“Can’t you just force feed it to him?”

“What the hell, Justin?”

“I’m just saying, it’s like a cat. You just have to get it in there.”

“My brother’s not a CAT.”

“Okay, I’m just trying to be helpful.”

Max could hear Eddie and Justin’s hushed argument outside of his door as he lay curled up in bed, clutching Doom to his chest. Max had refused to go to school or take his medicine since Percy went missing a week ago and Eddie was floundering. She had tried to force him to go to school, however his passive protest left much to be desired as far as any sort of participation and eventually she found herself with no choice but to allow him to remain home with the school’s temporary permission since the boy was already in counseling. He hardly touched his food when brought to him, didn’t speak much, and she’d long hoped that this was past him after the two had lost their parents. Suddenly being his new mother wasn’t the most ideal situation and at the moment, Justin wasn’t making it easier.

Pushing him aside, Eddie opened the door a crack.

“Just go downstairs, okay?” she hissed to Justin, who held his hands up defensively and backed away to the stairwell, nearly stumbling down them in his display. Eddie rolled herself and turned her attention back to the door. “Max, I’m coming in, okay?”

She received no confirmation but didn’t expect one anyway, letting herself in and shutting the door gently behind herself before making her way to the bed and having a seat on the edge. Max didn’t so much as glance at her, keeping his eyes on the opposite wall. She patted his leg and poked at the sole of his foot in the hopes of getting a response but he only pulled his foot away quietly. 

With a sigh, Eddie said “I’m sorry about your friend. I’m sure he’s okay.”

“... You don’t know that,” Max finally spoke up feebly.

“I don’t. Sure. But it’s better than thinking he’s not. Maybe he ran away and… joined a circus or something and now he’s going to become a world famous acrobat.”

“Percy’s afraid of heights.”

“That’s what makes it great. He uses that terror to make himself the best there is and then he’s not afraid anymore.” She studied Max’s face for any indication of a change of heart but there was nothing but hopelessness etched into his features. “... Look. I don’t think you lying here letting yourself suffer is going to help him. The police are doing what they can. Do you really want Percy to come home just to find you in the hospital?”

“Percy’s not coming home. The things in the dark got him,” Max remarked, kneading his fingers into his pillow.

Eddie lolled her head back with a groan. “Max, you have to stop with that.”

“With what?”

“Mom and Dad weren’t killed by any monsters. It was a car accident. You were there. You were on the highway and the car went off the road because of some ice and-”

“It wasn’t ice. Stop saying it was ice!” Max flung the bear across the room, the plush tumbling and slumping against the far wall. He tugged the hood of his green and white hoodie over his head and pulled his knees to his chest as he lay fetal. “Everybody says it was ice but I know what I saw.”

“The doctor said the shock of the situation could make you misremember things.”

“I didn’t misremember it!” he snapped, sitting up to give her a hurt and bewildered glare. “There was a monster in the woods and it came out of the trees and it attacked the car and…” Max’s body shuddered as he held in a sob. “... Percy believed me…”

“Percy just wanted to support you because he’s your friend,” Eddie said, giving his leg another pat. “And if you’re his friend, you’ll take care of yourself for him. The last thing he would want is for you to get hurt just because he’s not here. Please take your medicine and eat something.”

Max shook his head, tugging his hood tighter over his face, falling sideways back to the sheets.

“What’s it gonna take, Max? If something happens, I’m gonna have to take you to the hospital and they’re going to make sure you take and eat everything.”

“... Maybe tomorrow,” Max whispered, scrubbing at his eye with the cuff of his sleeve.

“No, not maybe. Promise me you’ll take your medicine and eat something tomorrow,” Eddie commanded firmly.

“... Okay.”

“Say ‘I promise’.”

“... I promise.”

“Good.” Eddie stood, combing her fingers through her hair and nodding. “If you need anything tonight, I’ll be right downstairs.”

“With Justin.”

