I Can't Lose Her {Stephew}

Dream Team

Everywhere in the house except for the hallway and the bathroom were entirely up in flames, so Matt ran to the bathroom.

There he saw his wife on the floor, bleeding out with a bullet wound in her forehead.

Matt couldn't take it anymore. He sank to his knees, sobbing uncontrollably.

He heard the laughter again.

"Chris!" Matt shouted in between sobs.

"Leave me alone!"

Matt continued to sob until he fell to the floor, holding his face in his hands.

Chris slowly appeared in the doorway of the bathroom.

"You killed me."

"You let me die!"

Chris was holding a small, .32 caliber handgun in his right hand, the same one that had ended his life.

"I'm sorry!" Matt sobbed, looking up at Chris.

"I'll make it up to you!"

"Unless you can bring me back to life, you can't."

Matt looked at his wife's body, lying on the floor beside him. Jason and Chris' corpses lay beside her.

"Please, Chris, kill me! Kill me now! I can't stand living without them!"

"As you wish."

A bullet wound started to form in Chris' head as he aimed the gun directly at Matt's head. Matt closed his eyes, waiting to die. He was ready.

BANG

Matt woke up in bed and freaked out for a brief moment before he realized that it was all just a nightmare.

Matt sighed. He'd been having nightmares for three weeks now, ever since he had the nightmare about finding Stephanie on the bathroom floor. That nightmare was about his future, but these were about his past.

He knew that Steph hadn't meant to freak him out by appearing, or by showing him the vision of his future, but she had. She'd only made the nightmares worse, and Matt was starting to think of forcibly making them - and everything else - stop.

But then he remembered his wife's words;

" I can't lose you."

He had taken her words to heart and hadn't tried to hurt himself ever since she had said anything.

He couldn't end it, not now. He would see her again. He would.

But then he remembered something else that his wife had said;

"I promise, this is the last time you'll see me."

Matt had called the hospital first thing after this experience, and they said that she was alive. Still, Matt couldn't help but wonder what she meant by that.

But now, he truly was alone, apart from Jason and Skip. Steph and Chris were gone.

Ronnie hadn't even left the hospital since Steph was admitted, as he had promised Matt to keep an eye on her.

The hospital staff was nice enough to give Ronnie his own room, despite not requiring medical care, so he basically lived there now.

Matt had asked Jason if he wanted to go to the hospital to see Ronnie and Steph earlier that day, and Jason said that they could go the next day.

Matt was both eager and dreading going back to the hospital. He wasn't sure that he could see Steph like that again. But he had to. He couldn't leave his wife alone.