Sooo... this spooky thing has been in my head for quite a while. Small note: I'm pushing the Takaishida divorce to 1996 in this fic. I'm assuming that Takeru was 3 - 4 when they split, so it took place in 1995? Maybe? But then, I have a habit of ignoring a lot of small canon details. Oops.

Disclaimer/warning: I do not own Digimon. Also, this story includes bloodshed, mild language, violence, and implied death in future chapters. The prologue is pretty safe, but as always, I'll put a warning at the top of a chapter if it includes something disturbing/triggering just in case. Thank you for reading.

00 || Prologue

[nine years ago: 9 April 1995; 2:50 a.m.]

The sharp crackle of thunder catapulted seven-year-old Yamato out of slumber.

His blankets were tossed aside as he drew in a hushed, panicked breath, although he paid little attention to where the covers landed. Small, tremoring hands instinctively rose to cup his ears, but the booming sound slipped easily through the thin cracks of his fingers, and he swore the entire room shook from the intensity.

It was a storm. Just a storm.

His eyes clamped shut without his consent upon realizing this, and a tiny pulse of childish anxiety coaxed them to remain closed. He never disliked the rain, but the deafening sound of thunder and white claws of lighting always broke the lock on his box of decidedly ridiculous fears: too much noise, too much movement, mixed brief flashes of light that could only reach certain parts of his room. Half illuminated, half bathed in darkness. This left plenty of space for his mind to wander.

His sleep-clogged brain always conjured disturbing images of things which only existed in the realm of fantasy. Things that made his heartbeat quicken until it roared underneath his ribcage like an enraged animal. Things that whispered of malice and danger and a desire to inflict harm on young, unsuspecting souls. Things that hid in the darkest shadows of a child's imagination. Perhaps there was a monster resting quietly under the bed, waiting with patient excitement to be discovered; or a tree limb scraping lightly against the delicate glass of a window pane, soon to be mistaken for an unknown entity asking to be let in.

And it was these thoughts—however foolish and irrational they might be—that caused Yamato to retreat further into his bed. It was small, but so was he, so when his back brushed against his headboard, he had an overwhelming urge to crawl behind it as if it promised safety.

Except he could not. Because then the wood would creak and such a raucous would surely wake Takeru up.

Takeru.

Yamato's eyes popped open as soon as his younger brother's name ricocheted through his mind and they skittered quickly around to locate him. His first instinct was to be ashamed that he had allowed himself to appear so frightened in front of Takeru. But shame shifted into confusion when he realized the space next to him which Takeru so regularly occupied was vacant.

Very slowly, his hands came to rest on his bedsheets, and his gaze searched his room a second time. His eyes failed to find him, however, and his cycle of panic began anew.

"Takeru?" he said, his voice too soft, too quiet in comparison to the storm raging outside the protection of the apartment walls. When there was no reply, he called again. Again. The results were the same.

Quietly, Yamato's legs slipped over the side of his bed. It was built for one person, but Takeru would be four this year and was very small, so he easily fit in by Yamato's side. It was also close enough to the ground for him to crawl over the edge.

As his eyes adjusted somewhat to the dark, Yamato once again pushed back the fear that someone—or, rather, something—could leap out of hiding and snatch him and ventured toward their bedroom door. It did not take him long to notice that it was slightly ajar, and he swallowed thickly. Why would Takeru have left? Did he have to use the bathroom? Takeru was young enough that usually he did not wake up in time to make it to the toilet, and it happened more often than not.

Still, Yamato widened the door enough so he could slip through, pressing one hand against the wall as if it could act as his guide. His socks muted the sound of his footsteps, although he supposed it did not matter. The heavy torrent of rain blocked out noises that would have easily been too loud if the night was quiet.

"Takeru," he whispered again, peering quickly into the kitchen before deciding it was too dark to see him. The counters blocked his view anyway, and he didn't want to risk turning on the light for fear of waking up his mom or dad. "Takeru, where'd you go?"

A small yelp escaped his lips as one of his toes found a wooden chair. The dining table. He'd wandered away from the wall, he realized. One of his hands quickly rose to cover his lips as if he could pretend he never made a sound, but once again, the storm did just that. If Takeru had answered him, Yamato wasn't sure if he could hear him, and that made him even more nervous.

