The mattress creaked. Scratchy blankets slipped off his shoulders as he sat up and surveyed the attic with bleary amber eyes.
Silver moonlight bled through dark clouds and pooled weakly upon the dusty wooden floor. Darkness shrouded every corner. Heavy silence stifled the air. On the other side of the room, his twin slept soundly.
His lips pressed together into a thin white line. For a while he merely sat there, still as a statue, staring unblinking into the night outside his window.
Then - he swung his legs off the edge of the bed, bare feet pressing against the cold wood floor, and he stood.
The darkness compelled him. Quietly he tiptoed away from the comfort of the little attic, the door creaking open beneath his pale fingers as he stared unseeing into the dimness.
His sister did not stir.
His feet carried him, almost against his own will, across the rough floorboards and down the uneven stairs. The old shack almost seemed to breathe in the wake of the moaning wind; it creaked and groaned like a living thing.
But nothing else moved. Nothing save himself. He crossed the threshold into the outside world, cold wind biting into his exposed flesh and tossing his hair around his head. A frown crossed his lips for naught more than a moment before it faded, leaving him expressionless, lips straight and eyes dull. Splinters dug into his bare feet as he descended the rickety porch steps. Long grass tickled his shins. Shadows hung heavy like spiderwebs between the trees of the surrounding forest. The dark pine woods called to him, and he listened.
Blackness swallowed his small form as he passed beneath the arms of looming trees. Thorn-bushes scratched at his legs and sharp pine needles scraped his arms. But he paid them no heed. He could only stare, unblinking, eyes hollow as he shuffled through the silent woods like a creature half-dead. Moonlight shifted through the clouds, catching only scant glimpses of a wandering boy beneath heavy boughs of pine.
He didn't hesitate even a moment when he reached his destination. The wooden water tower stood tall, dwarfing him beneath its massive height, paint peeling off its surface and splinters jutting out every which way. He reached out and clamped a hand onto the rung of the ladder scaling its side. Slivers bit into his soft palms. He hardly flinched as he set his feet on a rung below his hands and ascended.
Into the very sky he climbed. The wind howled and cried around his ears, strong enough to threaten shoving him off the ladder and sending him plummeting to the ground far below. His thin shirt flapped in its wake and his hair whipped wildly about his face.
He did not stop.
His fingers curled around the railing at the top of the water tower, the structure bending and groaning in pain beneath the weight of the wind. He turned to peer over the edge - and his heart skipped a beat as his eyes widened in horror.
"No!" he cried.
The screaming gale tore his shout away and tossed it into oblivion. Not a soul could hear him. Not up here.
Clouds darkened the face of the moon.
"No, please!" he tried again, but to no avail. "Don't, please, don't!"
For a fleeting second - his eyes flashed golden.
"They'll all think you lost your mind," he said, in a horrible, grating voice not his own.
"Leave me alone!" he pleaded. His voice cracked in panic.
"They'll all think you went insane," the voice taunted, forcibly using his lips to speak words he'd never wanted to.
His throat went dry. His breath caught. His hands trembled and his knuckles turned white as they gripped the railing tightly as his meager strength would allow. He tried to step away, tried to flee -
- but he couldn't.
And it whispered one last thing. One last thing that was almost lost to the shrieking wind. The one last thing he ever heard.
"And maybe they're right."
Against his will, his fingers slipped off the railing, and his body tumbled over the edge.