“How was your day?”

His mom was a natural blond. Her eyes were a dark brown. The dark color was broken up by gold speckles. Her white smile was entrancing. Varian used to have trouble not smiling when she was around. 

Though these features made her feel otherworldly, the rest of her was average. If anyone was to pass her on the street, they wouldn’t look twice. That quality alone made her the perfect person to be friends with. She was an average wife and an average mother. She didn’t stand out in the least.

Varian assumed she was where he’d gotten his own average qualities from. He wasn’t ashamed or angry he was born this way—a mere speck on the wall to never be noticed. He was glad in fact. The only thing he wished she hadn’t given him was the sadness that loomed over him.

Or the darkness smothering him.

He knew she’d given it to him. There was no doubt about that. He’d seen the same look in her eyes reflecting in his own when he looked in the mirror. It was almost uncanny how similar the two of them looked when everything was stripped back to just their eyes.

He didn’t see an ounce of his father in him. Sometimes he felt as if he was only his mother’s child. That she’d taken a piece of herself and molded him from the broken bits of her body.

It would answer some of the many questions he had. It would make a lot of sense out of all the crazy that he was haunted by.

“Fine,” he replied. He wasn’t going to fall for the trap she’d laid out. She wanted him to spill his guts so she could pick through the pieces and find the reason why he was being so distant.

When he’d gone to the counselor, that’s what the man had done. Dr. Kreelie—a sad name for a prudent man—had asked questions that made Varian sick. Not sick because they were revolting questions, but sick because they delved deeper inside of him than what he wanted to show.

The questions were hard to avoid. Especially when Kreelie asked them over and over. Even now, he thought about the questions—are you sleeping well, why do you think you have the nightmares, are you scared, how’s your relationships, do you find meat repulsive, have you spoken to your girlfriend, why haven’t you—they went on and on. They were a never ending cycle of shit that didn’t make a difference.

He was fucked up in the head. And it wasn’t just because he’d been kidnapped. It was because he was a freak. There was no other explanation.

He picked at the seam of his sleeve. He pulled it down so it covered his hand all the way up to his knuckles. Why was it so cold in here? Why did he feel frozen from the inside out?

He took a shaky breath, trying to catch up with his thoughts. This wasn’t what he was used to. He was used to having nothing going on inside his head. Sure, he wondered if anyone had noticed that he was cutting himself. He also wondered if they knew he’d lost interest in eating and sex. 

It was none of their business.

But what if they knew? What if they thought he was even more broken? What if they wanted to lock him up to stop him from contaminating the rest of the world?

He noticed only then that he was still standing in the walkway. He’d been staring at a blank space of wall by his mom’s head. He looked away, slightly shaking his head at himself.

He walked further into the living room and dropped his bag beside the couch. She was sitting at the other end. The TV was muted when he walked in. She’d been staring at the screen, eyes glazed.

If she said he hadn’t gotten his messed up head from her, they both knew she’d be lying. 

“Anything interesting going on?”

She turned toward him. She set the remote on the cushion. It divided her from him. Just a small thing he should have overlooked, but it felt like she was trying to put up a wall between them. As if something so small would save her from any violent outburst he may have.

“No.”

He sat at the other end. The cushions were going to engulf him if he wasn’t careful.

“Any homework?”

“No.”

He realized then this wasn’t working. He was trying too hard. And he didn’t want to try. At all.

He plucked at the fabric on the arm. He looked around, looking for something that didn’t exist. He got up, hands shaking so bad he had to stuff them in his pockets to make them stop.

She sighed as he walked past her to his bedroom.

“Okay,” she whispered. 

He disappeared up the stairs. 

He could hear the muffled start of her sniffles and before he could hear the first sob, he closed the door. He locked it—only because it calmed him for no good reason. It wasn’t like he was safe from the monsters outside. They would get him because they wanted to. 

He could hear the voice calling his name. It was telling him he never really left that horrid house.

The shiver that ran down his spine made him want to throw up. 

The game was still going on. It had never ended. It was cycling through levels, each one getting harder than the last.

He knew he was slowly fading away. This was not the person he was before. This person hiding in his old skin was not him.

And no one knew. They hadn’t even noticed.

***

A blanket of darkness shielded him from the shadow looming over his sleeping form. It had wandered through the window, had stood at the foot of his bed, but now it was right above him. Its thin fingers grabbed the edge of his blanket and pulled it down from his face.

He’d never thought to lock his window. Never thought there was actually a chance for the man to come back for him. The shadow froze and watched him. There was only the sound of soft breathing and the howl of the wind outside. He mumbled in his sleep and rolled over to his side.

The shadow bent down and kissed him on the forehead, whispering goodnight.

It left with its desire fulfilled.

