Leaving Darkness by Agent Midnight
Standard disclaimers apply
Quatre POV
Enter the room of my mind and the first thing you are assaulted with
is darkness. It spreads across the cold floor to tickle the corners
of the nonexistent structure that is my thoughts, and then creeps
up the brick walls until it comes in sharp contact with the ceiling.
The chrome ceiling fan spins on the slowest speed, pushing at the
shadows until all that's left is flickering fingers across the depth
of the room. In each corner of this forbidden place are these empty
golden cases that once held the musical instruments of my life, whatever
they may be.
The violin case rests on top of two square boxes, the neck propped
up against the wall and fading off into the black coloring. The gold
glints wildly on and off like a broken bulb, catching my attention
every now and then just to throw me off when it stops moving. This
was the first thing I noticed after I had stopped playing violin and
went back into this world. This was the first thing that screamed
and cried until I looked over at it and felt my heart break once again.
The other cases are mysteries to me, and have been for quite some
time. Whenever I look over at them, it seems like I'll be able to
make out the shapes when they fade in and out, but I'm never able
to. My eyes focus on it for no more than a second and the gold turns
into black and all I can see is the extended corners again. The black
stretches out like space, and to be quite honest, yearns to mess with
my perception until I feel if I take one step, I'll fall and that'll
be the end of me.
This is what I saw for so long, this never-changing photocopy of
my actual life. A distorted vision of what I see every single day
and am never able to touch again for fear of losing whatever it was
I had found. I guess you can imagine my surprise when I closed my
eyes in my bedroom, entered through the door at my back, and saw someone
standing in one of the corners, tapping his foot and running his finger
lightly across the black dresser that stood there. The case that used
to be there was gone, and I felt slightly angry with this intruder
for taking it away from me.
For the first time, I moved forward and stepped across the sheet
of space just to reach him and tell him how upset he had unknowingly
made me. As I neared him, I started to recognize him and that must
have been some sort of cue because he melted away into the wall with
a thoughtful look in his glowing eyes.
Color.
Every time after that, he broke into my secret world and moved things
around. The violin case that I would always see from the corner of
my eyes off to the right would end up directly in front of me on the
floor. The other cases moved around until they all finally disappeared
from my mind one by one, leaving me with two things.
Him, and my violin case
That's when I noticed that I was no longer angry with him for messing
with my life, and I was no longer upset when he appeared and acted
as company in the darkness. I couldn't see him, but I sometimes caught
glimpses of his eyes in a flash of light that I had never experienced
before. He stood and waited until I slowly inched away and out the
only door in the room, my eyes sliding open and resting on the bright
rooms of my real life room, seeing the golden sunshine filtering in
through the windows and caressing the foot of my bed.
I realized it was all a dream, and I started to ache for sleep.
The day would go by too slowly, but when nighttime came, I would
eagerly rush upstairs and to my bedroom. Locking the doors for reasons
unknown to me, I would climb into bed and force myself to sleep. The
darkness started out as just that, and then it eventually developed
into the hallway that led to the room that led to him.
He stopped moving around the room once I reached it, and he would
stand directly in front of me for as long as I stood there. We shared
our company in that endless room that was all too small for my liking,
and I was no longer afraid of being in the darkness alone anymore.
I wasn't afraid because I wasn't alone anymore to begin with, and
even though I couldn't see him half the time, I knew he was there
like I know when I'm tired or thirsty. It was a physical sensation
that I got in the pit of my stomach whenever I opened the door and
stepped into that strange land of dreams. It settled there as I looked
around the room and imagined where he might be standing this time,
and it started to ease as I bravely strolled around the room with
my arms extended in search of him.
Once, I even heard him laugh.
We started to play small games with each other, almost like we were
children running through the backyard searching for places to hide
so the other had to put their skills to work and search. He danced
off in front of the golden case and took it away with him so that
it faded into darkness along with him, and then he would slip it somewhere
else and see how long it took me to find its new location.
The dark dressers and boxes were moved all across the middle of the
room so that when I walked, I sometimes bumped into them and found
myself floating in mid-air when I fell. He would turn the chrome fan
on and off and I'm sure he watched my reactions as I stared at the
gleaming blades. The door would open and close in invitation, but
I didn't want to leave the room just to wake up. I didn't want to
leave the darkness, and I certainly didn't want to leave him all alone.
When I was awake, I took medicine just so I could fall asleep again
and be in the same room as him. Whenever I started to do this, I would
walk down the hall and try to push the door in, but it's almost like
he was pushing right back and preventing me from getting inside.
I stopped.
He let me back in.
I was happy when I was with him. I was happy in the darkness, and
the moment I accepted this when I was truly awake, things started
to change again. The room started to empty out the little objects
it already had in it, and he would fade in and out of the room doing
something I'm not quite sure of. Sometimes I cried when he wouldn't
show up at all, and then I would feel good again when that wierd feeling
settled in my stomach again, announcing his arrival.
He was waiting for something to happen, and I just grew more and
more confused as I tried to figure out what it was he wanted to happen
to me. He started to laugh a little more often, and I even heard him
cry once when I started crying for reasons I can't explain in words.
When I was awake, I was unhappy because I didn't have anyone like
him who could make me happy and forget everything bad that had happened.
