Magnus pulled his fluffy dressing gown around himself and closed his eyes. He shivered from the feeling of the cold, winter frosted glass pressed against his forehead and with the tips of his fingers he felt the soft downy texture of the gown, with the clear, hard circular beads of the daffodil-yellow ducks eyes and smooth silky texture of the duck pattern printed upon the deep blue of the dressing gown; the gown that was probably meant for a child but suited Magnus so much better. He could feel the rough, uneven wooden floor beneath his feet, polished to within an inch of its life in a failed attempt to rid its dusty surface of the bumps and blisters inflicted from so much use over the many years the old house had stood. His feet were slipper-less and cold. His forehead was cold. His whole body was cold, cold from the winter's frost, cold from the loneliness that engulfed him. It was a bitter wind that pulled at his heartstrings, like a normal wind would pull at the ends of his hair when it wasn't gelled up into its amazing glittery array of spikes, each carefully positioned to perfection.
With a sigh he opened his eyes and stared at the pale, translucent reflection that stared back at him in the glass. His eyes looked too big for his slender face and striking cheekbones. They stood out against the dark shadows beneath his eyes. How long had it been since he'd had a good night's sleep? He had no idea. His lips were chapped and bitten. His usually smooth, sharp jaw-sharp as his cheekbones- was like sand paper, bristly with stubble. He turned his head away from a reflection he would be ashamed to let anyone see and pulled the heavy velvet curtains closed. This brought on a shower of dust and the smell of decay and regret filled the air. With another sigh, as long and deep as the last, Magnus trudged slowly back through the dusty sitting room and dark hallway, filled with the musty smell of mold and disuse. His bedroom lay at the end of the hall, and he stumbled to the door, noticing for the first time the multiple stains on his gown and the torn shirt beneath. The stains were a mystery, seeing as he hadn't eaten for days, and hadn't been anywhere for at least a week. Is that how long it had been since he had changed his clothes?
This was a depressing thought, so Magnus pushed it to the back of his mind, like so many of the other thoughts he had these days. Instead of facing these thoughts, like so many people in today's society, he reflected gloomily, he decided to go back to bed and listen to My Chemical Romance on full volume. He tumbled through the doorway and was annoyed-yet again- that he hadn't moved the bed closer to the door to stop him from falling on the dirty floor, like he had just done. Again. He couldn't be bothered to stand up and make the short journey from the door to the bed, so he rolled onto his side and pulled limply at the duvet that was balanced precariously on the end of his bed from where he had kicked it off in the night after a bad nightmare. It gave way and flopped onto the floor beside him. Pulling it around him, trying to ignore the smell that wafted from it warning him that he needed to change the sheets, he curled up into the foetal position on the cold hard floor, feeling more vulnerable and depressed than ever. His headphones had fallen off the bed with his duvet, and he placed them over his ears now, blocking out the sounds of the outside world. Magnus laid there with his hands over his ears holding the headphones in place, curled up in a defensive position with the duvet covering most of him, a lump in the floor digging painfully into his hipbone, and there he laid till the sky changed from a bleak gray that mimicked the colours in Magnus's head, to a deep black, just like the colour of Magnus's innermost thoughts. There he lay till he drifted into an uneasy sleep filled with memories. The first memories of Alec...