Tobi finally managed to force himself awake from the dream he was having.

Leaves crunched beneath him and trees loomed around him. It took a moment to figure out where he was.

"Shit."

He stood and brushed himself off, pulling a few leaves from his hair.

Redoing his ponytail, he started back in the direction of the church.

He shivered, hugging his arms around himself, thankful it hadn't snowed.

The woods were eerily quiet and every footfall seemed amplified in the deafening silence. Tobi dismissed the lack of woodland life as being a result of the cold morning; still, it felt ominous.

Under the leaves, something smooth and white caught Tobi's eye. He fought the urge to investigate but eventually gave in and brushed the leaves aside, revealing the bones of a small animal.

After a moment of inspection, he buried the bones beneath the leaves again and continued towards the church, warmth being his only incentive to return.

As he entered through the large doors, a dozen heads turned towards him.

"Tobi? Why were you outside? Isn't it cold?" one of his siblings asked.

"I must've forgotten to lock the door," Tobi muttered.

"You look half frozen!" his mother exclaimed. "Here. come by the fire. I'll go get you a blanket."

"I-" Tobi began to protest, but was cut off by his mother steering him towards the warm flames.

"Could you get my notebook and pencil while you're looking for a blanket? It's an inch thick and black?" he asked sheepishly.

Suzie nodded and went off to retrieve the items.

Tobi fidgeted beneath the stares of his siblings as he waited for his mother to return. He ran through the events of his dream in his mind so that he wouldn't forget.

"Here you go," Suzie said, handing him the items once she returned.

Tobi opened his notebook to a fresh page and began writing. His younger brothers Duncan and Darwin read over his shoulder as he wrote.

"This was your dream?" they asked in unison.

Tobi nodded, scribbling down a horrifying detail and glancing at his brothers, trying to read their reactions.

Mattias shuffled into the room, yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His sand-colored hair stuck up in various places. He sat down next to Tobi as he finished writing.

"Another one?" he asked.

"I have one every night," Tobi replied rather irritably.

"He forgot to lock his door," Duncan and Darwin explained.

"Was it the same place?" Mattias asked.

Tobi nodded.

"What do you think it is about that place?"

Tobi gave a dismissive shrug. He rather not discuss his sleepwalking habits.

"Did you have any dreams last night?" Tobi asked, changing the subject.

"None like yours," Mattias replied. "Just the sort of nonsense people usually dream of. When it obviously isn't real, but at the time you don't question it."

He carefully plucked Tobi's notebook from his lap and flipped to a random page, earning him a look from Tobi. He found the beginning of the dream and read quietly, grimacing at the vividly gorey details.

"Are they getting worse?" he asked.

"It varies," Tobi explained. "Sometimes they're not that scary-- like that one--" Mattias's eyes widened in bewilderment. "Other times they get so bad I wake up screaming."

Mattias gave him a pitying look and continued reading.

"You should publish these one day. They'd pass for good horror stories."

Tobi frowned, unamused.

A few other siblings began to listen to the conversation.

"Read them aloud," one of their younger sisters begged.

"Please don't," Tobi muttered.

He went ignored and the children gathered in a tight clump around Mattias as he selected a dream at random and began reading.

Tobi buried his face in the blanket out of humiliation as his siblings listened to his night terrors with bated breath. A few other siblings joined the group after waking up, unaware of what was being read to them.

Eventually all twenty-three of Tobi's siblings were listening attentively, some leaning over the arms and backs of chairs, others crammed in a tight bunch in front of the fire, the younger ones sitting on the laps of their elder siblings.

After each dream, Tobi prayed that they had grown bored, but each time they cried out for another one to be read.

"This is Christmas, not Halloween," Tobi said irritably. "Shouldn't we be reading from the Bible, or A Christmas Carol, or-"

He was presently hushed.

After a few hours of Tobi reliving almost nineteen years worth of dreams, Mattias finished and closed the notebook.

"It's not a book!" Tobi said, frustrated. Though as he listened to the dreams in order he realized they did seem as if they could be a book with a very twisted author.

They didn't quite make up a plot, but they did tell a story. One that Tobi happened to be living out in his sleep every night.

He glared at Mattias as he handed the book back.

"Sorry, Tobi. But they're really interesting."

Tobi bit back a stinging remark.

"At least everyone was entertained," he grumbled instead.

The ordeal with the notebook was quickly forgotten as gifts began being exchanged. Tobi watched as his younger siblings ran around in excitement.

Heads turned towards the dining room as a loud crash sounded, followed by a shriek.

Tobi was quickly on his feet along with a few of his octuplets and raced towards the room.

Candles had been knocked over and a large fire was now blazing.

"Someone call the fire department!" Mattias shouted.

Tobi reached into his pocket and cursed. His phone was in the other room.

Luckily one of his siblings had already dialed.

He ran into the dining room, ignoring the heat, and quickly scooped up his sister who had started the mess and sat staring at the blaze in horror. He handed her off to Mattias before snatching a cup off of the table and filling it up in the sink.

"That's not going to work, Tobi!" someone shouted at him.

"Got any better ideas?" he replied, throwing the water onto the flames.

Smoke billowed from the fire, filling Tobi's lungs. His eyes watered as he began coughing.

One of his siblings rushed to his side, but he pushed them off.

"Everyone's evacuated. We need to get outside too," Mattias yelled over the roar of the flames.

"You shouldn't be here! You could fall asleep and get killed!" Tobi shouted, ignoring what Mattias had said.

"Neither should you! Come on!"

Tobi nodded as he began coughing again, rubbing at his burning eyes.

They turned to leave but a beam fell in front of their path, spreading the fire to trap them.

"Shit!" someone yelled. Tobi was too disoriented to tell if it had been him or Mattias.

"We need to get to the kitchen!" he said.

"There's no way out from the kitchen!" Mattias argued.

"Trust me!"

Tobi grabbed Mattias's wrist and pulled him to the kitchen. They needed to work quickly.

"We need to fill bowls with water and soak ourselves so we won't be burned when we run through the flames," Tobi explained.

"When we what?!"

"Just help me!" Tobi urged, throwing open cabinets in search of bowls.

"Are you positive this will work?" Mattias asked.

"No," Tobi admitted, "but do you have a different idea? It's this or nothing."

Mattias nodded and began filling a few bowls with water.

They brought them back to the dining room and quickly drenched themselves in the water, making sure they were as thoroughly covered as possible. .

Mattias held out his hand towards Tobi who took it and gripped it tightly.

"Ready?" he asked.

"No," Tobi replied.

"Me neither. Go!"

They ran towards the fire blocking their path, still hand in hand. They braced themselves as they jumped through the flames.

The heat seared at them and singed their hair a bit, but the water kept them from being too seriously burned.

They didn't after they passed the fire and continued running until they rejoined the family.

Tobi let go of Mattias's hand and collapsed to the floor, coughing. He was dimly aware of the sounds of sirens, distant in his mind, before blacking out.

A/N

Hi guys! I'm back! Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up. I've been distracted by what seems like 87 other fics I've been writing on docs for fun. Chapter title is from "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)" by Fall Out Boy. I have one more chapter prewritten that I will try to get uploaded sooner than I got this one up, but after that it'll probably take longer because I've had some writer's block with this story. I do plan to complete this story, I just don't exactly have as detailed of a plan than I would like, so I may ask you guys for some requests of what's going to happen.