It was a cold winter's Saturday night at Foster's. A certain comeback kid was staying the night, his mother on a business trip and brother at a friend's house. In the darkness of his imaginary friend's room, the eight-year-old was thrashing in his sleep.

"No..." He muttered just too low for anyone to hear, "Don't come any closer..."

This mumbling continued, his legs moving as if he were walking backwards. His eyes were wrenched shut and sweat covered his brow. Though he was sleeping, his face was full of terror.

"N-no..." He whimpered, "P-please..."

His nightmare reaching a climax, he began to writhe, as if trying to break free from something. Finally, he nearly leaped out of the covers of the bed he shared with his friend screaming.

"NOOOOOO!" He screeched at the top of his lungs.

"Wha? Huh?" Wilt asked, ironically being the first to wake up.

"What?" Bloo jumped up, "Mac! What's wrong?"

"Que?" Eduardo nearly jumped out of his bunk as Mac bumped him from underneath, "What is the screaming?"

"Coco?" Coco's eyes flung open, "COCO? Coco co Coco?"

Mac was oblivious to the world around him, he was feeling around his head, as if it were missing. All the while, he was still screaming as if he had just seen Death himself.

"Mac!" Bloo grabbed him by the shoulders, "Just calm down! What's wrong?"

"Coco! Co coco!" Coco attempted to calm the boy down as well.

"It's okay, Mac!" Wilt shouted over the boy's screaming, "It was just a dream!"

Mac was still oblivious, his mind still locked in the night terror. Finally, all sound stopped when the door flew open.

"WHAT, IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT'S HOLY, IS GOING ON IN HERE?" Frankie screamed at a volume that would do much more than wake the dead.

The redheaded caretaker's eyes scanned around the room, taking in the situation. Ed was cowering on his bunk, Wilt was rubbing Mac's head soothingly, Coco was keeping a seemingly safe distance away from the center of commotion, and Bloo was shaking his kid by the shoulders like a psychopath. Mac, in the center of it all, was now dead silent and trembling. At the sight of the obviously terrified child, Frankie's mood shifted from pure anger to caring.

"Mac, what's wrong?" She asked in a concerned tone.

The boy's eyes darted around the room, his hands never ceasing their inspection of his body. They were now feeling around the waist, poking at his hips to see if they were still attached. He eventually stopped his prodding and looked intently at Frankie.

"Is it still in my head?" He asked, his voice faint and shaking.

"What?" Frankie looked at him confusedly.

"Is it still in my head?" Mac repeated, now brimming with tears.

"Is what still in your head?" Bloo asked, backing away from his potentially insane friend.

"My skull!" Mac exclaimed as if everyone was supposed to know, "Is my skull still in my head?"

The room regained its silence once again. The question even made Eduardo risk a peek at the boy from his bunk. Everyone stared at the eight-year-old as if he had lost his mind.

"Si," Eduardo answered, breaking the deafening silence, "Is still in tu cabeza."

"I..." Mac muttered, calming down and coming even more to his senses, "I didn't mean to... He-I... Never mind..." Mac slid out of the bed and left the room slowly.

"I'll... go talk to him." Frankie said, gesturing towards the boy.

As Frankie walked up to Mac, she noticed that he seemed to be jumping at every shadow in sight.

"Hey Mac?" Frankie asked, concerned.

"AAAAH!" Mac jumped at the sound, "Don't kill me!"

"I wasn't gonna-" Frankie paused for a second, "Wait, what!?" She looked at the child as if he were crazy.

"I'm sorry..." Mac whimpered, "I guess that I haven't slept right since..." He shuddered.

"Did you watch some kind of seriously scary movie, Mac?" Frankie asked.

"No..." Mac blushed, "Terrance got into this new video game... And, well... I kinda watched him play it..." He seemed to avoid eye contact.

"What kind of game would give you nightmares like that?" The twenty-two year-old asked.

"Um, it was a fighting game..." Mac mumbled.

"What kind of..." Frankie then remembered such a fighting game, "Oh, that game... Okay, Mac?"

The boy looked up at her.

"You do know that those games aren't real, right?" Frankie asked.

"Yeah," Mac replied, but quickly objected, "But they look so real!"

"Yeah," Frankie smirked, "They usually do. But you gotta think... Wait, was Terrance playing as the blue guy?"

Mac nodded.

"Okay, it's all making sense now," Frankie said before continuing, "But you've gotta think, Mac. Why would there even be a blue ninja running around and ripping people's spines out?"

"Wait, he rips out the spine too?" Mac asked, fear returning to his face.

"Well, yeah," Frankie said, "I mean, that's what he did when my friends and I played that game when we were kids."

Mac stared at her incredulously, "You?"

"Yeah...?" Frankie answered cautiously, "What? You think that I never played video games? I'm only twenty-two, Mac."

"But..." Mac tried to comprehend the idea of Frankie playing the same game that Terrance was, "But... Really?"

"Yeah," Frankie repeated her answer, "I always liked to play as Scorpion, the guy with fire powers? His finishing move was pretty cool."

In his attempt to even comprehend what Frankie was telling him, Mac had entirely left his nightmare behind. For some reason, to him, the image couldn't come to him. Mac couldn't imagine Frankie, the fun-loving caretaker of Foster's, who listened to anything from pop to punk rock and obviously loved the internet, despite the Funny Bunny fiasco... Heck, even with the violence she had shown against that jerk, Dylan... Mac couldn't imagine her playing Mortal Kombat. Something just prevented it from computing in his head.

"Mac?" Frankie asked after a few minutes of silence.

The boy remained silent, looking at the girl strangely, before turning back towards Bloo, Wilt, Ed, and Coco's room. He walked a somewhat quickly, trying to put distance between him and Frankie.

Said caretaker took that as a sign that all was now fine and headed back towards her room. Just before she made it there, a certain aggravating imaginary rabbit stopped her.

"Miss Francis," He whispered grumpily, "What on earth was that racket?"

Frankie just smirked as she thought of a good response, "Fatality."

The rabbit looked at her expression, "I knew that I should have disposed of that vile game..." He hopped back to his room with a sigh.

The redhead let out a giggle before shutting her door behind her.

Okay, so this is loosely based off of something that happened to me when I was seven. My uncle was a gamer and loved to play MK4, mainly because he didn't have the money for a newer one. As my whole family lived together, I liked to watch the violent game. However, he loved to play as Sub-Zero, and the whole "spine-removal" thing made me slightly traumatized. I had one night terror and didn't play Mortal Kombat for almost ten years. Now, I love the game series just as much as he did.