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Pinocchio woke up with a gasp.
Sheets under him were warm and tangled, the thin fabric of his night shirt clinging to his skin. But those things didn't matter. What mattered was–
No. It wasn't real, it couldn't be real–
Pinocchio left his bed and rushed to the hallway, not even noticing how big and scary it was at night. He had to find Carlo. If he just found Carlo, if he could prove it wasn't real–
His brother's door was closed. Pinocchio pushed it open and it did so quietly, not disturbing the sleeping occupant.
Carlo lay in his bed, his right arm thrown over his head, his left resting on his stomach. When Pinocchio came closer he noticed Carlo was frowning slightly, like he was having an somehow unpleasant dream.
But at least he was dreaming. He wasn't –he wasn't–
Pinocchio couldn't take any more. He took a step closer to Carlo and poked his arm.
Carlo let out a grumpy noise, then opened his eyes and looked around. “What the heck –Pino?”
“You're not dead”, Pinocchio said and started to cry.
It took an hour, but eventually Pinocchio calmed down.
Mom and dad had rushed Carlo's room after hearing Pinocchio's cries, only to find exasperated Carlo holding his sniffling little brother. Carlo was always grumpy if he was woken up in the middle of the night, but Pinocchio didn't care. Carlo was alive and that was all that mattered.
Then father had picked Pinocchio up, saying they should let Carlo go back to bed, but Pinocchio had refused to go back to his own bed. So here he was now, tucked up between his parents, even though father said he should learn to sleep in his own room.
“But he had a nightmare, Giuseppe”, mom said and kissed Pinocchio’s forehead. “You know how he feels about Carlo.”
“Yes, yes”, father grumbled, but his eyes were soft. “Let's not make a habit of it, though.” He smoothed his hand through Pinocchio’s hair. “Good night, son.”
Pinocchio snuggled under the duvet and closed his eyes. “Good night, father. Good night, mom.”
"Good night, Pinocchio."
Soon his parents' breath softened. But Pinocchio stayed awake and had thoughts.
It wasn't often he had dreams of Carlo dying but when he did, they were really bad ones. He supposed it was because Carlo had almost been dead when Pinocchio was built. People had thought he would never wake up so everyone had been really happy when he finally did.
Pinocchio had been worried, at first, that Carlo wouldn't like him, but that wasn't true. The start was a bit bumpy but after that Carlo was the best big brother ever, always teaching him games and always listening when Pinocchio read to him, and didn't even care if he spelled a few words wrong.
And Carlo never had nightmares. Pinocchio thought it was because he was so much older than him, almost fifteen years old while Pinocchio... well he did look like he was five years old but in reality he was only been alive for a year or so.
Father said he had nightmares because he was growing to be more human. Pinocchio was special, somewhere between a puppet and a human, and his body was reacting weirdly to his growing humanity.
“Your Ergo is changing and it's not quite sure what to do with that”, father had said when Pinocchio sat in his red chair and father checked his mechanics. “That’s why you have nightmares and fears. That's part of being a human, I'm afraid, and the more human you become, the more you will change.”
Pinocchio had then asked if he would eventually learn to whistle because Carlo could and it made him mad he couldn't. Father had just laughed and told him to go play outside.
He sighed and leaned his silver head against mother's shoulder. None of that mattered right now, though. What mattered was that Carlo was alive and not at all dead, that Pinocchio was tucked in safely between his parents, that he was growing to be a real boy and that father had promised to take him to see Mr. Venigni's factory next weekend.
Pinocchio closed his eyes and had no more dreams that night.