OCTAVEUS DREAM
"WHAT'S GOING on?" I asked her, quickly regaining full consciousness.
   "Get out of bed!" She shouted. Her maroon eyes were widened in fear.
   "Why? What's going on?" I asked again, this time more forcefully.
   "The tunnels are caving in! Everyone has been ordered to evacuate the dens. You have to get up now!"
   I sat up fast and grabbed my pocket knife from the nightstand. (Yes, I am one of the ones that sleep with a knife. Deal with it.) Anna ran back to the door and flicked the lights on while I rummaged through the drawers under my bed. I had a box of emergency supplies somewhere in case something happened and we had to relocate suddenly.
   After what seemed like forever, I found what I was looking for, and stood up and turned toward Anna. I started to limp toward her when a loud rumble knocked me to the ground, causing me to drop the box of emergency supplies.
   The floor was shaking violently; Anna yelled my name, but I was too busy watching a large crack in the ceiling slowly grow bigger. The crack parted around the chandelier, and chunks of clay started to fall out of the ceiling. The chandelier started shaking and peeling itself away from the ceiling.
   Suddenly I was being pulled backward. Anna had her hands under my arms and was dragging me out of the room, my box of supplies under one of her arms, just as the chandelier separated from the ceiling completely and crashed to the floor. Clay started to rain down out of the hole, coating everything in my room with a cloud of red-brown dust.
   "Come on!" Anna pulled me to my feet and shoved me forward down the hallway. I stumbled over a picture that had fallen off the wall and yelped when I got a big shard of glass stuck in my foot, though luckily I didn't fall this time. Anna supported me as we ran as fast-- and carefully-- as we could into the drop-off area. My parents and Jessie and Gwen were already there. They all had changed out of their pajamas and into their lighter combat clothes; a tight dark zip-up tank top make solely of Kevlar, black jeans, black combat boots. I just now realized that Anna was also wearing her combat clothes. Her long blonde hair was braided. Gwen was clutching Ginny, stroking behind the ginger cat's ears.
   The entire room was still vibrating, though it sounded like the vibrations were coming from the ceiling, or something above ground. The diamond chandeliers that hung from the ceiling shook violently, threatening to fall. Some of the tiles on the floor were cracked.
   My mother noticed me and Anna running/limping toward them, and she cried with relief. "Octaveus!" She hugged me, then held me out in front of her and inspected me for injuries. "When we got the news of the first tunnels starting to collapse, I assumed that you had woken up. But then the kitchen caved in, and we could hear some of the other rooms collapse, so we evacuated out here, but I never did a headcount and . . ." she paused, and I could tell she was trying hard not to cry. "We didn't know if your room had been one of the ones we heard collapse . . ." She blinked hard and I hugged her.
   "I'm fine," I reassured her quietly.
   "Anna was the one that noticed you were missing. She went back in there to save you." Mom said before going silent. I kept hugging her, though my mind was reeling. Anna had gone back into the den to save me, even though she knew that the cavern could collapse at any time and she'd never come out? I looked at Anna over my mom's shoulder; Anna was watching me, scanning my eyes for a reaction to what my mother had just said. Her own maroon eyes were teary with relief.
   I mouthed the words 'Thank you' at her and she smiled in return. I stepped away from my mom. I smiled at her to show that I felt fine, pulled the glass out of my foot, then turned to the rest of my family.
   "What other tunnels have caved in?" I asked my father.
   "As far as we know, the Mason's drop off caved in right after they evacuated to the restaurant, though we don't know how many of their rooms are collapsed. All of the tunnels leading straight to the restaurant are gone, and so are the ones to the Karou's. The tunnels to the Corhaine's are weakened . . ." Dad paused and glanced at Anna, then continued, "but none of their rooms have collapsed as far as we know."
   I nodded. "So, how are we going to get to the surface?"
   "I don't think tunnels would be a good idea," Dad said. "The clay is probably weakened by a lot and we shouldn't risk getting trapped."
   "We could dig our way out," Gwen suggested.
   "Yeah, but that would take forever." Jessie snapped at her.
   "Jessie, be nice," Mom scolded him. He threw his arms up in the air.
   "One little retort. . ." he muttered, scowling at my mother. He looked like he was going to say more, but he was interrupted when Gwen screamed.
