No, I'm not dead. And I REALLY don't want this story to be either. Long and complicated stories short, I wrote this a few weeks after posting the last chapter, hoping to make some more stuff on other content before posting it, then there was a complete burnout of writing fanfic due to doing RP on Discord. For anyone still interested in my work, I hope you enjoy.
The night was still and quiet. It seemed that nothing was out, and all was fine. Then, a sound could be heard... the sound of a Scraptor. Ty, sleeping in his little cave near the outskirts of the group's piece of land, heard this noise, and quickly woke up. He wasn't as concerned as a Dinotrux would usually be though, because he had a good idea who it was...
Sure enough, he looked to Scratch's spot deeper in the cave, and noticed him roaring a little while wiggling around in his sleep. He wasn't too loud right now, but he could quickly go into panicked roars at any point.
Revvit was sleeping on one of Ty's treads, and woke up just after Ty did, also looking to Scratch worriedly. "Uh, Ty? Is he-?" Revvit asked, looking up at his large friend.
"He is." Ty replied, and he did what he knew he had to. First, he rolled out of his cave as Revvit got off him and went over to Scratch, watching his behaviour. Ty meanwhile went over to Skya's sleeping place in the forest and used his head to gently nudge her long neck.
"Skya?" He whispered, his low and careful so he didn't wake anyone else up. "Skya, are you awake?"
Skya could be heard mumbling something about heights, before she opened her eyes and looked to Ty, obviously a little cranky at being awoken so abruptly. "Well, I am NOW." She said harshly, though also keeping quiet. Click-Clack was right near her, and he woke up as well.
"H-Huh?" The first thing Click-Clack unfortunately heard was the sound of Scratch giving a roar in the distance, long and sad sounding. He suddenly became wide awake, and yelped before he realised it was still night, covering his mouth and looking to Ty in terror.
Ty looked apologetic to them both in his currently serious attitude before fully turning to Skya. "Sorry disturb you, but I need your help." He nodded to the general direction of his cave. "Could you carefully lift Scratch up with your hook and take him somewhere away from here? He sounds like he's about to go into another nightmare."
Despite the multiple complaints Skya had about this, she inwardly agreed Scratch sounded like he was in a bad sleep state, and so simply sighed. "Fine... you owe me for this."
"Of course. Thanks." Ty smiled then quietly rolled back to his cave with Skya in tow. Click-Clack, nervous yet curious, followed as well. Once in the cave, Skya got her hook out and carefully used it to pick Scratch up. Revvit was looking over at Scratch, before quickly jumping up onto Ty. "He still seems to be at a low level in his parasomnia, but I give him about 10 minutes before he goes into a full blown in-sleep panic attack."
Ty nodded as Skya carefully turned around, Scratch in her hook's grasp. As the group left the area, no one noticed Dozer had woken up and was watching them. Rolling his eyes, he closed them again, trying to get back to sleep. Is it REALLY that hard to get some damn peace around here? Geez...
Skya lead the way to the old scrapyard, where she put Scratch down. As he started to kick his legs, Ty started to sniff around, while Skya waited until she could go back to her wooded area to get back to sleep. Click-Clack looked to her then to Revvit. "Any idea why Ty would have Skya carry Scratch here?"
"If I was to guess..." Revvit replied, still watching Scratch. "I'd say Ty didn't want to grab him by his mouth. It could cause something unfortunate in Scratch's nightmare related to it, seeing how outside stimuli could influence Scratch's thoughts."
Click-Clack gulped and went quiet, also watching Scratch now. Then, as Ty came back with some ore, Scratch started to flail around more in his sleep, his roaring suddenly getting louder. Ty quickly put the ore down as Revvit looked worried. "His nightmare is getting worse. We should start waking-"
Suddenly, Scratch gave an even louder roar, and the others could hear his human voice mixed in, which sounded like a cry of pain. Ty grabbed one of his wings and tried to shake him awake, but he didn't wake up, and ended up giving Ty a hard kick to his metaphorical jaw. As he rubbed it, Scratch suddenly seemed to quieten down... disturbingly so.
"Scratch? You okay?" Ty wondered a moment if Scratch had woken up, and it almost seemed like he did, because he spoke back.
"T-Ty... p-please help me..." He muttered, sounding terrified.
As Ty noticed Scratch's eyes were still shut, he then started to roar yell more, making the group jump, flailing around and smacking himself with his own arm chains, before starting to whimper and sob in his sleep.
After witnessing all the mental torture, Revvit had seen enough. "Right, time to end this more directly. Click-Clack, help me get inside him." Click-Clack nodded and the two reptools took off a panel from his back, allowing them both to crawl inside and look around, trying to find the right component to mess with.
