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Louis was walking down a long, dark corridor. He was pretty sure he had never been here before, but the only way out seemed to be forward. There was a door with a neon sign above reading OPEN like it was some kind of store or café open for business.
When he reached the door he looked back over his shoulder but all he could see was darkness. He took a deep breath before turning the handle and opened the door.
Inside was a bright, white room with computers everywhere, looking like the control room to some advanced facility or sci-fi spaceship. All around over-caffeinated squirrels ran around flicking switches, pressing buttons and turning handles.
They swished between different places like if they stopped the world would fall apart. Louis tried following one of the squirrels, but he soon lost track of it in the chaos of the others.
When he lifted his eyes, to another neon sign hanging from the ceiling, his eyes grew wide. BRAIN SQUIRRELS it read. Then he saw the screens. Every screen showed a different memory from Louis’ life. When he was learning to ride a bike but fell over and blamed the bike. When he stumbled on the ground and almost fell over but the only thing that could have tripped him was a popsicle stick. When his youngest siblings were born. When he met Harry. Everything was there on the screen.
This was his brain. This was what was going on up inside his head.
Then a loud alarm started ringing, a red light flashing and every screen signalled INTRUDER!
The squirrels stopped, Louis froze, and they all turned towards him. For a moment everything was still before the squirrels started screeching and running around again.
Soon four squirrels had grabbed him, a fifth put a chair behind him that he was pushed onto and a sixth tied a tight rope around him. So tight. He could hardly breathe.
He tried to scream, but they put their tiny little hands over his mouth. Four weird, little hands pressed against his lips to keep him quiet.
Then a shadow cast over them all. The squirrels parted, giving room for whatever was casting that shadow. Louis swallowed hard and looked up at a squirrel three times the size of himself, with dark eyes glistening with evil while it leaned closer to Louis. Disgusting, very large squirrel hands coming closer to him, grabbing his head.
Louis tossed and turned, trying his best to get away, but the grip around his head grew firmer.
Then he heard the most bone chilling voice he’d ever heard saying “Mmm, a snack,” then it laughed with a vicious voice.
Louis tried screaming again, wriggling his body to get out of their grip and suddenly he hit the floor with a loud thud.
“Fuck!” Louis let out, waking up in a dark room, rubbing his shoulder that had hit the floor too hard. The moment after the light turned on and his fiancé's cute, little, sleepy face looked over the edge of the bed.
“Another nightmare?” he asked.
“Brain squirrels,” Louis muttered as he got off the floor and crawled into bed again. “With disgusting little hands and evil laughs.”
Harry hummed as he wrapped his arms around Louis, holding him close, keeping him safe from stupid brain squirrels telling Louis he was a snack.