"Gah!"

A loud gasp slicing through the quiet of night, Judy jolted up from where she had previously been lying down. Placing her paws over her eyes, the gray doe took a moment to recollect her senses.

Although it had been a fairly good bit of time since of all of the dangerous events that the city threw at her came to pass, Judy still suffered from the occasional nightmare that just seemed to come along with all of it. It didn't matter if all of it was over and done, nor did it matter that they were completely safe and made it through of all of the peril.

It always seemed like the rabbit's subconscious mind was thinking all of the potential ways that each thing that happened could have went. With one change, whether it be very small or huge on a scale, everything could have took a turn for the worse.

Now wide awake, unable to just fall right back to sleep after the dream she had endured, the rabbit turned her head to the right. The bedroom was pitch black, the only halo of light was a minuscule nightlight that was plugged in near the hallway that lead to the other rooms.

Normally she would have been greeted by the sound of her fox snoring away to the right of her, but that was not the case this time around. There was no sign of him in the room beside her.

The sounds of clattering arose from the hallway, and with that the bunny pulled herself out of the bed to investigate what was going on. The moment she started to walk out, the bright glow of the refrigerator's appliance bulb coming from the kitchen caught her attention.

As she stepped into the kitchen, a paw crunched up against her eye as she rubbed it, she heard the fridge door being shut suddenly, and the bright glow went away.

Judy flicked the light switch beside her, being greeted by the sight of Nick with what appeared to be a sandwich that had almost been completely eaten in his paws. Scattered all over the kitchen counter behind him were the ingredients that Judy could only presume were what went into making what he was holding.

When he realized that his bunny was looking over at him, the tod placed the sandwich down on the blue paper plate beside him and looked back over at her.

"Oh, hey there, Carrots," he said with a quiet tone of voice.

"What are you doing out here?" Judy asked. "What is all this stuff you got out here?"

"Just a midnight snack," the vulpine replied. "You ever have of one of those before?"

The gray leporine shook her head. "No, but my brother's done that a couple of times before when we were kids."

After she spoke, the dream that she had just had came back to the doe's mind once again. Her head sagged downward and her ears started to droop.

Sensing that something appeared to be troubling her, Nick inquired, "What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing," Judy responded.

The vulpine standing in front of her, however, knew quite better than that. "Something's on your mind, Fluff. Your ears are drooping."

The leporine looked back up at her fox. "I… It's just that I had a bad dream."

After a moment of silence between him and the rabbit, Nick asked in reply, "Do you remember what happened in it?"

"Very vividly," came Judy's response. Letting out a sigh, she said, "We were inside Cliffside, doing our investigation, but something went terribly wrong. There was a malfunction in the doors keeping all of those savage mammals we found inside, and all of them just ran out the moment they unlocked. They attacked the guards that tried to come in, and then they started chasing us when we started to run. And then…" The bunny's ears drooped once again.

"Then what happened?" Nick said, delicately placing his russet paw against the doe's cheek.

"I turned around and I saw that you weren't there. And…"

The tod pulled his bunny closer to him, wrapping his arms around her in an embracing hug. "It's okay, Carrots," he murmured. "There's nothing to worry about. It was just a bad dream."

"Thanks," Judy whispered softly to her fox, feeling comforted by his words. "I know it probably seems silly to you for me to be all worked up about a small dream, but-"

"Nonsense," Nick replied. "You don't know what silly means until you've been in one of my dreams. In the one I just had the other night, a witch put a spell on our apartment that caused all of the furniture to start floating around."

Judy let out the lightest giggle at the concept of the vulpine's dream.

"That isn't even all of it, Fluff," the fox continued upon hearing her soft laughter. "When I told her to stop and make everything go back to normal, she zapped us with a different kind of spell to transform and it backfired. I ended as a red-furred rabbit and you as a gray-furred fox."

"Gosh, that is strange," the lagomorph chuckled.

Nick couldn't help but laugh alongside her. "Yeah, it sure was. That new book in the store that you were tellin' me about the other day probably had somethin' to do with it."

Judy turned back around and started to make her way back to bed. "Well, I'm gonna head on back in and try to get some rest. Thank you for cheering me up."

Nick nodded his head. "Anytime. And remember: If you ever need to tell me about anything, whatever it might be, I'll be right here to listen to you."

And when he said those promising words to his beloved bunny, he meant them with all of his heart.

Author's Note: Hey there, everyone! Geez, it's been awhile since I wrote a small story like this one. Been working another writing project here that's been capturing a good bit of my attention. But I decided to take a break from that for just a moment and write this out.

Also had another idea that I wanted to share: Since Halloween is comin' up before we know it, what would y'all think if I did a few short stories with a bit of a horror element to them. Nothing too intense or graphic that would have Judy exclaiming "Blood! Blood! And Death!" over, but just something that manages to make whoever's reading it say, "Oooh, that was creepy." What say you?

As always, let me know what you guys think. Your feedback, good and bad, is gladly appreciated.

'Til next time! :)