Flare

"Mom!!" with a jolt, a small raccoon woke up from his nightmare. A nightmare that never left him for the past month. The scene that he wanted to forget but couldn't. They would never leave him alone no matter what he did.

When he looked around, he was lying on the soft cushion in the middle of a room. Beside the soft cushion laid a bigger, kid's sized bed where a little boy was supposed to sleep.

But no matter how much the raccoon searched for the boy, he couldn't find him. But he could hear the sounds of thunder that were coming from the window. When he turned his head to look at the window, he saw the dark sky was now filled with numerous lightning that looked like the sky wanted to attack the earth and kill everyone on it.

The scene reminded him of the past and the little raccoon couldn't help but shiver in fear. He wanted to cuddle but the supposed owner was not on his bed.

The baby raccoon could only sigh as he left his small bed and walked out of the kids room. He knows that if the kid was not on his bed, then it only meant that he was sleeping with his parents.

With this thought in his mind, the raccoon walked towards the boy's parent's room. He slowly pushed open the door and let his head inside to peek.

As expected, the small boy was sleeping in between his mother and father while the parents were patting him to make him fall asleep by telling him a story about some mighty dragons, which they knew he would love.

"Mom, will the dragon kill the thunder too?" The boy asked in his innocent voice.

When the parents heard his question, they looked at each other and chuckled. They know that their son was scared of thunder and that was why he was sleeping with them tonight.

But the kid is too prideful to admit that he was scared and said some stupid reason that his pet raccoon was snoring and he couldn't fall asleep.

If the little raccoon were to hear his words, he would have given the boy a punch on his face for throwing all the lame at him.

The mother nodded her head, "Yes yes. The dragon would kill the thunder and all the enemies."

Who cares if the dragon was able to really kill thunder or not? All she wanted was to assure her son that the thunder could be defeated so he doesn't have to be scared anymore.

Hence she did not care about what she said as she continued telling him the story full of weird scenarios.

Looking at the happy family inside the room, the raccoon hesitated if he could go inside or not. He wanted to be a part of them but he was also scared to go inside.

In the end, he decided to not disturb this happy family and took a step backwards. But before he could successfully sneak outside, the mother saw him and called out, "Flare."

Being caught, Flare stopped on his tracks before raising his head to look at the people who were looking at him.

Flare chittered looking at them but did not take a step forward.

"Look what you did, Hao Yu. You came here leaving Flare all alone. How can you be a good older brother if you are this irresponsible?" The mother gave a soft scolding to her son.

The boy, Hao Yu, did not retort but pouted his little lips showing that he too felt guilty for his actions.

When he saw the hesitant eyes of the little raccoon, he felt more guilty.

His mother wanted to get out of the bed to hold Flare, "Flare, come here."

But before she could get out of the bed, Hao Yu stopped her, "Mom, don't get out of the bed. I will go."

He immediately jumped out of the bed with his little legs with agile movements before hugging Flare into his arms and shouted at once, "Flareon, I choose you."

Yep, that's right. The name that Hao Yu had given the little raccoon that they got as a pet was Flareon. The kid was evidently a fan of the animated series, Pokemon and thus he decided to give the raccoon that name.

His parents, though, felt a little pity looking at the raccoon and the weird name he just received because of their son and thus decided to call him Flare.

Flare was dumbfounded as one second he was hesitantly standing at the door and most definitely was standing on the ground and the next second he was high up in the air and without any ground beneath his little feet.

He blinked his eyes and chittered happily. Hearing his happy noises, Hao Yu brought him back towards his chest and hugged him tight; almost taking away Flare's breath.