"Clay!"

George POV

"Dinner?!" I practically yell out in disbelief as my eyes blow wide.

"I- yeah. You slept for like 9 hours. I honestly don't know how you did it." Dream says as he turns on the stove.

"Well why didn't you wake me up? Now I'm going to be staying up till tomorrow." I say angrily as I flop down on the couch.

"Because I didn't want to deal with a grumpy Gogy." He says casually as I hear the clatter of a pot being set on the stove from behind my place on the couch.

I turn back to face him. "I wouldn't have been grump-" I start before a delayed realization washes over to me due to recently waking up. "wait- Gogy?" I question, more my own ears than Dream.

"No, my name is Dream. I thought we went over this?" He says teasingly and I can even see the shit eating grin despite the fact that he's facing the other direction.

"No- I meant, did you just call me 'Gogy'?" I say.

"No, I definitely didn't just call you. How would I? You don't even have a phone." He says casually as he begins chopping up a few vegetables.

"No I meant- fucking dammit, you know what I meant." I say in anger.

"What? No I don't. Please, tell me exactly what you meant." He says as if trying to push my buttons further, in fact he probably is.

"Never mind then." I roll my eyes and turn my attention back to the TV that I forgot was running.

I hear Dream just laugh from behind me and I roll my eyes once more as I start flipping through some channels looking for something interesting.

I settle with some PAW Patrol and lean back into the couch to relax.

As I got lost in the show, Dream continued to prepare dinner and only when he served it to me did I notice it smelled amazing.

"Careful, it's a bit hot." A voice said from behind me, snapping me out of the trance the bright lights emitting from the television held me in.

A bowl of soup containing mainly vegetables was passed in front of me.

I cupped the bowl with my hands and nearly retracted them when I felt the burning surface of the white bowl.

"Thank you." I say quietly while Dream when around the couch to sit on the opposite side of it with his dinner.

"Welcome- wait- are you watching PAW Patrol?" Dream questions raising an eye brow.

"Duh." I stated with a small smile that I partially tried to keep in.

"Oh my god..." Dream scoffed in a semi-serious, semi-playful way.

"What?" I question.

"This show is literally for babies. How can you take interest in this." He asked.

I gasped in fake offense as I clutched my chest. "I have you know this show is not for babies. People of any age can watch it and enjoy it. And if you dislike it so much, you're free to leave. No one's keeping you here." I say, a small, smug smirk placing itself on my lips towards the end as I returned my main attention to the TV but also keeping a good portion on Dream to see his reaction.

I saw him roll his eyes and shake his head before facing the TV. I smiled to myself a bit at my little victory.

Time Skip

We finished dinner and watched a movie together and before I knew it, the previous golden sunlight from outside had completely vanished only to be replaced by the soft white glow of the moon and stars.

With the coming of the stars and moon they brought a beautiful view overhead due to not being poisoned by the glow of the street lights and shops. Instead the only light other than the TV was the faint, white radiance of the moon and stars I could only wish to see. But due to being locked in Dream's cabin, I remained in my place, too scared to ask if I could look out the window to see them or maybe even go outside to see them.

I still sat on the couch wrapped up in my soft baby blue blanket that I had mysteriously woken up with. My eyes being captivated by the reality show being presented on the screen. So much to the point I failed to notice Dream looking at his watch.

"It's 9:30. We should probably get to bed." The blonds voice suddenly sounds.

Despite dreading the return to the basement that going to bed meant, I begrudgingly nodded and stood up and stretched.

I spent a bit longer stretching than I needed too, mainly because I wanted to delay my journey to the basement as much as possible. But I knew I couldn't do that for long when I saw Dream already waiting for me at the door to the basement.

I rubbed my eyes and trudged over to him slowly, dragging my feet across the rug before making it to the cold hardwood floor that made up the majority of the house.

If it wasn't obvious before, I am definitely not used to being up this late.

We followed the regular procedures where I would follow closely behind Dream and turn around while he punched in the codes for the keypads.

For the final keypad code, I resisted the urge to bang my head against the wall during my wait as Dream seemed to be taking extra long to punch in the 4 digit code.

"Alrighty." Dream said. You could hear him trying to sound as awake as possible but the hint of tiredness and the slow pronunciation gave him away.

I tiredly nodded as I turned to face the door and slowly trudged through it, like all the others, and into the cool basement room that I waked up in when I first arrived.

I only made it a couple small steps inside the room before I heard Dream's tired voice once again, but this time a bit lighter than the times before.

"Uh... George?" His voice sounded small and a bit unsure.

I slowly faced him and looked him in the eyes waiting for him to continue.

"Tomorrow, if you want, you can maybe take a shower and get into some new clothes?" He offered.

I small smile made it's way to my face and I nodded smally, still a bit too tired to fully understand what I was agreeing to.

He just smiled in return, but his a little wider than mine, probably because he was a lot more used to staying up this late than I am.

"Alright then." He reached his hand up to my hair, which I normally would have flinched to if I were fully awake, but instead I stayed perfectly still. "Goodnight," He ruffled my hair. "Gogy." With that he removed his tan hand from my brown hair and closed the door behind him before I even would have had the chance to say goodnight in return.

I stood slightly surprised at the act for a few minutes of complete silence aside from the sound of Dream's footsteps going up the stairs.

Speaking of Dream's footsteps, I couldn't help but notice the slight skip in them.

Once my mind and body released from their frozen state, I remembered just how desperately tired I felt and collapsed down on the bed, still not getting under the covers mind you, and dozing off to sleep in seconds.

Dream POV

After I closed the door to George's bedroom, I walked up the stairs with a slight skip in my step and an obvious goofy smile on my face.