He was waiting for something to happen, and I found myself waiting
with him.
I grew anxious when I would feel him in the room, and I found myself
shaking with anticipation for what might happen. It must have been
quite something just for him to be so concerned with it. I spoke to
him through the darkness, using soft words that I hoped he would respond
to, but he didn't at that time.
We played our games a couple of times, but not as much as before
because the cubes and dressers were gone. Once I decided to play our
older game and I walked all around the room with my arms stretched
in both directions just to find him. I was a little frightened when
my hand met something solid, but that fear didn't last long as I was
lifted into the air and my body flung itself out the door, causing
me to jerk awake with sweat running down my face.
Happiness turned into fear as I was propelled into this world again
and again each night, and I instantly began searching for him in frantic
desperation. The second I touched his body, I was out the door and
awake, yet the moment I was sleeping, I repeated it again. That instant
rejection was stopped abruptly as my finger ghosted across him one
night and I stayed right where I was. I took a step towards him and
pressed into the bare flesh of his arm with sick curiosity. He moved
towards me, and I suddenly felt warm arms wrap themselves around my
body and pull me into a gentle embrace.
It took me just a second to realize that he was moving, and light
flooded into the room as he opened the door and gave me a little push
through it. I spun around in hopes of catching a glimpse of his face,
but the door was already closed and I turned back and staggered down
the hall towards life.
When awake, I was sick and tired most of the time. Exhaustion didn't
seem to want to leave me alone, and when I fell down into my bed one
night, I tried to keep my eyes open because I was afraid to sleep.
It was my reluctance to sleep that finally sent me spiraling down
into the hallway where I instantly felt like something was wrong.
I wanted to stay in the hallway until I was allowed to wake up again,
but my feet moved by themselves and I found myself in the room too
soon for comfort.
He wasn't there.
Everything was completely still as I searched for any signs that
he had been there, but all I saw was the black, unending corners of
the place I knew all too well. My fear washed away quickly as I took
a couple steps towards what I assumed was the middle of the room,
and I stayed there for what seemed like hours until I heard a soft
voice whisper against my skin.
It was him, but he wasn't there.
Find me.
My mind screamed at me to hurry and I threw myself towards one section
of the room with my arms out in front of me, waving through the air
in search of him. He had never talked to me before, and I guess I
was scared that he needed to be found or something bad would happen
to me. I grew desperate as I tore through the darkness without any
feeling that he was even there. Hot tears began to curve down my cheeks
as I grew tired and fell to the black floor. My eyes drifted up towards
the chrome fan, and my chest started to burn as I watched the blades
spin restlessly.
Find me.
I wanted to scream out to him, to tell him I couldn't find him, but
I didn't have the nerve to tell him that he would just have to stay
missing. I forced myself to my feet and nearly dropped back down as
a surge of pain hit my body like a wave, leaving me gasping and crying
in the middle of darkness.
I needed out.
The door seemed too far away as I started to run towards it, and
I almost stopped and allowed myself to stay on the dark floor forever,
alone and scared. Something pushed me to go further and I nearly cried
out with happiness as my fingers curved around the cold metal of the
knob and started to twist. At first the door wouldn't budge, but I
put everything I had into it until it finally slipped open and allowed
white light to spray into my room.
It was so damn bright I had to turn away to look back into the darkness
of the room, but I froze as I noticed the black starting to leak off
the walls towards the floor, revealing shards of color underneath.
Spinning back, I stumbled through the door and blinked at the white
room that was in front of me. The door swayed back and forth in a
silent plea, and then finally slid shut as I ignored it for one second
too long.
Without even needing to check it, I knew the door was locked.
The white walls colored slightly to a beautiful beige, and three
windows appeared on separate walls. In the split second it took for
me to blink in shock, curtains had appeared on all the windows, and
my three dark dressers were back and placed around the room. The white
ceiling fan forced air down towards me, and I laughed when I felt
my hair flicking back and forth from the current. Two sofas appeared
on either side of a coffee table, and the white floor flooded away
to reveal gorgeous hardwood.
Through the windows, I could see beautiful green grass and a patch
of gorgeous flowers sprouting up in a small garden. There was a bird
in the tree outside another one of the windows, and a squirrel raced
across the lawn to settle by the mailbox. I was studying the other
houses when the feeling formed again, and I knew he was there.
I turned around and he was sitting on one of the sofas, reading a
newspaper and peeking at me over the top page. Memories flooded into
my mind and I knew him like I knew him so many years earlier before
he had left me all alone. His hands slowly began folding the paper
as he allowed me to adjust to the shock of the realization, and then
the next thing I knew, he was up and had me in his arms.
He held me like he never wanted to let me go.
His voice tickled across my neck as he whispered once more.
"Quatre."
And I melted into his arms like I had before he had died. I wrapped
my arms around his body and inhaled the scent that was uniquely him,
pressing myself against him and letting out a mixture of cries and
laughs. His hands threaded themselves into my hair and he pulled back
just enough for him to lean down and kiss me, his gorgeous green eyes
flashing with amusement as I met him halfway by standing on my tip-toes.
I never woke up again because I was where I needed to be.
We were together again.
*******
The End
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