Welcome back to Sandman everyone, I thought we need a bit of  Sam and Victoria time since you guys barely see her unless Sam is in class. So yay :) I hope you guys enjoy it. Please remember to VOTE and COMMENT it means a lot to me and I like chatting with you guys in the comments. XOXO BUTTERBALL.

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-Samantha-

I was bored. It was the third Sunday of the month meaning that it was my parents' date night. So they had left me home alone with a few rules in place of course. The number one being from dad.

That I wasn't allowed to have Nathan over. While they trusted him, my dad was at that stage where he trusted Nathan but didn't want him around me too long unsupervised at our age.

So that meant I was even more bored. I let out a sigh as I ate some dry cereal out of a bowl.

You know what fuck this I'm calling Victoria.

I picked up my cellphone of the coffee table and after pressing some buttons called Victoria's cell phone.

She picked up after the second ring. "Hi, Sam what is it?"

"Hi, Victoria are you busy?" I asked.

"No, I'm not doing anything. Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering if you'd like to come over and hang out. My parents went out on a date and I'm super bored," I told her. I ate some more dry cereal.

"Sam, what are you eating?" She asked me slowly.

"Mmmh? Oh, it's dry cereal I told you I'm bored," I said after I had swallowed the food.

For a moment Victoria was very quiet then she spoke. "Oh my god! Do you know how freaking unhealthy that is! That's it I'm coming over right now!" She yelled.

I winced as her yelling nearly shattered my eardrum before I could say anything else, however, Victoria hung up.

I stared at my phone for a moment frowning.

Is she a health freak or something?

It took Victoria ten minutes took to come to my house. When I let her in I noticed that she was holding two grocery bags.

"What are those?" I asked her frowning.

"You and I are going to cook a nice healthy meal together, and we're going to eat it. No more dry cereal for you it's totally unhealthy," she told me.

I smiled, "I didn't know you were a health nut Victoria or a perfectionist," I said.

"Only when it comes to food, I want to be a chef when I get older," she informed me as she sat the bags down on my kitchen counter.

I handed her the spare apron as I got one for myself. "Were your parents okay with you coming over on such short notice?" I asked her.

Victoria chuckled, "It's okay, it's not like they care anyway," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"My parents are divorced, but they were too busy with their own lives to decide which one would take me when I was little. So my grandma took me," she informed me smiling slightly.

"T-that's awful," I whispered.

"It's fine, I'm over now. Some wounds do heal if you give them enough time, I don't resent my parents at all now. In fact, I just worry about them sometimes, since that art gallery keeps them so busy I wonder if they take care themselves enough," she said softly.

Then she smiled as she took a knife out of the knife rack. "But enough about me, let's talk about you and, Nathan as we cook. That's one subject we didn't talk about when I joined you and your mom on your girls' day out," she said.

I rolled my eyes as I started washing the vegetables that Victoria had brought with her. "Do I have to it's kind of embarrassing," I mumbled as my face heated up slightly.

"Please I've been dying to know, you and him are just too close," she begged, then her eyes widened, "Wait are you two dating?" She asked me.

"W-what?! No!" I quickly denied.

Even though I kind of want to.

"So, you two see each other as siblings?" She asked frowning.

I let out a loud sigh as I handed her the freshly washed vegetables. "That is something that will never happen and never has happened," I told her.

"If I tell you how we met will you stop asking such embarrassing questions?" I asked.

Victoria nodded the whole time a large grin was on her face.

"Well both of our moms were childhood friends too, and they got pregnant around the same time. But since it took them awhile to settle down after having kids, Nathan and I didn't actually get to meet each other until we were two years old. That meeting didn't go well at first, I wanted to play with, Nathan's teddy bear but he didn't want me to touch it so he hit me with it. I got mad and bit his elbow hard enough to leave a scar. Our parents found us fighting and calling each other names, my mom made us make up and, Nathan gave me his teddy bear, Mr. Panda as an apology," I explained as I helped chopped vegetables.

"Wow, Sam I had no clue that you were such a violent little kid," Victoria whispered.

"Hey, it wasn't my fault, Nathan started it!" I protested.

"But you tried to take his toy from him," she pointed out.

"Yes, that's because, Mr. Panda was cute and he still is," I said as I pouted.

"Wait, you still have the bear, Nathan gave you?" She asked.

"Yeah it helps me fall asleep sometimes," I told her.

"Aw that's so cute," she said.

I rolled my eyes and continued cooking, or rather I helped Victoria cook. When we finished we had an amazing pan of stir-fry vegetables and rice.

"Let's go up to my room and eat," I suggested. After fixing our plates of food we went to my room.

"Wow, Sam is all this yours?" Victoria asked as she eyed my gaming consoles.

"Kind of, it's mine and my mom's. My mom made a deal with me, for each report card I bring home that has straight A's on it she'll buy me whatever game I want. And at the end of the marking period if I still have straight A's she'll buy me a game console," I told her.

"That's so cool your mom is into video games! I would play them because they look so interesting but I usually don't have the time and I didn't really know anyone who was too into video games," she told me.

"Well you and I can play some right now, but I have a rule about eating and gaming. Please be careful while you're handling my stuff if your fingers are greasy," I told her as I turned on my PS3.

She nodded, "Okay, I promise."

Victoria and I were playing a random game on my PS3 and eating when I heard a small thump from downstairs.

I frowned as I heard the thump again.