Why was I so happy?

Why wouldn't I be?

I got away with calling George Gogy, a nick name for him I had actually come up with while he was sleeping earlier, and I got to finally touch his hair!

I've literally been wanting to ruffle my hands through it since I got him. Sure I could have done it when I first took him and he was asleep, but when I was bringing him in the house I noticed he got a cut on his chin some how and my mind got distracted. Then I just didn't end up having enough time before he woke up to do it.

But it was so worth the wait.

It was just as soft as I imagined, and I'll definitely have to do it again some time. Probably by surprise again. He'd never let me ruffle his hair if he was fully awake or prepared.

I walk up to my bedroom and into my joint bathroom and look in the mirror to see the smile still plastered onto my face.

I looked at my watch to see it was nearing 10:00. It was obvious that George is the type to go to bed early but damn was he tired. This... This however was nothing for me. I usually stay up late regularly doing whatever. Whether it be murdering people in bedwars or- well- murdering people. It is my job after all.

I take a quick shower and change into some sweat pants and a forest green T-shirt.

After my nice shower I calmly got under the covers of my bed and alowed myself to drift off into a peaceful sleep...

Or so I thought...

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"Clay! C'mon! We're gonna be late for school, dummy." Allie, my childhood best friend yelled from downstairs.

"Coming!" I shouted as I grabbed my school bag and rushed down the stairs of our shared apartment.

We met up at the door and shared a smile before exiting it and walking down to the crappy parking lot.

I look at her from the side in adoration while she conveniently had her gaze ahead.

Does she know I have a crush on her? Possibly, but I don't think so. If she does she probably doesn't care. She's way out of my league anyway.

We're both in our final year of college, both of us hoping to be computer programmers or something along those lines. I was more on the engineering side of it while she more so enjoyed the coding.

We were entering the time of final exams but luckily neither of us found it to be too stressful. Stressful of course, but not overwhelmingly so. Having a good friend that's not only your roommate, but is also in the same field as you turns out to be really useful for studying. Especially when you're both equally devoted to your passion as the other.

As we walked through the small parking lot of our cheap apartment complex, our tiny, black car came into view. Nothing special, I mean what did you expect? College is expensive, we're not made of money!

Our shared car has more scratches than I have brain cells, which in hindsight isn't actually that many but yeah. And to match the numerous scratches and dents laid out across the car, it probably can't go over 60 miles an hour, not that we'd ever dare to push it even that far.

I and Allie ducked into the small car, I in the passenger side and Allie in the drivers seat. She never let me drive it again with her in it. Probably because I am the main cause of most of the damage here. I wouldn't say I'm a reckless driver... But I'm a reckless driver... What? I like to have a little fun when I'm driving, and Allies scared reactions are hilarious!

After the short, 15 minute drive to campus, we parked in the back of the parking lot and got out of our seats carrying out our overly stuffed small backpacks over our shoulders.

Time Skip

8 long hours later, I and Allie were finally back home. To say we're both exhausted is an understatement.

Once we got home the two of us studied for a few hours, had dinner and watched a movie. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to watch a movie when we still have a few final exams to do, but we felt that we deserve a reward for making it through the day without any mental break downs.

"Hey, Allie, I think I'm going to head in for the night. Call me if you need anything." I said poking my head over the corner of the stairs.

She looked up from her note book with a small, tired smile and nodded.

I quickly hopped up the stairs to my bedroom. Something kept on telling me to turn back. Like something inside of me knew exactly what is happening or would happen. But I couldn't quite place my finger on the feeling. I shook my head and blamed my tired mind for the paranoid feelings and changed into some more comfortable clothes and hopped in bed with my ear buds in and a Spotify playlist on shuffle.

Just as I began to fall asleep (in fact maybe I was asleep for a few seconds) I immediately snapped awake when hearing a faint voice outside of my ear buds.

"Clay!" Someone- no- Allie screamed.

At first I thought it was a figment of my imagination due to my half asleep state. But little did I know, not rushing downstairs immediately would become one of my life's greatest regrets.

I sat up slightly and took out my ear buds looking around confused as I strained my ears to listen for the sound again.

I heard a few clatters from downstairs followed by another scream. "Clay help!"

Oh god.

I immediately bolted out of bed and ran downstairs at full speed.

The next thing I saw was a pot knocked over at the foot of the stairs and multiple drawers knocked out of their places.

I rushed down the remaining few steps of the stairs just in time to see 3 people rummaging through our apartment. One of them holding a gun pointing it straight at Allie.

"We know what you took from us and we want it back." The one with the gun said sternly, not having noticed me yet somehow.

"I don't know what your talking abou-" She didn't get to finish her sentence before she was cut off by a loud gun shot ringing through the air.

I didn't have to see the blood seeping through her shirt to know exactly what happened.

I let out a loud scream and in a flash of red I grabbed the largest kitchen knife and slashed it around. I don't remember exactly what happened. Maybe it was because of the grief, the tears in my eyes, or the pure adrenaline running through my system, but the next thing I knew all three men were on the floor and I was holding Allie in my arms.

She was already dead by the time I killed them all. But the warmth in her body still remained giving me a false sense that she might still be there.

But she wasn't.

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I shoot up from my bed in a cold sweat with tears running down my face.

It takes me a few minutes for my breathing to calm down and once it does I resist the urge to check on George who still remained in my basement.

This definitely wasn't the first time I've had this reoccurring dream/memory, so I had already learned how to calm down from it.

Cry for a few minutes.

Drink some water.

Wash my face.

And go back to bed.

And that's exactly what I did.

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