After some searching, Revvit found a box on Scratch's motherboard core, and the light on it was flashing like MAD. He looked to his reptool friend behind him. "I think I found his dream emulator. Click-Clack, get out. I don't know WHAT's going to happen when I pull the plugs on this."
Click-Clack nodded and scrambled out, allowing Revvit to rip the box from all the wires connecting it to the motherboard. Scratch jumped and yelped, before going limp a moment, then pressing his arms and legs to his body, breathing deeply. Click-Clack quickly came forward and put a reassuring hand on Scratch's face, doing what he thought Revvit would be doing in this situation. "S-Scratch?"
Scratch was keeping his eyes shut, though he was obviously not sleeping anymore. "P-Please... m-make it stop... m-make it stoooop..."
Ty quickly came around and rub his head comfortingly on Scratch. "It's alright Scratch. You're not in danger. We're right here."
With those words of reassurance, Scratch got the courage to slowly open his eyes, looking into Click-Clack's nervous, yet worried, face. He shivered, both from recovery, and because he felt Revvit crawl out of his body, jumping onto his torso and looking down at him.
As his circuits slowed down in the comfort and safety of the group, Scratch rubbed his head, which felt like it was pounding. He gave another low roar, whimpering and trembling, his mind in a bad state. Ty put the ore before him.
"Here. Eat up. You'll feel better once you have some comfort food." He promised, and with no alternative right now, Scratch complied, taking small bites out of the ore and letting it clatter down his robot throat.
Skya was surprisingly as worried as the rest of the group, and the others could hear her muttering to herself. "I've heard of night terrors that haunt your dreams, but I've never seen dysfunctional sleep like this... you got something on your mind, Scratch?" She asked the alpha scraptor.
Scratch shivered."N-Not that I know of... I thought things were pretty okay after all was said and done after what happened yesterday... If it IS tomorrow, I mean... which is... today?"
With him glancing around for some sort of confirmation, Revvit looked at the moon, high in the night sky, then the horizon. "Hmm... well, given the moon's position angled from the horizon there... and the fact the sun set over there which would make the moon rise about over there at about 7-8pm... I'd say it's about... half an hour before midnight?"
Scratch sighed, standing up and leaving the rest of the ore on the ground as he turned away, making Revvit hop off. "...I'm gonna take a stroll. It's better than being with any of you tonight."
"Scratch, nobody's faulting you for having a nightmare." Ty tried to console him as Click-Clack and Revvit fixed the taken off panel back onto Scratch's back. "It could happen to anyone. Heck, I bet Dozer's had nightmares, as much as he probably won't admit it."
"Indeed." Revvit agreed, standing on Ty's tread cover. "Statistically, Dozer has probably had at least 2 or 3 nightmares before we met him, 4 or more if he experienced any situations that- OOF!"
Revvit's analysis talk was cut off by Skya, who bumped Ty and made the little reptool flop over, before talking herself. "In ANY case, we've all had our share of nightmares, Scratch. You should tell us all about it, to get it off your mind."
Scratch simply looked down. "...maybe... I'll... I'll consider it." With that, he started to head off, the others watching on sadly.
"Hey Scratch..." Skya spoke up again, making Scatch pause a moment and half-turn his head towards her. "Listen, I know our first meeting wasn't in the best circumstances, but I DO trust you. You can trust me too. You can talk to me without judgement, I promise."
Scratch looked thoughtful a moment, before turning away again and heading away into the night. The two dinotrux and reptools watched him go, before Click-Clack got onto Skya, ready to head back, as he turned to the Ty and Revvit. "Y-You think he's gonna be alright?"
"...I don't know, Click-Clack." Revvit could only say, staring at Scratch as he left them. "...I really don't know. I do hope so."
Ty nodded. "Yeah... he has flaws, but so do all of us. He'll figure that out soon enough."
With nothing else they could really do, they silently decided to go back to getting some shut eye. And so, leaving the chunk of ore where it sat in the old scrapyard, the dinotrux turned, their passengers holding on, and rolled back to their sleeping places.
Meanwhile, hiding behind a rock, a familiar scraptor with red markings who had been watching the conversation went back into hiding. His blue eyes watched Scratch in thought as he went out of view, then, determination in his metal face, he raced off as well, a plan in his mind. Well meaninged? Possibly. A little evil? Well... he couldn't deny that.
No, IJustBrowseStuff, I DON'T plan on leaving this without an ending. I can't go a month or two without thinking about this story, so you can bet that while part of my mind doesn't have the spark for stuff in this story, another part knows that one way or another, I'm GOING to finish this story. I love writing too much to ignore it. Thanks to anyone interested and whatnot. Have a great day.