Author's Note: Honestly I didn't think I'd write another piece for Digimon, but earlier this year Seth's Kiss invited me to participate in their Darker Oneshots Halloween Anthology and I could not turn the offer down. Alas, my own demons caused me to miss the deadline, but inspirational credit goes to Seth'd Kiss nevertheless. To be invited to write a horror story is to be asked what you fear and, as someone with bipolar II, I know rather a lot about fear. And again the twins became my vector for communicating that fear. This piece is based on my own experiences, with a dash of Lovecraftian overtones, and not meant to be universally applicable. It was wicked difficult to write (side note, way worse to live), but I've come to realize that what scares me is severance from both myself and reality. It's not a classic Halloween piece, but I hope to keep you up at night just a little with an experience that can come out of nowhere and can happen to anyone. With luck I've communicated just how horrible such experiences can be. That said, I've been able to pull up from my nose dives, so if I could dictate your takeaway just a little, takeaway hope and knowledge.

And thank you so much for reading! Please enjoy!

When you're done here, please check out everyone else's entries, because Halloween is yearlong in my book:

community/Darker-Oneshots-Community/132778/14/0/1/0/0/0/0/

Content Warning: An in-depth discussion of self harm impulses.

What is it about darkness that stimulates fear?

Is it that the monsters within both exist and don't so long as we stare?

Is it the sensation of smallness that tightens around us when we look?

Or is it more insidious…

Come join me as we explore these mysteries of fear and darkness and how the come together in my latest novel:

Denaturing

"Hello, young man. Are you perhaps interested in the exploration of inner darkness?"

Koichi started at the greeting, ripping his eyes from the chalkboard and snapping them to the offender. He was on the older side of middle aged, with white hair and a heart shaped face. When they made eye contact he widened his smile kindly, making Koichi feel guilty for his skittish reaction. Tightening his grip on the grocery bag, he smiled back, chancing a quick glance past the man and into the bookstore.

"Yes, I suppose you could say that," Koichi chuckled, unable to resist the irony of such a question. "You might even say I'm a bit of an expert on the subject, though I'm not one to seek out fear. I've never even read a horror novel before."

"Well that's a shame, to be an expert on inner darkness yet deny yourself the study of horror," the man continued conversationally, allowing the rest of his lean body to follow his head out onto the street. "One could argue it is art's most perfect subject, for with even the slightest blemish all sense of concern and discomfort is lost and the piece becomes a failure. Darkness is the key to perfection. You understand me, don't you?"

"I understand the sentiment, yes," Koichi admitted after a moment, breaking their contact and returning his gaze to the chalkboard, licking his lips. "And there was a time when I believed it."

"That time has passed, I take it? And yet you've stumbled upon this lecture, perhaps on a whim, perhaps led by the hand of fate, and you've taken notice. Could it be you are more interested in the subject matter than you let on?"

"Are you the author?"

He transferred the grocery bag from one hand to the other, then gestured to the board. The man's smile flickered a little, as if he were at once amused and offended, and for a moment Koichi thought he could see something sinister flash in his generic brown eyes. But that passed and soon he was just a congenial man trying to entice a customer into a shop.

"Oh heavens no! I am nothing more than a devoted acolyte to a true master. I organized the lecture, which was no small feat, let me assure you, and I will be in attendance myself, but I could never hope to craft such a work as the author."

"He must be talented," Koichi agreed, his eyes again returning to the board and skimming over the words. "Or she? Or- I'm sorry; I don't even know this author's name. But if what's written here is any indication… I feel like I'm being pulled in."

"Perhaps you are," his tone was teasing, but there was something oddly serious about the man's hungry stare which would've unnerved Koichi if he'd been looking. "Come to the lecture, young man, and see for yourself. It will be starting soon, so you must decide quickly, though it seems apparent to me that your decision was made the moment you saw that chalkboard."

Koichi licked his lips again, re-reading the board for the last time. His groceries did not need to get home urgently, and the trains would continue to run late into the night. Koji was expecting him for dinner, since their mother worked the night shift, but really what difference would even an hour make. In the end the man was right, he could rationalize the decision all day and still nothing would change it. Smiling in resignation, he turned his body fully towards the entrance and moved forward.

"Alright, you've sold me."

"Excellent! I'm always so thrilled to meet a fellow student of the darkness, I'm sure you won't regret the time you spend here. Now, the author is rather eccentric, which is to be expected. Note the booths? It was a condition of the lecture; the author believes that only through the experience of physical isolation can their words be understood. Everyone else is already seated, but this one here is open. Another thing, the author is unable to be seen in public and will be delivering the lecture via technological means. Simply use the headphones there on the desk. Do you have any questions?"

"No, I-" stuttered Koichi, amazed at how suddenly he was in the back room of the bookstore and how efficiently the man had settled him into one of the booths. "I think I understand."

