Chapter Two: Looking
The Next Morning, 4:36 A.M.
Seth was wide awake. He couldn't shake the feeling in his stomach. He was thinking about his parents and the way they sounded over the phone. He stared at the ceiling, trying to make sense of it.
His bed clothes wrapped around him, he glanced down at the indent where his chest was. The sheet felt warm against his skin. It felt warm and relaxing. Wait a second. He pulled the sheet up and looked at his chest. He wasn't wearing a shirt. He sat up and looked around in the darkness to satisify his fear of what on earth could have happened to his shirt. Luckily the nightlight was on. He'd forgotten about the nightlight. He spotted his shirt on the floor and sighed, falling back into his spot on the bed. He looked over at Kendra, who looked like she was freezing. He frowned. He didn't want to pull himself out of his warm bed, but he promised his body that he'd be in his warm bed in less than a minute. He slipped out, and was relieved to see that his pants were still on.
That would have been very uncomfortable if they hadn't of been.
He carefully walked over to his sister's bed, being cautious around the open block-toys. Especially the smaller ones. Those ones hurt like… well, they hurt.
There are no words for how much it hurts.
He pulled the thick blanket that had fallen on the floor back onto Kendra's bed, and covered her with it. He brushed her hair out of her face—she moved when she slept, even if she wouldn't admit it—and froze.
His nose twitched. His eyes started burning, and his eyebrow furrowed. He backed away from his sister, and looked around the room. The nightlight didn't help get rid of the dark shadows. It hardly helped at all.
Not wanting to go to all the trouble of pulling on a shirt and then a hoodie, he just pulled on a black hoodie with the words dead man written in an eerie script. Slipping on tennis shoes, he flopped down loudly on the floor. He sat there, tense, for a few seconds before recognizing that nobody was waking up or trying to kill him.
He put his hand underneath his bed, and had to search for a minute before he found what he was looking for. Gripping it in his hand, he pulled out a glass bottle from a drawer, and made his way downstairs.
Opening the door to the fridge watchfully, he pulled out the milk, poured some in the glass, and screwed the cap on. Shutting the door to the fridge, he made his way through the squeaky house, passing through the living room on the way out. He carefully opened the door, and noticed the huge, hulking figure of Hugo standing, immobile, in the rose bushes in front of the house. Seth raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. He walked down the steps, and went off, into the dark woods.
The woods were dark—darker than his room had been. The trees shivered more than he thought they would, and he could sense creatures coming out to look at him. Stare at him. Seth pulled the hood over his head, and continued to walk, his back toward the wind.
Not really caring where he ended up at, he saw a cave in the distance. It wasn't enormous, but it was well-worn, and had a sense of homeliness to it. Dark homeliness, but what else could one expect to find in the middle of the night? He made his toward it, and entered the cave, feeling the familiar groves in the sides that he'd made when he walked into Graulas' cave. When he got to the end of the cave, he stopped.
He was in Graulas' cave.
He glared at the room-like area he was in, and was tempted to wake back out, but rain started to pour, and he would rather have an artificial shower than a free one.
He curled up into a ball and fell asleep.
The Next Morning, 8:43 A.M.
Kendra woke up and noticed that someone had pulled the sheet she had thrown on the floor back on her. She smiled at the thought, and looked at her brother's bed. There were lumps and bumps, indications that her brother might be there, but she didn't see him.
Part of her was sad. Even a little disappointed. She missed seeing him wake up. It was kind of cute the way he would wake up.
She looked out the wide window where the crack was—oh, good gracious, the crack! That thing was huge!
She nearly fainted going down the stairs.
Earlier the night before, 12:20 A.M.
A shadow doesn't make noise. This shadow didn't make any noise. It wasn't supposed to. And if it wasn't supposed to, it had no intention of not doing so. All that it had to do was get the old man and get out.
It was a good thing the old man didn't scream.