Finally, he came to the bathroom door and was confused when he thought he heard the sound of water running. Takeru was not tall enough to turn on the sink unless he used the stepstool in the kitchen. When his hands pushed the door open, his confusion skyrocketed.

Takeru's voice, low and innocently curious:

"Why do you want to hide in here?"

Yamato's eyes widened slightly, realizing that despite the way the door creaked, Takeru was unaware of Yamato's presence. But who was he talking to? Maybe Mama was in there with him, but there was no crevice of light seeping through the door that signaled someone had switched it on. And Takeru was not a child who would willingly sit alone in a dark room in the middle of a thunderstorm.

"Yeah, Nii-chan would like you," Takeru continued suddenly, although Yamato did not hear a second voice ask the question which he had so confidently answered. "Mama and Daddy, too!"

There was a squeak as if someone had turned off the faucet. The water stopped running.

"...what do you need water f—whoa."

Glass shattering. Yamato burst through the door as soon as the sound erupted in his ears, and he heard rather than saw Takeru stumbling back into the wall. Which one, he was not certain, and his hand automatically dusted over the light switch with the intention of turning it on. His lips parted to call out his younger brother's name, but all sound was muted as soon as he entered the room.

Large, colorless gemlike eyes peered down at him, searching him, almost right through his skin. Eyes without pupils. Eyes that belonged to a shadow which somehow appeared darker than the rest of the room, thick and misty; and it stretched all the way to the ceiling, fluttering in place as if there was a candle burning. Instantly Yamato felt so small, as though he was a speck of dirt waiting to be brushed away.

The longer he stood there, the bigger the eyes seemed to become. Wider. Wider.

Closer.

Close enough that he could almost feel the weight of its luminous gaze: heavy and gross and suffocating, ready to push him out.

Yamato, barely seven years old, did the only thing he could think of to do once he found his voice: he screamed.

"TAKERU!"

He wanted to run; to grab Takeru and leave, because whatever that thing was, it definitely did not seem friendly, but his legs were frozen in place and before he could try to figure out how to move them, the loud pounding of footsteps reached his ears and light swept over him.

Yamato's gaze was instantly drawn to the doorway, where his exhausted and horrified mother and father stood. Hands rested on his shoulders in seconds, and his mom was touching his cheeks, his neck, his hair.

"Yamato, what is it, honey? What's wrong?"

He did not realize he was shaking until that moment: a soft tremor that started somewhere in the base of his toes, building and building and building until he was an untameable earthquake. Mama was still asking questions, and he was looking at her but his frightened brain could not process her words. Instead, his gaze wandered to his younger brother, who was now staring at him with tear-glossed, wide eyes.

"O-Onii-chan…?"

Where had that shadow gone? It had been there seconds ago, hadn't it? Or was his brain too filled with sleep? His brother had been talking to something.

"Are you awake, Yamato?" Mama said quietly. Vigilantly. "Look at me, honey. Are you awake?"

He nodded mutely, too overwhelmed with shock and confusion to give a verbal response at first. Then, tremorously: "Takeru was… talking to someone…"

"What're you two doing up?" his dad asked, holding Takeru carefully and making sure he had not been cut by shards of glass scattered dangerously over the tile. He lifted Takeru up effortlessly and maneuvered around it with as much grace as someone could have this late at night. Then he looked at Yamato, who still stood trembling under the light switch, sleepy and confused and somewhat terrified. The bathroom seemed so small now that all four of them were crowded in it, and he almost winced when his mom brushed away loose strands of hair from his eyes.

"Yamato?"

"The rain," he mumbled. "It was too loud."

This time, his parents shared a weird look. Shifting Takeru in his arms, his dad slid past Yamato and his mom, nearly bumping the doorframe as he exited the room. Mama continued to caress his face, examining him more closely now. Then her fingers dusted against his forehead as though she thought he had a fever.

"You're not too warm," she murmured, but the look of worry seemed to be permanently etched across her face, refusing to fade.

Dad came back through with Takeru still nestled in his arms. Said softly, "It's not raining, kiddo. The ground's not even wet."

What…? Yamato finally regained control of his limbs, and he scrambled past his mom with such haste that he almost tripped. Now that his path was illuminated by the light of the bathroom, it didn't take him long to reach his room, but he still stumbled as he ran through the doorway. His feet carried him all the way to his window, eyes wide with fear and disbelief.