Are mom and dad back already? But I didn't hear the car.

I felt a cold sweat break out all over my skin as a horrible idea began to enter my head.

"I'm going to go grab a drink, Victoria do you want anything?" I asked her.

"No I don't want anything," she said her eyes focused on the TV, she glanced at me, "Wait should I pause the game until you get back?" She asked me.

I shook my head, "No, keep playing you could use a bit more practice."

I grabbed my taser off of my table before I headed downstairs, making sure that Victoria didn't see me take it.

I may not be able to tase a shadow but I know that they don't like the light.

I flicked the switch on the taser so that it was on its light setting. As I was walking downstairs I felt something wrap around my upper arm, digging painfully into my skin. I could definitely tell that it was a hand, an ice cold hand with thin, long, nails.

I froze up for a moment and a moment was all the shadow needed to fling me down the stairs.

I tumbled down the stairs and landed at the bottom hard, everything suddenly ached. I let out a low groan as I struggled to get to my feet.

A second later I heard a small giggle, this loud boom, then all the lights in the house went out.

I froze, I didn't know if I should run or find my taser and try to get the lights back on.

Fucking hell, where is my taser?

I reached around carefully my hands fumbled around blindly in the darkness.

I touched something cold and oddly soft. "What in the world?" I mumbled.

I suddenly heard a loud, high pitched giggle, right after that I was suddenly flying through the air.

I hit the floor hard on my stomach, knocking all of the air out of me. I began coughing as I tried to force myself to breathe.

"Sam, Samantha."

I frowned as I heard the shadow speak. "Theo, is that you?" I asked it carefully. But I instantly knew the answer.

That's not Theo because it doesn't sound like Nathan. In fact, it sounds like more than one voice talking at once.

Pain shot through my back, and I tried to cry out but it was like my voice had been taken from me.

"One of us, she'll be one of us!"

"Sam, are you okay?" Victoria asked.

I could hear her coming down the stairs. I heard the shadows let out a hiss at Victoria coming down the stairs and they instantly released me.

"Y-yeah, I'm slightly okay. I fell down the stairs and my taser went somewhere can you help me?" I asked her.

"Oh no, of course, I can," she told me.

I felt Victoria's warm hands grip my wounded arm and even though it hurt, I let out a sigh of relief.

She found my taser underneath the coffee table with the light off. Once I turned it back on we headed into the kitchen to check the fuse box.

"Oh my god what is that thing!?" Victoria screamed.

Sitting on the kitchen counter was a raccoon with trash around its mouth and in its fur.

Well isn't that convenient?

"It's a raccoon, it must have snuck in through the basement window because it smelt our cooking. They're smart you know," I told her.

"I don't care what it is! It's nasty and scary and more than likely has rabies!" She yelled. The raccoon moved and Victoria hid behind me.

I frowned as an idea came to me. "Hey, Victoria can you go get me that bowl of dry cereal I had. I'll get the raccoon out of the house while you turn the lights back on," I suggested.

"O-okay," she whispered.

Getting the raccoon out of the house was not easy and it wasn't just because the house was dark. It was because the raccoon was actually a smart animal, so I had to toss the whole entire bowl of cereal outside before it decided to run after it. Once I'd gotten the raccoon to leave the lights came back on letting me know that Victoria had completed her task.

I walked into the kitchen to see if the raccoon had damaged anything. Victoria looked at me and let out a gasp and her eyes went wide, "Oh my god, Sam what happened to you?" She asked as she came over to me.

"What are you talking about?"

"Your arms are covered in weird looking bruises and scratches," she informed me.

That shadow got me pretty good then, I don't even want to see my back probably.

"It's rug burn from when I fell down the stairs more than likely. I remember falling face first," I said.

"Are you sure you don't need any disinfectant or anything?" She asked me.

"I'm okay nothing's bleeding as far as I can tell," I reassured her.

My parents came home at eleven and other than some questions as to why a bowl of cereal was outside and why I looked beaten up. They were pretty much okay.

I let out a sigh as I sat on the edge of my bed in my pajamas deciding whether or not tell Nathan about this. While he, of course, knew the most about it, I was afraid of what could happen.

I looked at my cell phone in my hands again as I let out another deep breath.

My phone suddenly let out a little ding as Nathan texted me.

Nathan: Sam, are you okay? Theo's in too good of a mood for some reason so I wanted to check on you.

I quickly texted him back.

Sam: Kind of, but at the same time, I'm not.

Nathan: What happened?

Sam: A shadow, attacked me. But it ran away before it could do any real damage, so basically I'm just bruised and scratched up.

Nathan: That bastard, I let him out of my sight for one second and this happens.

I frowned as I thought about the attack again. While I would have actually have preferred that it had been Theo who did this. I knew it wasn't for a couple of things one, this attack was straight up malicious. Theo, from what I had seen of him so far preferred to taunt and scare people. Secondly, was the issue with the voice or rather voices, while Theo did change his appearance, his default voice and appearance always returned to looking and sounding like Nathan.

I slowly texted Nathan back.

Sam: Actually, this time it wasn't, Theo. It was a living shadow of that makes sense.

Nathan: What!? A shadow went after you?!

I stared in confusion at his last text for a few moments.

Sam: Yeah, that's what I've been saying.

Nathan: Alright, Sam. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Try to get some sleep. Okay?... I love you.

Sam: Yeah... I love you too.