“... Yeah. With Justin. Justin wants to help you just as much as I do. You know that, right?”

Max shrugged a bit and Eddie leaned down, kissing the top of his head and making her way to the door.

“Do you want me to turn the light off for you?” she asked, assuming he would be sleeping soon anyway.

Did it really matter if the darkness came for him next? Perhaps it would take him to Percy. Perhaps it would take him to his parents. Perhaps it would take him from here. Drowning in his own melancholy, Max nodded as though willingly submitting himself to execution and Eddie flicked the light off.

“... Goodnight, Max.”

“... Bye,” Max whispered and as the door was shut, he was plunged into that inkiness save that thin sliver beneath the door and the vague glow of a distant street light beyond the window.

Doom’s body shifted, slumping further against the wall, and Max flinched at the initial movement, thinking his woeful desire had been granted and something had arrived. Though once the relief that nothing had faded, the despair returned and he sat up, staring hard into the dimness as if his eyes would suddenly gain night vision.

“... I know you’re there,” he said into the gloom. “Just come and get me already. You took everyone else.” When nothing responded, he sat up further to give the darkness his full attention. “Do something! I know you hate me! Just get it over with!”

“Whoa, whoa, okay, I don’t hate you and I didn’t do anything. Just calm down before your sister thinks you’re insane,” a gruff male voice said from the dimness, yielding a shocked gasp from Max whose eyes quickly scoured the room for its source.

“Justin..?” Max ventured, both hoping to and dreading to see the dark-haired man lurking somewhere in his bedroom.

“Justin? You kidding? Screw that guy,” the voice said. “I’m better than Justin.”

“Who… who are you..?” Max crawled back on his bed until his back met the wall, once again gauging the distance between himself and the lightswitch. 

“You don’t know me? That hurts. We’ve been friends pretty much our entire lives and you don’t know me?”

Max’s eyes lit upon another movement across the room, though that movement again belonging to the plush he had thrown as it appeared to be sitting itself up. It lifted its head and stared at Max, the dim light glinting against its button eyes. Max’s breath left his lungs and he pressed his back more firmly against the wall, debating yelling out for Eddie as he watched the bear clamber slowly to its feet.

“Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of monster. You’re making me self conscious,” the bear said with the best approximation of a grimace its fabric could manage.

“Doom..?”

“Ohh, so you do remember me! That’s a relief. With the drugs the quacks cram down your throat, I was worried you were messed up in the melon,” Doom sighed, waddling to the bed.

“What happened? Why can you talk?” Max asked, beginning to fear this was a delusional result of his lack of medicine.

“Uhhhh hard to say,” Doom said as he climbed onto the bed with some difficulty. “I was asleep, I guess, and then I wasn’t and here I am. Boy, am I glad, too. Now I can make you feel bad for how hard you chucked me against the wall and all the times you lie on top of me when you sleep. You’re lucky I can’t breathe. I’m lucky I can’t breathe.”

“Are you gonna hurt me..?”

“What? No! Why would I wanna hurt you? We’re buds. Pals. Friendos,” Doom said with a grunt like an old man as he seated himself beside the boy.

“... I’m sorry I threw you,” Max said at last as he tried to adjust to this new situation.

“Eh, no hard feelings. I know you’re going through a rough patch,” Doom replied, paws resting in his lap. “Shame about Percy. I kinda liked him.”

“Eddie said he probably ran away…”

“And you believe that?”

“Not really. But maybe someone kidnapped him…”

“Not someONE. SomeTHING.” Doom looked up at him, forehead creasing into a scowl. “Why are you second guessing yourself now? You know what it was. You saw it yourself back then.”

“I don’t know what to do about it,” Max whispered, hugging his knees. “I don’t think Percy’s ever coming back…”

“Not with that attitude. Maybe if we do nothing, he’ll turn up. But maybe if we do something, he’ll definitely turn up.”

“What do you mean..?”

