A/N: Hullo! I'm alive! I sincerely apologize for the lack in updates. I got myself logged out of my account and I couldn't log back in for the longest time. But I am back and still very eager to continue this story, so continue this story we shall!

Chapter 9: The Figure in the Shadows

She was huddled in a dark, cramped space with her knees hugged to her chest. Fear clawed at her senses but she couldn't afford to succumb to the welcoming stillness. It would be so simple to only give in, give up... but not yet. Not now. Not here.

Heavy footsteps thundered upon the floor as their owner ambled up a flight of stairs.

"Darling! Darling, where are you?" It was a woman's high, sweet voice, searching for her child.

Annabeth stifled a sob as the footsteps crept closer. She crouched in a small linen closet on the second floor of an old, rickety house. It would've been the perfect hiding place; small enough to maybe even deceive her into looking it over... but it lacked a lock, a dire factor ever a child as young as she knew was important.

"Darling?" Annabeth heard a door creak open somewhere down the hall. The woman's movements paused as she peered into the room before she closed the door.

The footsteps came closer.

Annabeth buried her face in her arms and folded herself into a little ball. Dread wound tight coils in her stomach and she felt her throat constrict in fear. Oh gods, she couldn't breathe. Annabeth choked for air, but it was a fruitless attempt. Her heart pounded as she grew dizzy. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe shecouldn'tbreatheshecouldn'tbreatheshecouldn't—

"Darling, where are you? Don't hide now, it isn't the time to play hide and go seek! I'm starting to worry," the woman fretted. "I've made your favorite snack; homemade chocolate chip cookies! Your father wishes to see you, dear boy, as do I. Why don't you come out? We want to see you!"

Annabeth felt a sudden shift in the air. She opened her eyes to find the outline of the Chasm child staring at her intently. Like before, his person was hidden in shadows and darkness, yet Annabeth knew in her gut that it was the same boy.

"She lies," the blurry figure laughed gleefully. It was like watching swirling fog trying to speak. "She never cared. Not once did she ever think of him, of her son. Not once did she ever consider his wants... his needs... his feelings... his wishes. It was always all about her. How could it not be? Narcissistic mothers class 1O1."

As the boy spoke shadows blurred and came rushing toward Annabeth in ebony streaks, filling her vision with absolute darkness. Out of instinct she squeezed her eyes together. When the darkness subsided, she opened them. Annabeth found herself still confined in the closet—but a small, quivering mess of limbs had taken her spot on the floor.

Annabeth and the boy stood side by side in the shadows as they watched the small figure cower in fear. Annabeth's person was as transparent as smoke but the boy had an aura around him that softly shone gold in the dark. A small smirk played on his lips.

"And his father?" He continued. "The man she claimed to have loved her, to have loved him... to have loved the batty old woman and her worthless son? Ha! His father? Neither have seen the piece of scum in seven years."

"Darling boy? Please, it's time to stop hiding now!"

The small figure whimpered and began rocking himself as he muttered incoherent things. Children often feared the dark and the horrors that it homed, but this boy found solace and safety inside small closets and beneath dusty beds.

"What is she going to do to him?" Annabeth asked fearfully.

The boy in the shadows turned to her, his gold eyes gleaming with mischief and delight. "Watch!"

The door creaked open, allowing a small shaft of light entrance, illuminating the small child and his tear stricken face. Now that she could see clearly, for the first time Annabeth noticed finger-shaped bruises littering his arms.

"There you are!" The woman, a slight thing with stringy hair and blue eyes, grabbed the child and crushed him to her chest in a hug. "I was looking all over for you sweetie!"

"I-I know," he muttered under his breath.

His remark unheard, the mother pulled her sniffling son down the stairs. Annabeth slowly followed the two with the figure from the Chasm at her heels. She glanced over her shoulder at him. "What will happen to the boy?"

"Watch," was all he said.

The women lead the boy and her phantom guests through a living room and into a kitchen. She sat the boy in a chair and plopped a sandwich in front of him. Peanut butter oozed between the pieces of bread.

"Eat!"

The child chewed slowly, as if calculating his every bite. He watched his mother through hooded eyes as she bustled around the kitchen. "Where is he?" the boy asked over soft sniffles.

"Who, sweetie?" she said.

"Dad."

"Your father? Why would you ask such an absurd thing? Darling, he's gone. Has been for years, now. What a silly question."

"But y-you said he was looking for me!" The child cried, eyes flashing. His expression wasn't that of anger, or disappointment, but almost of... expectation. "You said so yourself!"

The woman turned with a plate of cookies in her hand, a cross expression on her face. "I said no such thing."

"What's wrong with her?" Annabeth whispered as the boy slumped in his seat. "Does she have Dementia? Alzheimer's? Short term memory loss?"

The golden-eyed figure shook his head. "She suffers from something much greater... something much more complicated then a mortal illness."

"Now, I've prepared your lunch for school," the mother was saying. She presented a brown paper bag with a large smiley face on the front. "Make sure to keep it cold before you eat it, otherwise it'll get all mushy. Oh, and I also packed you a box of kool-aid. Your favorite!"

"Mommy," the boy said. "It's Saturday. I don't have school the S days."

The smile slipped off her face. "Oh. Right. Yes, of course. How silly of me to forget... I'll just put it in the fridge, and we can have it for breakfast."

"D-don't you mean dinner?"

She furrowed her brow. "Yes. That's what I said. Dinner." She hummed to herself as she sauntered over to the refrigerator.

"Was it Darkcraft that made her this way?" Annabeth whispered.

"Ding ding ding, we have a winner!"

"Mommy?" the child said. "M-Mommy? Mommy?"

His mother had frozen with one hand on the refrigerator door, bag of lunch in the other, back turned to all. She began to shake violently and the boy made a run for the stairway, only to be grabbed by the women in a death-like-grip.

"Prevail... torture... redemption," she hissed. Her blue eyes clouded over with green light and mist came pooling out of her mouth. "Must... cease... warn... or die..."

"Mommy?" the little boy whimpered as her nails dug into his arm. "You're hurting me! Let go! Go back, please, go back! You're hurting me! "

Annabeth knew now why the child hid... why he weeped... why and what and who he feared.

"Husband! Tell him! Tell our boy not—" the women froze again, and everything returned to normal. Her eyes were blue and the mist disappeared, but the unsettling feeling in the air wasn't so easy to be rid of.

"I don't want to see this," Annabeth said as she turned away from the two. "Get me out of here. Take me away."

The golden-eyed boy shook his head regretfully. "It's a shame, really."

"What is?" Annabeth snapped.

"Why, you could learn so much from this... from them. An entire future could be altered by a few unsettling moments. Will your choices write this ending?"

"I don't care. This is beyond unsettling—it's disturbing. Take me away."

The child withdrew the frozen branch from his sleeve—now a fully-sized wooden staff—and drew the same symbol on the floor. "Life is but the fragments of our forgotten dreams."

He, the women and her son faded out of view.