***

Varian woke to the soft chirping of birds outside his window. He rubbed his eyes, slowly stretching the kinks out of his limbs, and stared out his open window. 

He furrowed his brows. 

A soft and silent moment passed. He merely gazed at the window. It was a little before six. He could tell only because the birds didn’t start waking until then and his mom would have woken up if it was after. It was still dark. The sky was a dark gray and the sun was only now peeking its head from the horizon. His room felt small in the dark. 

Admittedly, he was tempted to start sleeping with a nightlight. His fear hadn’t become that bad though. The first few nights sleeping in the dark it had taken him almost an hour and a half to fall asleep. The nightmares were the worst then. But as it became easier to fall asleep, the nightmares had lessened some. 

He stood from his bed. The floor was cold. he shivered, wrapping his arms over his chest. He didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed how cold it had gotten in his room. With the window open, the temperature had dropped quite significantly. It was like he was lying on the porch in nothing but his pajamas. 

When he stopped in front of the window, he was greeted by a somewhat depressing scene. It wasn’t that the view from his bedroom window was ugly. In actuality, the view of the dark forest and the tops of the houses were beautiful. It was like a painting. He could imagine each brushstroke in his head—as if the image was being painting right then. 

But the colors were sad. The cool tones made him feel hopeless in a way. He didn’t want to leave his bed. He didn’t want to have to pretend things were getting better and he didn’t want to have to work to keep a conversation going. He thought it would be better if the world started to forget he existed. It might be better for everyone involved.

He closed the open window. He snapped the lock shut, giving it a good yank to make sure it wasn’t going to somehow move on its own. 

He could have sworn he’d closed it the night before. But his memory was getting bad. He was noticing he would slip into a mindless state without realizing it. No one had really noticed either. That or they weren’t telling him about it. 

He moved away from the window, already moving on from the seemingly small oversight. He got lost in the motions as he got ready for school.

After showering, he got dressed in his school uniform. He was almost dressed when he reached for his glasses which he always set on his nightstand.

His hand grabbed air. He stared at the specific spot that was for his glasses and for his glasses only.

They weren’t there. In their place was a blue bow.

His hand shook as he touched it with the tip of his fingers. Blue ribbon and red hair. Those colors meant a lot more to him than anything else at that moment. He stared at the bow. It had his full attention. He didn’t have to try and picture the drawer which held that lock of hair. It was already in his mind. Haunting him. And it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

For a second, he didn’t believe it. He thought it was a trick of his mind. A misunderstanding if that was at all possible. It was still dark in his room. His eyes were poor without his glasses, but he wasn’t actually blind.

He was sure this wasn’t a trick. Holding the ribbon to his chest—brushing his thumb over the silky texture over and over—he had to fight to breathe. Gravel had made its way into his lungs. It had settled to the bottom of his frame, weighing him down. The air got trapped, his chest seizing as he thought about what this meant.

The man had been here. He’d crawled through the window while Varian had been sleeping.

God. He’d been so dumb to forget about locking the window.

He was an idiot. 

He didn’t so much as sit on his bed as he did fall onto it. His knees buckled and his legs could no longer handle his weight. 

The smell of blood wafted under his nose. He closed his eyes and let the tears run down his face. Flesh and the rotten smell surrounded him. His heartbeat sped up, pushing against his rib cage like spikes. He could feel the man’s hands on him and though he felt sick at the touch, there was a surge of excitement that put him on edge.

He was back at the house. At the horrible place which had stripped back the layers he’d been forming over the years. He was no longer close to being the normal person he’d been trying to be. 

Against his will, he curled into a ball in the middle of his bed. He panted against his closed hand, trying to muffle the soft noises spilling from his mouth. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the greenish lake that had once calmed his nerves. 

The craving for flesh struck him like lightning. 

He squeezed his eyes harder and bit into his knuckles. He was scared of the thoughts appearing and disappearing in his head. They were soft whispers urging him to fantasize the most disgusting and vile things existing in this world.

This was what he was afraid of. This was what he’d been holding back on for years. Something was wrong with him. He was broken, disgusting, and he didn’t deserve to live.

The blood pooled in his mouth. And though it was his own, it still didn’t take away from the edge of surprise it gave him.

He didn’t hesitate as he pushed his fingers into his mouth. he bit them, sucking down the blood so it coated his tongue. The flavor exploded through his senses.

And when he remembered the feeling of the girl’s finger in his mouth and the taste of her blood, it didn’t make him want to puke.

He moaned. His hips jolted as he felt the first heat in his loins.

Like he’d been submerged in freezing water, he ripped his fingers from his mouth, fully realizing what he’d been doing.

He stared at his bloody fingers. Eyes glazed, panting, and his pants tighter on him then before, he was horrified.

Something was wrong with him. Really wrong.