarm clock sitting on my bedside table doing its simple job of showing the time and I squinted so that I could see the numbers clearly.

00:24 am.

Good, I still had at least a good eight hours to sleep off all the atrocity that I had just re-lived. Thankful to be safe and warm at last, I nestled my head into the pillow. I knew that no gory nightmares would affect me anymore, so I gently closed my eyes and let myself drift off to sleep.