“...This is all your fault.”

The boy woke up and jolted his body forwards still in a dreamy daze. The boy felt as though a ghost had just taken over, and he instinctively raised his blanket up; he checked for anything strange that might have been on his body and touched himself everywhere for extra measure. Strangely, he felt tears run down his face, yet he didn’t know why. He blubbered and cried loudly.

His bedroom was dark, illuminated only by the moonlight that pierced through the cotton curtains. The moonlight softly touched the boy’s face, revealing a pale and lonely face obscured by the darkness that surrounded him — of which ran too deep for such a young mind, just like the moon at night. He lied down on his bed and continued to cry.

Then, the door suddenly opened. A girl stood there in yellow pajamas, “Are you okay?” Her voice asked. “Why are you crying? I heard you through the wall.”

“I’m not crying! I’m okay, I'm a big boy remember!”

“Did you see something again?” She said walking towards the frightened little boy.

“No, no I did not.”

“Mhm, then tell me. Did you have another nightmare?”

The boy stumbled to talk, and when he looked up to see that worried look on her face, he couldn’t bear to try and talk anymore. He promptly hid beneath the confines of his blanket and laid down. Of course, the little girl wanted to know what exactly was troubling her brother. She sat down on his bed and embraced him.

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A silence was observed, which lasted for a few even minutes, and only the crickets of the front yards dared to break it.

“I saw something scary.” The boy answered. “I saw a man crying all alone, and there was a weird thing growing on his back.” He slowly began to remove the blanket off of himself. His sister then patted his short, pale, ruffled brown hair.

“You’re okay?”

The boy nodded.

“Okay, then goodnight.”

The little girl quickly hopped off the bed and left. Now, it was a dark loneliness. The one that had gripped the room tightly hours ago when night fell. The young boy decided to close his eyes and get back to bed. The memory of that dream had long since faded, and only a lingering feeling of guilt remained.

Unfortunately, the boy couldn’t sleep.

So he just counted sheep.

One sheep.

Two sheep.

Three sheep.

…

Forty-one sheep.

…No good. It didn’t work. The boy jumped off his bed and scurried over to his desk. He snatched a headset and a walkman and went back to his bed. He quickly put it on his head and pressed play, waiting for the cassette to start.

Then, it began playing, at a low volume of course. The boy loved listening to music, and this cassette had his favorite rock lullaby. Within a few minutes, he was back to bed.