   My eyes swiveled toward the sound. Gwen stood staring up at the ceiling as huge cracks started to web across the clay, sending showers of chunks of dry clay and dirt over us. The chandeliers shook more violently as the cracks reached them, just as the chandelier in my room had done before it fell. Clay rained down harder as the ceiling slowly started caving in, dipping toward the ground. The tiles on the floor cracked and broke. The light bulbs in the chandeliers shattered, sending the room into darkness.
   "Anna!" Gwen screamed. My attention immediately turned to Anna, who was standing away from the rest of us. I was vaguely aware of a looming shadow high above her; the shadow was shaking, slowly making its way toward  her. My eyes widened with horror as I figured out what the shadow was.
   A loud cracking sound echoed around the room as the chandelier broke away from the ceiling and hurtled toward Anna. Gwen screamed again as I sprinted toward Anna. I grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her to the floor behind me. She slid over the broken tiles and I had a split second to register the horrified look on her face before the chandelier stabbed into my back and a cascade of clay and glass buried me.

OCTAVEUS
My eyes snapped open. I covered my mouth as a scream of terror tried to escape and I tried to calm down. 'That was just a nightmare. The tunnels aren't really collapsing.' But the part of me that wasn't panicking knew; that wasn't a dream. It wasn't even a nightmare. It seemed too real to have been a figment of my imagination.
   I  checked my alarm clock for the time, and silently cursed myself. It was two in the morning. I had slept seven and a half hours straight. 'If the tunnels had collapsed while I was asleep. . .
   'No,' I scolded myself. 'The tunnels aren't going to collapse. Stop thinking about that.' I was considering trying to fall asleep again, but then I heard someone outside my door.
   I slowly got up and made my way over to the door and pressed my ear against the wood. Now, you might be thinking, 'Wow, Octaveus, I didn't know that you eavesdropped on people!' But believe me, if I hadn't thought that something was up, then I wouldn't have sat there uncomfortably with my face against a wooden door.
   I couldn't hear any words, but I distinguished one of the voices as Anna's. She seemed upset about something, telling by the tone of her voice. She said something, and a male voice answered. The male voice sounded like my father. I pressed my face closer to the door, straining my ears to hear at least some part of the conversation. Finally, I could hear what they were saying.
   ". . . I'm just worried." I heard Anna say. Her voice quavered.
   "I'm sure he's fine, Anna," my father reassured her.
   "I know, but . . ." She whispered something I couldn't heard to Dad. He sighed.
   "How about this. When he wakes up, I'll talk to him, and see if he remembers anything. I'm sure he was just having a nightmare. He has them all the time. There's probably nothing to be worried about."
   By this point, I had realized that I could watch and listen through the crack between the door and the wall. I narrowed my eyes to look through the gap, trying to minimize the yellow glint from my irises.
   Anna stood against the wall in front of the door. She hugged her arms over her chest and looked worried. My dad stood across from her, right in front of the door. He had his hands in his pajama pockets and his brown hair was flattened on one side.
   He laid one hand on Anna's shoulder. "He'll be fine. We can talk to him in the morning, if you want, to make sure he's alright. But now, you should go back to bed. It's almost dawn." Anna nodded, and her eyes traveled over to the door. I slowly backed up before she could see me. I went back over to my bed and sat down with my back against the wall and closed my eyes.

I couldn't fall back asleep, so at 3:30 I got up and wandered out into the kitchen to see if I could raid the fridge before my mom woke up. I have on-off hunger pangs- sometimes I won't eat for days or even weeks, then others I won't stop eating. It's weird.
   Lights were off throughout the den, but my eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly. I quietly limped out of my room, leaving the door open behind me and the light off, and looked down the hallway. Yellowish light seeped out from under the door to Anna's room (usually that room was the Guest Room, but Anna was staying in it while her dad was away) but I just quietly limped past and hurried down the hall into the kitchen.
    I couldn't see as well-- the kitchen is one of the darkest rooms in the den-- but I could feel the floor change to tile and heard my uneven footsteps echo faintly off the walls.
   I made my way over to the large dark shape against the wall in front of the counter. I heard my tail brush lightly against the tile as I opened the door and crouched in front of the fridge, searching for something that my mother was least likely to notice go missing. I found a plate of leftover meatloaf (which was more meat than loaf) in the back of the fridge, and pulled it out.
   I turned on the light on my phone (I had grabbed it as a flashlight) and was just unwrapping the Plastic Wrap that was covering the plate when I heard a female voice behind me say, "What are you doing?"
    I jumped and almost cut myself with the knife I was holding. (Which I don't normally do, cut myself with giant knives. I use a pocket knife for that.)