"Excellent," the man repeated, nodding and untying the chord that held his booth's curtain open. "We'll be starting momentarily. Please enjoy the experience."

And with that the black curtain fell, completely enclosing Koichi inside walls of cloth so thick even the air was noticeably more stagnate inside. Shoving his groceries under the chair, he settled himself awkwardly and picked up the headphones. They were rather large and archaic, with a wide, arching headband and thick padding which would encircle his ears. Unlike modern earbuds, no part of the apparatus would actually insert into his ear. Raising his eyebrows and smiling a little in nostalgia, Koichi adjusted the headphones until they were comfortable and settled back. He was still unsure of how enjoyable anything related to horror could be, but the man was right about one thing, there was no harm indulging in a new experience. Hopefully a quick one; Koji would be waiting.

At first it seemed that "momentarily" had been an exaggeration, that the pressure he felt against his body and the effort required to force his rib cage to expand and contract was little more than claustrophobia. Even the canopy, black and heavy, loomed down from above him in an unsettling compression. Yet the heat was not coming from around him, from the air or the insulation. It was building inside him, in his throat, like friction from his racing blood. And the pressure was there too; his flesh was caught between two swelling bubbles of squealing anxiety that had no source and no release. That was when he noticed the sound. His own strained breathing, both muffled and accentuated by the headphones, had concealed it, but it had been there for quite sometime. Droning static like someone had slowed the simmering approach of an insect swarm. Whispers of a dozen voices coming into focus.

Interesting, isn't it? How nothing more than uncertainty can make what is in fact harmless and common balloon into a threat. How your body reacts before your mind knows it needs to. It's almost like the terror is already inside you just waiting for an excuse. A cyst engorging towards rupture. But we'll get to that. For now please allow me to thank you for indulging my little joke, and for attending my talk to begin with. I would express hopefulness that you'll find it enlightening except that my intentions are quite the opposite. This is, after all, a discussion about inner darkness.

Koichi let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding and chuckled a little, settling deeper into the chair. The unease was intentional and, honestly, what had he been expecting? Darkness itself could be comfortable, but any discussion of the raw nature of the hidden human distortion couldn't possibly follow. By nature darkness is private and the exposure of anything private was bound to be awkward. At best. It was, like the headphones, crude, antiquated, and effective. It would not have been Koichi's first choice to embark on this kind of exploration, let alone as a group exercise. Nevertheless, he felt he understood this author, and this lecture, on an intuitive level that made him smile. What he did not recognize was that it also made him pliable. The whispers of the insects continued in a background hum, too quiet to be picked up on by the conscious mind but much too loud for the animal instinct to ignore. Though his shoulders relaxed, Koichi's gut tightened like a wire.

Perhaps ironically I think it best to first talk about the foil, about light, because that's what our eyes are designed to see. Light burns, light mutates, and eventually light kills. These are the truths of light, that which should never be forgotten and yet so often is. Why? Precisely because our eyes are designed to see light. For most of humanity that is enough to justify it's unquestionable goodness, which is in and of itself lacking in moral judgment because "good" here is simply a substitute for "like me." Understanding overlaps with affection, and morality and metaphor follow to justify affection towards something clearly destructive. How often is this attributed to darkness instead? With what frequency do we hear nonsense like and abused person stays with their abuser because of "inner darkness?" Or how about "mystique?" The fact of the matter is that our perceptions are more easily twisted by what we can see and understand than what we can't. There is a bright explanation for most of what is described as "inner darkness," glaring logic who's only flaw is it's foundation on the fallacy that light is good, but despite all the glamour admitting to knowingly making decisions that lead indirectly to self-harm is humiliating.

Those of us who truly understand inner darkness, who understand fear, know how false the heavenly fire on the pedestal is. And since everyone has some inner darkness, despite how desperately they cling to their lies, the probability of encountering a perfect lie, a true shadow which through the veracity of it's own existence must dispel all frail falsehoods created by the light is terrifying. Thus you see it is not a fear of darkness that keeps people up at night. Rather, a fear that their brilliant mirage will be dispelled and they will be forced to confront truth. Fear lives in the dark, but it is born from the light.

Now that intuitive understanding was making Koichi uncomfortable. None of this was new to him. It had been racketing around his mind, quiet as this constant buzzing, for years now. Before Duskmon, during, even to this day. These words, these intuitions, were what had pulled him in, a desire for understanding and real human connection. He was so happy to have found Koji, and having a twin, especially a twin he was so close to, was indescribable. But no human connection is completely devoid of misunderstanding; indeed, without the misunderstanding what barrier remains between two individuals? What reason remains to communicate and interact if you're not growing together? What's the purpose of living at all? Koichi knew all this, he appreciated it and would not change it, and yet when he'd read that sign, when he heard this author, he felt an invigorating spark of both fear and hope. To see the world through darkness instead of light, to be unable to turn away from the hypocrisies and delusions and rationalized, hedonistic cycles of destruction, was to stand apart. Koji could see through the bullshit, Koji was there with him, and still he felt so-

Alone in your experience and observations, as all with a sense of true inner darkness are. And afraid, even if you don't know it yet, of what wells up from that darkness, of what must pass through your flesh and be birthed into the world. That's why you came here and why you now find, even as the experience becomes too much, even as you strain to turn away, you cannot. You are both alone in the dark and completely naive to what it means to be alone. Consumed and symbiotic. That is the true fear that lives in darkness: the loss of self.

