Sunday night rolled around and Aiden sat in front of his laptop with his knee pulled to his chest and a hoodie over his body. It was late, nearing midnight, and he was working on his webcomic instead of his school project. The weather felt positively autumnal, so he’d lit a pumpkin candle to set the mood. He’d been texting back and forth with Margo about their classes up until his bestie told him they were heading to a concert out of town and would see him tomorrow for their pre-class boba trip. He told them to be safe and went back to his doodling. He was working on the interior of a space ship for a panel and cursing himself for adding too many buttons to the vessel’s console. Too many tiny dots and squares for his liking.

It was storming but the breeze felt so nice. He had to open his sliding glass door to enjoy it. Autumn never lasted as long as he’d wanted it to, so he planned to savor every second.

He hadn’t seen Damien since his new neighbor left the night before, but the happy-go-lucky dude next door mentioned he wanted to work on a resume so he could ask the record store for a job. Aiden figured he’d probably gotten distracted or had finally given in to the stress of his move and taken a much needed day to rest. It did make him sad, though. He missed him already.

As Aiden went to grab his energy drink, the lights flickered then went out. He turned to the balcony at his side and watched as the power on the block seemed to go out from the heavy winds. Though his monitor had shut off, his laptop remained on as its battery took over so he opened it to add more illumination to the dark room before he tried to find his discarded phone. Once he did, he turned the flashlight on and stepped out into the hallway. Several of his neighbors had the same thought, all of them leaned halfway out of the door to keep them from shutting since the electronic locks wouldn’t work and the machines were finicky. None of them wanted to bother Mr. and Mrs. K this late into the evening, either.

“Bruh,” his neighbor down in unit one with the mean cat said.

Everyone chuckled.

“My poor boyfriend, he went down to the convenience store,” the girl from unit four—right next to Damien and one half of the high school sweetheart shopping spree couple—said sadly. 

“Ouch, that’s a lot of stairs with the elevator out,” Aiden noted.

“Can he even get back into the building?” the girl from unit one asked.

“Oh! Crap, I didn’t think of that! I should go let him in. Can you make sure the stairwell door doesn’t close?” unit four girl asked.

“Yeah, of course. Prop your unit open, too,” Aiden said.

She thanked them both and scurried to the far end of the hall. Aiden scrubbed his hand down his face and turned to look when he heard the door across from him open. He lowered his phone to keep Damien from being blinded by his flashlight, but he noticed in the harsh white light that Damien’s eye seemed to glow for a second. Not only that, but glow red. Deep red, not the sparkly red that it normally did when he stood in the sunlight.

“You good?” Aiden asked.

“It’s dark,” Damien whispered.

“The power’s out from the storm, it’ll come back on later.”

Damien looked scared. It was hard to see anything aside from his eye in the darkness with the door still mostly closed. For a moment, a wave of worry rolled over Aiden. Damien always seemed so… abnormal behind that door whenever he half-hid like this. Like he had something to hide. In retrospect, that made sense, he was hiding so Aiden didn’t quite know why his mind went that route of all place.

“Do you want to come over?” Aiden asked.

“Can I?”

“Yeah, come on.”

“Let me get changed.”

Aiden nodded slightly. He watched as the door mostly closed before he turned back to the far end of the hall where the elevator and stairwell doors sat. He leaned against his doorframe and listened as unit one girl talked to her cat who was making some super crunchy-sounding meows that Aiden could only guess was a ‘feed me, human’ tone.

After a few minutes, the couple from unit four returned panting with bags of snacks. The other half of the duo must have just finished checking out before the power went out. He was soaking wet, the storm must have really been raging hard. They said their thanks and went back inside, as did the neighbor with her cat, so Aiden was left alone in the hall until Damien opened his door. He tilted his head to the side as he studied his neighbor.

“Are you good?” Aiden asked.

“It’s really dark,” Damien said sheepishly.

Oh, he’s scared. That’s so cute, Aiden thought with a soft smile. “Come on, my laptop still has power and I have some movies loaded on it. You’re okay.”

“Thanks. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. It’s really dark in these units when the power is out.”

Damien shuffled across the hall, his black cat slippers made soft sounds on the ground as he walked into Aiden’s unit that was lit by the candle and the laptop screen with the bright colors of the webcomic panel he’d been working on.

As Aiden went to ask if he needed a drink, he stopped. Something brushed his hand. He turned down and saw that Damien had gently grabbed his fingers. He didn’t know what to do, but he could feel his neighbor shaking, so he gently gripped back with reassurance. Damien felt super hot, like unnaturally hot to the touch.

“You’re safe, everything is fine. The worst thing that’ll happen is you’ll trip on the way to the bathroom.”

That didn’t seem to reassure Damien, if anything it made things worse. The poor newcomer started to hyperventilate, and Aiden realized a tad too late that Damien wasn’t simply scared, but terrified. He pulled him gently over to the desk so he’d be in the light, reassuring him every step of the way that he was safe. The shaky, stunted breaths and way his new neighbor trembled made Aiden feel horrible. He wished he knew which part of the power outage had shaken him so badly.

Being in the light seemed to help, and once Damien honed in on the comic panel on the computer and was able to focus on something other than the darkness he started to calm down.

“Sorry,” Damien whispered.

“No worries. I’m sorry that you’re so scared, but I promise you everything will be fine,” Aiden said calmly. “What happened?”

“It just got so dark so fast. I couldn’t find the blinds or my phone and I didn’t have any light, it took so long to get to the door,” Damien said.

“Okay, so we really need to go shopping and get you some basic necessities like a flashlight tomorrow. We tend to get a lot of power outages with the weather around this time of year, it’s worse in the spring so making sure you’re safe is a priority.”

“I think that would be smart.”

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah, thanks. I don’t mean to cause trouble, I’m just not used to it being so dark in such an unfamiliar space. That’s a new fear, I suppose.”

“Well, we can turn on a movie and wait out the storm together.”

Damien turned those supernatural eyes his way again. They seemed so big and frightened with the watery sheen of his tears, and no longer red—at least not due to weird light reflection, anyway. They were pretty bloodshot but human, nonetheless. The newcomer mouthed a soft thanks, and Aiden gently grabbed his shoulder to let him know it was all going to be just fine before he told him to head on over to the bed so they could get comfortable. Something told him the storm wouldn’t be a quick one.