After I spent a few hours talking with Jake in his room, to make sure he was recovering decently, I didn't know what else to do. Stay with him? Leave him alone? I doubted very much that he'd want to eat, so that was out of the question, for now at least. I'd make sure he ate later.

"What time is it?" Jake asked after we'd sat in silence for a few moments.

Remembering that I still had his phone on me from earlier, I checked it.

"It's almost 9," I said. He glanced at me holding his phone and sighed. "Shit! I completely forgot!"

I handed him back his phone, and he thanked me quietly before giving all his attention to it.

He was focused on something on it for a few minutes, so I didn't bother him until he looked back up from it.

"Sorry." He said. "I just wanted to let Jaime know that I'm still ok. Figured she's probably worried."

"You should. I'm sure she's really worried about you." I agreed. "The girl probably won't let you forget this."

"You think?" He sounded doubtful when he asked.

"Jake, she loves you. I know she does. When you were unconscious, she watched you with such love on her face it was... crazy. Actually, I have to admit, I think she loves you more then I do." I laughed slightly.

He shook his head. "She's never said anything."

"Well, maybe she just doesn't know how to," I explained. "But, she did say she'd go to that dance with you."

He laughed. "Right."

We sat together for a few more hours before he began to show signs of tiredness. I asked if he wanted me to stay, but this time he said no and seemed to mean it.

Heading to my room at about 11, I felt exhausted. But, there was still stuff for me to do. I still had to finish going through my things to find items I could sell for decent money.

I stayed up until about 2 in the morning and found that I just couldn't stay up any longer, so I walked to my bed and nestled into my sheets.

But as I tried to fall asleep, I found that I just couldn't. No matter how hard I tried. I kept thinking about Jake, about what he'd done, and what had happened. Then I began to think about what could have happened, and I couldn't get the picture out of my head.

I kept seeing Jake, cold and lifeless, on the bathroom floor. The image kept making me cringe inside and made me sick to my stomach.

At some point during the night, while my mind forced me to think about the awful things that could have happened, my dark thoughts turned into something else. Something different.

Instead of seeing Jake dead on the floor, the scenery changed. I was standing in the middle of a room. It didn't look familiar at first but, as I inspected it more, I recognized it. It was the empty guest room of our house.

I'd only gone in it one time when we first moved in because I thought it would be useful. But from the moment I first went to it, I hated it. Something about the small and very empty room gave me the creeps. Whether it was the old look of it or the cold feeling I got as soon as I walked in, didn't matter. What did matter was that I'd made a point to stay out of that room. So why was I in it now?

I looked around the room and, as I started to make a beeline for the door, I heard a snickering laugh from behind me.

Slowly, I turned around to see who was in the room with me. And I saw Jake! He was in an unfamiliar wooden chair, with restraints on his hands and feet.

"W... why are you tied up!?" I asked him frantically.

But he didn't answer me, and instead just looked at me with an eerie, sinister grin. And for some reason, there was a sense of familiarity to it.

"Who did this to you?" I asked him.

He responded with a low snarl.

What is going on?

I tried my best to keep calm because freaking out was not going to help me at all. Besides, this was just a dream. If I wanted, I could make the chair and Jake vanish. But, something urged me not to.

Something was telling me to keep talking to Jake. To keep him distracted. But who, or what, was it? This strange voice in my head that I couldn't clearly hear but, somehow, I knew exactly what it was saying to me?

This is all in your head. I told myself calmly. Don't panic yet.

"You're not really much of a talker, are you?" I asked the Jake that stared at me with such a hateful glare it was frightening.

I decided not to think of it as Jake. Instead, I would think of it as a monster. And, as I thought this, Jake transformed into a thin, black, skeleton-like creature.

"Let me in." It growled. I immediately recognized the voice to be the one I'd heard twice now. This would make it the third time.

"Into what?" I asked to try and keep whatever it was distracted.

I couldn't explain why, but I feared for my life. I feared that if the monster tied up were to get loose, something awful would happen.

It kept trying to free itself from the restraints, but every time I asked it a question it was forced to stop.

It refused to speak after its one line, and instead, it just glared at me hatefully.

"You're playing a stupid game. And you're going to lose." It finally said after I had bombarded it with a very large amount of questions.

"I'm not playing any game," I said coolly.

It smirked evilly but then went back to trying to free itself from the restraints.

"You won't get out of those," I said after it had been trying, without success, to break free for what felt like a long time.

It laughed. "Watch me. And when I do get free, you'll be sorry."

"I highly doubt both of those things," I said calmly.

It laughed maniacally as if what I'd said was the funniest thing it had ever heard.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

I don't know how, but when it glared at me it made me feel like my life truly was in danger at that moment.

"Scared girly?" It asked as it laughed evilly.

I didn't respond, and instead just watched it silently. But, it didn't like that.

"Aren't you afraid I'm gonna getcha?" It snapped its teeth and lunged forward.

"You can't hurt me!" I yelled fearlessly. "You're not even real! You're just a figment of my imagination!"

"Oh, I think if we asked dear old Jake that he'd strongly disagree." It said teasingly.