“I mean we find him!” Doom pushed himself to his feet and held up his paws. “You think sitting around here moping’s going to solve everything? No. For all we know, we’re the only things keeping him from freedom and he needs us to go rescue him.”

“But I don’t even know where he is,” Max despaired.

Doom attempted to snap his felt fingers and, after a few failed attempts, resorted to instead thwacking Max’s leg. “We gotta start somewhere, don’t we? What’s somewhere you guys have been where people might never look?”

Max pondered for a moment as he lifted his head and pursed his lips. “... That purple house in the woods. They always want me to go there, I think.” He turned his attention to the plush with worry. “Do you… think they’re using Percy to lure me there?”

“Possibly,” Doom said with a shrug. “Best case scenario, though, we avoid whatever they have planned and get your SECONDARY best friend out of there.”

Max nodded, quite convinced already that this was the place to be. He slithered from his bed and searched for his backpack again, navigating the darkness like he knew it well. Some part of him was afraid that turning on the lights now would take whatever hallucination Doom must have been away from him and he appreciated having the company now.

“You kind of sound like my dad,” Max realized as he packed his flashlight.

Doom nodded solemnly and hopped down from the bed. “I’m your father now. Come along, son.”

“Okay, Dad,” Max said with a slight snicker, relieved to have any reprieve from his own emotions. “Wait, but what about Eddie?”

“What about her?”

“She’s not going to let me go out now. And what if she hears you talking?”

“She’s not going to hear me,” Doom insisted dismissively.

“Can… only I hear you?”

“I dunno but I just won’t talk. Think you can go out the window?”

“I don’t know…” Max peered out the window. “It’s a little high…”

“Okay, here’s the deal. We do it like in the movies,” Doom said, tugging the blanket off of the bed. “We tie the sheets together and go out the window. How many sheets do you have?”

“Um… just one,” Max said with a shrug.

“Just the… bottom one?” Doom asked, examining the blanket for the missing component.

“I don’t sleep with a top sheet. Just the blanket.”

“Huh. Well, that doesn’t make things easier. These comforters are hard to tie right,” Doom muttered.

“Have you done it before..?”

“In my mind. And I can tell you they don’t tie right.” Doom tossed the blanket to the floor. “New plan. Toss me outside and I’ll make a distraction and you get out the nearest exit.”

“Will you be okay?” Max asked, opening the window and picking Doom up.

“I’ll be fine as long as there aren’t any dogs,” Doom said as Max held him out the window. “Wait, there aren’t any dogs, right? Max? Max, are there dogs? MAX-”

Max dropped him into the bushes below before he thought to answer and ducked his head back into the room to shut the window, gathering his backpack to his chest and poking his head out of his bedroom door to wait for Doom’s distraction. He could hear what sounded like the trash cans around the side of the house being knocked over along with Doom’s whooping and hollering and Justin’s voice remarking “what the hell is that?”

Taking this as the start of his opportunity, Max crept downstairs in time to see Justin making his way to the side door and made a run for the bathroom. There was no way he would be able to open the front door quietly, however he could open the bathroom window and crawl out from there into the shrubbery beyond. His heart was beating in his throat as he picked his way out of the shrubs and looked around for any witnesses before he dashed partially down the street to be more or less out of the view of the house.

“Doom!” he whispered, searching for the bear nearby.

“Hah, I felt like a real bear messing with trash,” Doom chortled as he rolled from the thickets, having made his way through the foliage the moment his disturbance was investigated. “I wish I could eat. Haven’t tried but I’m kinda scared to.”

“Doom,” Max breathed with relief, scooping the bear up to give him a hug.

“I’m here, I’m here,” Doom said, squirming. “Ready to go, half-pint?” 

Max nodded and set him down. “Are you sure Percy’s going to be there..?”

“Not at all. But I think it’s a good place to look and if he’s not there, we can cross it off the list.”

“What’s the rest of the list?”

“We’ll figure that out after. C’mon. Let’s hurry before somebody sees.”