Red Scarlet, as he had decided to rename himself many weeks ago, tapped his elbow anxiously as he bit his lip. His brothers and he had settled into their brand new beds hours ago, but ages after the younger two had drifted off to serenity, he was still shivering in terror and unable to breathe. He'd moved to pacing across the bedroom after many more fruitless attempts at freedom from consciousness. It had been exactly two minutes since he'd heard the Unsettling Sound and he was pondering his next plan of attack. The 16-year-old needed to investigate the source, and it wasn't like he'd sleep any better with or without confirmation. He just had to open the door and check.
What really puzzled him was the difference in this new insomnia. Before the... events had transpired, he had experienced sleeplessness due to the depression he'd suffered from a young age. It was the paradoxical, nocturnal kind that forced his eyes open all night and made him trudge through the day. But this was different. He was terrified and sick and unable to stop hearing things. It didn't take a neurologist to realize this was paranoia as a reaction to the teachers. Like always, Roy was responsible for all of Red's problems. And it was keeping him from opening the damn door.
The teen eased his shaking hand to the doorknob and slowly twisted the cold metal around. He took a deep breath, and threw it open, greeted with a dark hallway. This wasn't too terribly bad. Perhaps he was just overthinking things. But as he reached for the light switch, he was stopped in his tracks by another sound. From far away and yet all too close, someone had opened the window, crawled in, and shut it behind them. His heart drummed faster than its normal, death-like state as he jerked his arm away from the switch and sunk to the ground, his head in his hands and long hair brushing against the floor.
Something deep in his gut told Red that if he was caught, he'd die on sight, and that he must not stand up under any circumstances. It's not as if he could anyway, with the mysterious crushing weight on his skull. He drew his eyes to the kitchen living room he'd have to enter at the end of the hall, just in time to see someone walking away from the light switch. The intruder must have just turned it on. He felt a pull to the kitchen. Where all the knifes were. Where he could keep his brothers safe with just one little tool. Swallowing a sick mixture of bile and fear, he crawled to the edge of the hall.
Peeking around the corner and into the living room, he got a closer look at the intruder. Or rather, intruders. There was a shorter one and a taller one. The shorter one swept their gaze across the furniture filled room before motioning to the tall one, who responded in kind and walked into another room. Red inched himself around the corner and darted behind an upholstered chair that he couldn't see the color of. Just as he landed, the lights in the kitchen flickered and sputtered out, leaving him alone with the light of the moon.
The shorter figure drifted over to the window and stared silently into the brilliant light. Red couldn't hear the footsteps over his pounding pulse that rammed its way around his skull and threatened to crush it. Without even realizing it, tears burst their way out of his eyes and crashed to the floor with a thundering burst of sound, piercing his eardrums. Why was everything so loud? Why could he hear it so much?
The swish of the intruder's clothes and hair grew closer and Red almost choked on his own terror. He felt eyes peering at him from all angles but he dared not move his head for fear of the noise it could create. It took all his will to not scream and cry, instead opting to claw his hands to his face in a desperate attempt to quell the tears and breath piercing the air. Indeed, his breath was far too loud, and he begged himself to slow it to a halt. And the intruder drew closer.
Sweat and tears and bile and blood trailed across his face and he was just outside the intruder's periphery.
And then they were back staring out the window again. Red gasped out a breath as quietly as he could before hazarding another peek around the chair. The mysterious creature was as silent as death, silhouetted against the blaringly bright night sky. Red couldn't get a glimpse at the details but their reflection was almost crystal clear. And it looked like-
No.
He wasn't...
He couldn't...
Red didn't have time for this; he had to get to the kitchen while the monster was distracted!
Edging himself back to the ground, he began his desperate crawl to safety. He felt exposed in the open, hanging just inside the shadow protected from the window. The eyes from before had returned he was certain, but he dare not look. If he looked, that would mean they were real. And he couldn't make the situation any worse. He couldn't afford it.
Reaching the halfway point, Red's body began to feel a strain. But it shouldn't have! He'd done nothing but hide and wait; he shouldn't be feeling this splitting headache or aching limbs or pulsing eyeballs! He shouldn't feel as if his stomach was splitting open and bleeding across the carpet... Should he..?
No, don't look. It's not real if you don't look-
Red dragged himself to safety underneath the kitchen table, the harsh orange light back on. Now he just had to make a break for the knife drawer and he'd be home free. He simply had to check one last time for the intruder's position.
Scanning the window, he found them absent. And missing from the living room as well. He craned his head around to be greeted with a pair of feet waiting behind the table-
His lungs hurt so much. They screamed for air that he could not afford to give them. This was his chance for safety, he couldn't ruin it now! Every exhale created a shockwave of sound through the house. Every little swish of hair crashed through his skull. And the intruder had the GALL to be perfectly silent. He envied them so greatly, to be so quiet and unintrusive.
After hours of waiting in terror, of silently pleading for reprieve and suffocating on sickness, the creature was back at the window.
Red threw himself towards the drawer and ripped it open, haphazardly drawing a knife and facing the alerted intruder as the light flicked off again. They whirled around to face him in the moonlight and the teen finally confirmed his worst fears. Standing in front of him with an expressionless face was Colin.