"You leave Jake alone!" I screamed as panic ran through my veins. "Don't you dare fucking touch him!"

The creature laughed and began fading out of my sight. Breathing heavily, in both fear and anger, I ran over to the now empty chair. The restraints looked as if someone had purposefully untied them.

"Shit." I groaned.

Had I freed that hideous-looking creature by panicking when he'd mentioned Jake? Was that even possible? I didn't want to believe that it was my fault, but something told me that it was.

I opened my eyes, heart racing, and felt a slight relief that the nightmare was finally over. It was the longest and scariest dream I'd ever had. Somehow, I'd managed to keep my cool throughout the entire thing. That was until it had said Jake's name. And I thought I'd figured it out.

Maybe that thing trying to break free had been its way of trying to find my weakness. Maybe so that whatever it was could break free. At least, that was the only thing that made sense in my mind.

I sat up in my bed until my heart calmed down, saw that it was 6:53 am, and then immediately went to Jake's room to check up on him. For some reason, I couldn't shake the feeling that something might have happened to him.

"Jake?" I called to him as I walked into his room.

He groaned and then sat up. I felt bad for waking him up, but I had to be sure he was ok.

"Yeah?" He asked tiredly.

"Come on. Let me check your wrist." I said.

I walked up to his bed and grabbed some gauze and the roll of bandages from his nightstand. Jaime had shoved them there earlier the night before just to be safe.

He groaned in protest but obliged reluctantly when I promised I wouldn't hurt him.

Carefully, I unwrapped it and moaned. It wasn't a pretty sight. The cuts had a strange black goo oozing out of them. Damn. They must be infected. I sighed.

"What?" Jake asked with a concerned look.

"I think you were right to be concerned about these. They might be infected. Though, I've never heard of infected cuts oozing black goo before." I said while looking at the cuts closely.

Jake didn't say a word, but as I looked up at him I could see terror spreading across his face.

"B... but then again, I'm not a doctor...." I added when I saw how scared he looked.

I kept worrying and worrying the whole time I wrapped his cut. When I finished, I sat next to him.

The worry I kept feeling bothered me so much that, even though it would probably hurt him to, I told Jake to miss school for the day.

"You're sure?" He asked me over and over, as if in shock that I was ok with it.

"Yes." I looked at him closely, checking to make sure it was still him and not the awful creature from my dream. It was like every time I looked away, I saw the creature instead of Jake. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine." He said, frowning at me. "Why?"

"Just making sure." I smiled, even though it was the last thing I felt like doing with the strong anxiety I felt inside. "I'm sorry. Guess I'm just being a sister."

He nodded. Sitting together in silence, we kept looking at each other from time to time before looking awkwardly away.

"So." I broke the silence.

"Yeah?" Jake looked at me.

For a very brief second, I thought about telling him what had happened in my dream. But I decided not to. After all, how was he going to help me? The most he could possibly do was tell me what I already knew.

"Nevermind, it's nothing," I said.

"I know you well enough to know when it's more than nothing." He said with a kind smile.

There was something off about it. It didn't look anything like my brother's kind smile. Then again, I hadn't slept well that night. At least, that's what I told myself.

"I had a... Bad dream last night and... It's been bothering me all morning." I gave in part to his push for information.

"What happened in it?" He asked.

I knew what he was doing. He was just being his nice and loving self so that I felt comfortable telling him about it. And I'm a little upset to say that his scheme almost worked.

I was about to tell him about the room, the creepy skeleton man, and even the evil version of him. But, as I opened my mouth to speak, his phone went off with a text alert.

He sighed in disgust and rolled his eyes.

"It's my math teacher." He groaned.

"Miss Dodd?" I knew the second I let it slip that I'd majorly screwed up. Jake's eyes grew wide and his face went stone cold.

"Have you been going through my stuff?" He asked in an angry tone.

"I swear it wasn't on purpose! But, I'm proud of you! And, I'm also sorry." I said apologetically.

He took a deep breath and sighed. "It's ok. Guess I should have told you I got a report card but, I dunno. I guess it's the teenager part of me." He laughed.

"I'm really proud of you! 3.5 is a great g.p.a!" I said kindly.

"I wonder if mom and dad would feel the same." He mused.

I didn't know what to say. It was the first time he'd ever even said mom and dad in a sentence before. I always thought he'd avoided talking about them because he knew, if he talked about them, he'd get upset.

For some reason, it felt like he was opening up to me even more than he already had since we were kids.

He looked at me and frowned in response to my silence.

"Sorry!" I sighed and put my hand on his. "You miss them too, don't you?"

He nodded. "I think about them a lot."

I could feel my eyes filling with tears, but it didn't stop me from enjoying the chance to connect with my brother.

"They would be proud, Jake. They'd be very proud of you." I said and smiled.

He smiled back before getting off his bed.

"I'll be right back." He said as he stood up.

As he began to walk toward his bedroom door, he collapsed.

"Jake!" I cried as I ran to him.

I tried desperately to shake him awake but to no avail. It was like shaking a corpse. Except his corpse was breathing.