   Anna stood in the doorway of the kitchen, her long golden-blonde hair illuminated by the light coming from the open door to the Guest Room. She was wearing a dark grey V-necked T-shirt that didn't look like it was meant to be worn as pajamas (though she didn't seem to care) and mid-thigh length shorts. She had an amused expression on her face, her eyebrows raised quizzically.
   "Um. . ." I casually picked up the plate of meatloaf and hid it behind my back, along with the knife I was going to cut it with. "I'm. . . not eating meatloaf?"
   "Hmm." Anna walked over to me and grabbed my wrist. "Then what's this?"
   She pulled my hand out from behind my back, the plate of half-unwrapped meatloaf resting partially on her wrist.
   "Uh. . ." I didn't know how I should answer without giving myself away.
   Anna smirked and raised her eyebrows. "What?" She tilted her head to the side, her golden-blonde hair making a curtain over the right side of her face, almost covering her right ear. She stared at me, her maroon eyes sparkling with amusement. I was aware of her hand still on my wrist, even after I had already set down the meatloaf on the counter.
   Suddenly, she stopped smiling and let go of my wrist. "When did you wake up?"
   "A little bit ago. Why?"
   She looked at the ground momentarily. "Do you remember. . . did you have a nightmare?"
   "I don't remember if I did." I lied. I didn't want to share my dream just yet.  "Why?"
    "Well. . ." Anna looked at me, almost sympathetically. "Last night, I heard you screaming. Your dad and I didn't know if you were hurt or what was going on with you. We were going to go and check on you, but then you stopped screaming, so your dad said that it was probably a nightmare." I looked at her, and realized just how worried she was. She hugged her arms over her chest and her ears were shaking.
   I didn't know what else to do to comfort her, so I hugged her. I heard her catch her breath for a second, then she wrapped her arms around me and hugged me back.
   "I'm fine," I whispered to her. Her hair smelled like vanilla. She nodded and leaned her head on my shoulder. Her hair looked like strands of gold in the light coming from her room. Her cream colored tail curled around her feet. Her golden-blonde hair compared to my black hair, it looked like day compared to night.
   I looked at the meatloaf sitting unguarded behind her on the counter, and I couldn't resist myself. This happens to be one of the weeks when I was always hungry.
   I casually reached for it and attempted to pick up a piece without Anna knowing. I guess she had super-senses or something, because as soon as my fingers touched the meatloaf, she said, "Are you eating meatloaf while you're hugging me?"
   I froze. Anna stepped back against the counter and grabbed my wrist again. She stared at me, holding my hand out between us. I had meatloaf crumbs on my fingers. I didn't say anything; I wasn't sure if she would get angry at me for trying to eat meatloaf while I was hugging her. (Hey, you never know.)
   She looked me in the eyes, a blank expression on her face, and slowly reached behind her.
   "Um. . . Anna?" I was starting to get nervous again. "What are you--!" I was cut off when a piece of meatloaf was shoved into my mouth.
   Anna smirked at me and  let go of my wrist. She leaned back against the counter and casually ate the meatloaf crumbs off her fingers. I swallowed the meatloaf that she'd shoved into my mouth and wiped the crumbs off my chin, smiling mischievously. 'Oh, so that's how you want to play it.' I limped back around the counter and snatched up a piece of meatloaf and shoved it into her face before she could react.
   She gasped, wiping the meatloaf off her face onto the counter. Once she'd finished getting the meatloaf crumbs out of her hair, she smirked at me again and shook her head. I gave her a full cat-toothed smile. She laughed.
   "As much fun as a meatloaf fight is," she said. "We should probably go back to sleep before your parents notice the meatloaf all over the counter."
   I nodded and came back around the counter, grabbing the plate that used to have the meatloaf on it-- before we'd decided to have a meatloaf war-- and dropped it in the sink. We didn't bother trying to clean up the crumbs; I doubt that anyone would notice them anyway, unless they were spying on us. I turned around and limped back over to the counter to retrieve my phone. Anna came over and stood in front of me. She rubbed her arm nervously, but I don't know why she was nervous. I wasn't that intimidating.
   "Goodnight, Octaveus." She said, and I noticed there was a strange light in her eyes as she said it. I smiled at her, and then she did something I didn't expect: she leaned forward and kissed me. On the lips.
   Then she quickly hurried back to her room and shut the door. As for me, I stood against the counter for about five more minutes, my brain still trying to process what had just happened, before I returned to my room and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling above me and thinking.
    'How do I tell her no?'