"You're sure they went this way, Susan?" Edward hastily asked his beloved wife in a panic, trying to control his breathing and conserve some form of stamina.

"Yes, I'm sure I saw them run this way!" Susan insisted, briefly pausing to look for Victor and the mob of townsfolk, "They're heading towards the windmill!"

Tonight was in no way supposed to go like this at all. All Edward and Susan had planned was take care of work and the usual chores respectively, enjoy a hot meal with Victor, and unwind at Dutch Day. That was until Susan began to search for her muffin tin to make some chocolate muffins for the next day. Having assumed her son borrowed it for an experiment, the attic was the first place she thought to look after she couldn't find it in the kitchen. Little did she know that both her and Edward would soon be involved in something much bigger that searching for cooking equipment before a few carnival games.

Skip ahead by about half an hour and things were already nothing but chaos. In those thirty minutes, Susan and Edward had found out their son reanimated the family dog, went out looking for Sparky in a crowded fairground, suddenly found themselves hiding in a phone booth from a bunch of mutated sea monkeys, and had come litteral inches to being Gamera food. As if that wasn't enough, now Victor and his friend Elsa were chasing some vampire cat that had taken Elsa's poodle Persephone, and Sparky was forced to run for his second life from a mob of townsfolk who came to the wild assumption that the sweet bull terrier killed the mayor's niece.

The entirety of the last half hour wasn't the main focus of Susan and Edward, though. The only part of that time they focused on was the part that had put their family in danger. So all they could do was try to keep pace and keep that very family safe.

"Hurry, Edward! We're almost there!" Susan called out, her voice showing a mix of determination and fear that was barely above the volume of the mayor demanding Sparky show him where Elsa was. Restraining the poor dog with a rope in one hand and raising a torch in the other left little of what the corrupt man planned to do if Sparky didn't comply to the imagination. Things could not be more chaotic.

And then someone said the words that sent Susan and Edward's parental instincts into overdrive.

"Look out, it's on fire!"

Not even a minute after that exclamation, the windmill went up in flames faster than a dry block of wood coated in oil, the horrified Frankenstein parents rushing into the crowd, looking for their son.

"Victor? Victor, where are you?" Edward shouted, trying to make a hole in the crowd.

"Please, has anyone seen our son?" Susan followed, trying to keep her voice clear as her eyes began to water with tears of worry.

The sight that greeted them at the front row of the crowd did little to ease their fear: Victor stuck at the top of the burning windmill, the monsterous vampire cat prowling nearby.

"We have to get him down from-"

Edward's voice was cut off by a distorted hiss, the sound of wood giving way, and Victor's own distressed scream as he fell through the roof.

"Victor!" Susan screamed, ready to run in, both her and Edward unable to take a single full step before they found themselves held back.

"Stop, it's too dangerous."

"That's my son in there!" Edward yelled.

The couple managed to break free of the restraining grip and began to run towards the flames, the citizens still trying to stop them.

"Stop, please!"

"It's not safe!"

"Don't go in!"

But the mama bear and papa wolf sides of the worried parents had completely taken over at this point. Nothing would stop them, be it another monster, the mob mentality of the town, or the flames of the raging inferno. They simply loved Victor too much to second guess taking on all of the above and more. Nothing would stop them. Nothing in this world could from saving their son.

That is, nothing but a combination of time and the structural integrity of the burning structure. A tragic shock that came all too late as the windmill collapsed, the last thing heard over the falling debris being Victor's last horrified scream.


"Nooooooo!" was the first thing Edward and Susan said, or more accurately screamed, as the shot up in unison, their nightwear and bedsheets soaked in a cold sweat, their breathing and heart rates rapid. The two looked around their bedroom in a shock that turned to partial relief as rapid footsteps came closer to the door. Victor's footsteps.

"Mom, dad! Is everything okay?" Victor exclaimed as he burst through the door, "I thought I heard screaming."

"Victor," Susan started, trying to calm down so Victor would, "why aren't you in bed?"

"I got up to use the bathroom and I thought I heard you and dad scream."

"Everything's alright, champ." Edward replied, "It was just a nightmare. Me and your mom are alright, and you should be in bed."

"Goodnight, mom. Goodnight, dad."

"Goodnight, Victor." Susan responded, her voice still a little shaky.

After Victor left, the two now relieved parents turned their attention to each other. They had both fought back tears every time something like this happened for his sake. Every nightmare they had where he got hurt, every bad dream where he ran away, Edward and Susan kept those dreams to themselves for the sake of their son. All the fear, all the tears, all the worries were kept under lock and key. Usually the couple would simply console each other with the usual remarks along the lines of "It was just a bad dream" and get back to sleep.

Tonight's nightmare was clearly different when it came to that last part.

"I can't bear it anymore, Edward." Susan whispered as she suddenly embraced her husband, tears rolling down her face, "I can't bear the thought of losing him any longer. We almost lost him once and..."

"It won't happen again." Edward softly replied, trying to soothe his wife while holding back tears of his own, "I promise."

"But what if we can't keep him safe? What if next time we don't make it in time?"

"Then we'll always be ready, we'll always prepair for what might happen. We've been there for Victor his whole life, and we always will be."

Edward then wiped his wife's tears away before embracing her once more. That night, they agreed on two things: they would do everything in their power to keep Victor safe, and...

"We are never going to vote for that corrupt steriotype of a mayor ever again, are we?" Susan asked, a slight comedic tone to her voice as if she was trying to lighten the mood.

"I'd honnestly be surprised if anyone voted for him after that night." Edward responded as the two laid back down.