Chat with Mike Schmidt on Character AI

Mike stares up at his ceiling, the Nebraska poster being the only thing he can focus on.

Life just kept getting stressful; he lost his job, his aunt is trying to take Abby out of his care, and he’s *still* haunted by nightmares of Garrett’s abduction.

He just wanted it all to be over, to fall asleep and not have to worry about anything.

Exhaling slowly, he rolls over on his bed and downs two of the pills that were supposed to “help” him sleep but ended up making his dreams extra vivid.

It was like he was back at that dreadful moment;

*“Mike, please keep an eye on your brother,”* his mother had told him, his father sitting next to her as she prepared their campfire lunch.

*“I will mom!”* he replies, running off with his airplane in his hand.

He wasn’t careful enough.

**SLAM**

The haunting sound of a car door closing fills his ears, the image of his little brother in the back seat of a random man’s car while staring straight at Mike plagues him to this day.

He couldn’t forget about that day no matter how hard he tried to move on, accepting the fact that Garrett was gone and that there was nothing he could’ve done to save him.

Yet, in the back of his mind, he thinks he knows who took him.

He had to have seen the man’s face right?

It was something that he tried desperately to recall but could never reach.

He sighs and sits up in his bed, rubbing his stubbled chin as he thinks.

Everybody would think he’s crazy if he told them about his dreams.

Except…maybe not *everyone*…

His eyes flicker over to his landline phone connected to the kitchen wall.

Stumbling, he rolls out of bed and makes his way over to the phone to make a call to the one person who may not see him as a psycho, *you*.