Dad was right. It was not raining. His window was dry, and from where he stood he did not see any puddles. His fingers quaked against the window sill, and it was not long before his mom's hands were once again cupped over his shoulders.

"I heard thunder, Mama," he said as he faced her. It was true, even if the expression on Mama's face told him she didn't believe him. What else could have woke him? "It was so loud—I heard it."

"Shhh... it must have been a dream, baby," she told him, before reaching for his hands and coaxing him back to the bed he shared with Takeru. "C'mon, let's get you two back to bed. What were you doing in the bathroom, Takeru? Did you have to pee?" And then, to his dad: "I told you not to leave glass cups where the kids could reach them, Hiro."

Takeru rubbed his right eye, looking suddenly very sleepy. "Hibiki was talking to me."

Their dad blinked. "Hibiki?"

"My friend," Takeru said. "She... was showin' me—" The rest of his words were swallowed by a yawn, and Yamato felt fear creep underneath his skin.

Friend. Takeru's friends. Since he could form coherent sentences, Takeru had been telling him all about his friends, most of whom Yamato thought were, well, in his head. Kids had make-believe companions, after all, and Takeru—despite being so young—had a big imagination which was destined to only grow bigger.

Except that shadow did not seem so imaginary.

His mother, however, just gave him a tired smile and said, "Tell Hibiki that you should be sleeping and she'll have to talk to you when it's not so late. Ok?"

Takeru nodded silently, but his eyelids were drooping and he looked ready to fall into slumber at any second. Yamato did not stop his mom when she lifted him into their bed. Takeru was placed right next to him, and without hesitation, his brother curled by Yamato's hip. Yamato did not want to admit it, but at that moment, he was probably more comforted by Takeru's presence than Takeru was his.

He swallowed back a sudden lump in his throat, and before he knew it, both boys were engulfed by a warm blanket. Dad said to him, "Go to sleep, ok, buddy?"

"But—"

"No buts, Yamato."

Yamato turned to face his little brother, whose eyes were already closed. Then he looked up at his dad, fingers clutching his blanket tightly. Spoke in a hushed voice: "It was raining, I swear!"

Mama pushed through slowly, sending his dad in the other direction with that same smile that screamed exhaustion on her face, and she murmured, "Sometimes, our dreams are so vivid that it feels like they actually happened. That's normal."

Yamato swallowed thickly, trying to process what she was saying. His mind was racing still, and he was tired but now too afraid to fall asleep. The booming thunder was what had caused him to wake up, and the pouring rain had continued as he trekked to the bathroom in search of Takeru. He did not understand.

His expression must have said it all, because Mama asked, "Do you want me to plug in the nightlight tonight?"

He didn't remember nodding, but all of a sudden his mom was heading toward the opposite side of the room. He heard Dad shuffling somewhere outside his bedroom, and the sound of glass clinking together resonated through the hallway. He had left to pick up the blizzard of shards on the bathroom floor.

How his mom had located such a tiny object in a room that was still decidedly dark, Yamato did not know. But she had, and suddenly the room was partially bathed in a mellow, comforting light that flowed across the floor like water.

Mama leaned over to brush her lips against his forehead—a soothing gesture—and ruffled his hair gently. Lowered her voice so she would not wake the now slumbering Takeru: "Good night, honey. I love you."

He murmured, "I love you," and then watched her shuffle out of the room, clicking the door shut as she did so. Carefully, Yamato tugged his and Takeru's blanket upward so it was up to his chin, eyes still scanning the room anxiously as if the shadows could pull loose from their corners to create the being he swore he'd saw minutes ago.

He also did not remember seeing a glass cup anywhere in the bathroom before he went to bed, so where had Takeru retrieved it from? Dad didn't really leave it out, did he? There was no way Takeru could have gotten it all by himself. He was too short to climb onto the counter without some sort of help. Yamato swallowed again.

Looked back at his brother, breathing deeply and slowly, looking so tiny and fragile.

Rolled on his side, sliding an arm protectively over him, pulling him so close that Takeru's head was buried in the crook of Yamato's neck.

Whispered quietly, "I won't let the shadow get you, Takeru. I promise."