The short object hurtled towards him in an attempt to pin him to the ground, his piercing red eyes glaring at him. Red hooked the knife around in his hand and slashed at the boy, who dodged his head to the left and rammed him in the side. Soundlessly drawing up his now sharpened computer mouse hand to stab him, Colin poised himself for the killing blow. But Red thought too quickly. He kneed the object's leg, sweeping him out of the way before spinning around and jabbing the knife into Colin's stomach, spattering burning hot ink all over him. The black liquid sputtered out of him as he toppled over into the darkness. And then he was gone.
Red gasped out a sigh of relief and resisted the urge to gag at the blood coating him. His arm ached but he still held on to the knife. One down, one to go.
But where to find him?
The teen turned to the other exit of the living room, parallel to the hall he'd entered from. This should lead to the other side of the house and loop back around to the original hall. Their residency was a strange looping square, but that worked in his favor for hunting down his nightmares. Sucking in another breath, he slinked down the darkened corridor.
He'd expected a figure so tall to make more noise, but come to think of it, he hadn't heard a single peep out of them since he'd last seen them. But... perhaps they were just waiting for him. To kill him. And his brothers. No matter. With a weapon in hand and adrenaline from the victory rushing through his veins, the terror was locked behind a layer of dull fuzz.
He'd looped back around.
The square had completed and he'd seen nothing.
Surely he'd checked all the rooms?
Red circled around again.
Everything was empty. There had been no sounds to indicate someone moving from room to room as he searched. In fact, he realized the only thing he could hear anymore was his own heart, returned to its lethargic, comatose pace, and a buzzing in his skull.
Red circled around again.
He glanced at the vents in the walls. It felt as if there were people watching from inside. Eyes that weren't there before and scraping hands. But he couldn't hear them.
Red circled around again.
His legs were starting to ache, and his arm holding the knife pulsated with a pain he couldn't identify. The walls were looking at him too.
Red circled around again.
His stomach should have been emptied by now, with all the vomiting he'd been doing. His body shuddered and convulsed. Perhaps he should give up and just protect his brothers instead of seeking the enigmatic invader.
Red circled around again.
He couldn't feel his hand. But he still held the knife. The poor boy couldn't do this anymore. How long had he been awake? His brothers had fallen at 8:00 PM. What time was it? The clocks had gone missing. They were replaced with...
It was all looking at him.
He reached the bedroom again. It was time to retire, for there was nothing more waiting for him that would show itself. Even the changes had ceased to...
The doorknob was freezing cold as he opened up his ribcage.
The room was empty. No beds. No brothers. Just a window to the moonlight. How was he seeing this.
His arm hurt.
Red took a few steps into the room and fell to his knees. The tears returned, streaming out of his eye sockets wordlessly. The buzzing and the heart beat was all he had left. Even the clank of the knife against the floor was inaudible.
They were gone.
Somehow, after all his suffering and pain and work
They were gone.
He looked down at his hand coated in warm, red blood.
...
Duck walked into the study on a hunt for his older brother. Yellow and him had woken up about half an hour ago with no sign of him. They'd simply assumed he woke up early and wanted some alone time, which wasn't very uncharacteristic at all. After eating breakfast and watching TV, he still hadn't shown up, so Duck went on a mini-quest to find him.
He was confronted with Red slumped over in the center of the room, shivering and staring at a massive cut on his hand and a knife next to him on the ground.
Oh no...
Duck raced over to him and tackled the older boy. "What are you doing?!"
Red snapped out of his stupor and the little boy noticed for the first time, tears in his quickly widening eyes.
"Duck, you're alive!"
"Wh- of course I'm alive! What are you on about?"
Red crushed the boy in a giant, lanky, pathetically scared hug. "Oh- there were some horrid people- they came back and- I thought you two were gone again- it was so dark-" Red paused and coughed violently, before his hand slipped backwards in a puddle of his own blood and his back slammed against the ground as he laughed in relief.
"Red, why did you cut your fricking arm open?!"
"Haha, I didn't! This is Colin's blood! You must've seen his body in the living room, right?!"
"WHAT?!" Duck shook his head anxiously. Colin's blood? Body? "No one's there, and that's CLEARLY your blood."
Red looked at him with a confused smile. Then his face fell as he took a closer look at his hand.
...
It had ached so much. It all was-
Red burst out the door and swung round the corner to look at the living room.
It was perfectly pristine and clean as it had been the night before. And it was sunny out! Just a minute ago, it had been pure darkness with only the moonlight shining into the house. And now...
Red's stomach curled as he took another look at the cut on his hand. Glancing at the spot where he'd been attacked, he spotted a small spatter of dried red blood. But he was so certain there was someone there... He wouldn't cry again. He wouldn't.
"By the way, what time is it?" The clocks should have stopped looking at him if his hypothesis was to be believed, but he really didn't want to check, in case they still were.
"It's uh... 8:45. Why?"
Had he really spent all night...
The teenager sighed as he looked between his two younger brothers. The he reached for the bandages in one of the drawers and headed to the sink to clean out the wound. Shaking his head and rubbing his aching eyes, he said, "I hope I can afford therapy sometime soon..."