He could've sworn these headphones didn't have any earbuds in them, and yet he would've also sworn to the cool, damp presence of something inside his ears. It pressed against his eardrums as if moving, amplifying both the whispers and the author's voice. Koichi wanted to take the headphones off, he wanted to leave and go home to Koji and the most perfect human connection he would ever need. His body didn't move. At least not externally. Inside his chest his heart was pounding a warning and his blood was pulsing too fast, building up pressure, like he was literally going to be squeezed out of his own restrictive skin. Pressure around him, pressure inside him, it was unbearable. It was painful. Something cold and viscous dripped down his neck but he couldn't do anything about it. The mounting panic left no room for any inputs aside from the author's voice, a slick and moss covered rock in a storm. A stone that marked something worse than the storm, though in that frantic moment Koichi couldn't care. He couldn't even remember how he'd ended up there or why. When the author spoke he found himself opening his very soul to the trickle of words.

Fear born from darkness is pure and primal and more rational than anything the light can concoct because it is not a creation of your own mind. It's not sourced from something you can see. Panic, you must understand by now, has nothing to do with reality; it is not a function of your physical or mental safety. So many in modern society never experience true panic, a complete loss of control over one's body and mind as a force you didn't even know lived inside you takes over. Barriers inside our bioelectric field crack and demons hiss through. Demons can't be controlled, they can't be reasoned with or appeased, and they care nothing for the laws of men. They just take your flesh and satiate their own desires. It is only at that moment that a person can truly know what it is to be powerless.

But you know all about that, don't you? Kimura Koichi.

He should've been sweating and shaking and hyperventilating but he wasn't. He never did, never reacted to panic the way other people expected, the way that triggered compassion. No for him it was hypersensitivity, which was disastrous in a crowd, problematic at school, and just manageable at home. Here it focused him more intently onto things that were outside of his control. Paralysis in his limbs, the vice like grip his muscles had on his bones, like they could spasm and shatter his very structure. A grip on his entrails that wouldn't allow air into his lungs; his head ached from the lack of oxygen as he panted through teeth that squealed against each other. He didn't remember where he was or how he'd gotten there or what was happening, just that the dripping wasn't across his skin but under it. Something was going inside him. Something wanted to take over.

It's always been inside you, the darkness, always needing to get out. Don't be upset; this is no different. This is real, this is truth, and this is what you need. Why come if not to quench your own undeniable thirst? Why would the corrupted Spirit of Darkness blend with you if you weren't a compatible monster to begin with? Years of bleaching in the light may've caused that fact to fade, and perhaps you've even enjoyed you respite from reality. But you're here now. You remember. It is darkness you feel welling up inside you, and you know what will happen if you don't let it out in a controlled manner.

"This isn't happening…" he whispered to the black curtains, white hands pressed to the tabletop before him, brittle and coming apart. "None of this is real. It can't be. I just… I have to wake up."

If only dreams could save and we could find salvation in delusion. That is not the case and you cannot afford to deceive yourself. It's inside you, bursting to come out, the aforementioned rupturing cyst. What you have to do is move forward and there is only one way.

"I can't… They'll see, they'll know what I did."

You must. You've thought about it before and you will think of it again. Over and over. Louder and louder. You can already feel your functionality succumbing to the urge, to the only option left to a monster like you. Vent. Let it out now while there is still a "you" to emerge when it's over. Otherwise the darkness will tear you asunder and make you into something different, something that destroys the world around you as well as the world within. There is no other way. You deserve this. You know all that with more clarity than you can know anything. Now do it.

"Please," Koichi begged in a low moan and the cold wet spread from his ears through his blood.

Swirling blackness in a place already devoid of light. He closed his eyes but it didn't change anything, didn't help him to understand what was going on. Nor, he acknowledged with crystallizing dread, did it decrease the certainty with which he couldn't help but agree with the author. It didn't chill this simmering knowledge, bursting into a boil inside his skin, the source of the pressure. It didn't change the imperative.

There's a knife on the table- look! It's already in your hand! Grant yourself the pain you deserve. Grant yourself the relief you require. Take the blade and-

"Koichi? Earth to Koichi, you doin' okay over there?"

"What?"

Koichi didn't sound half as startled as he felt, his gaze snapping first from the daikon radish he'd been chopping to the window, then over his shoulder to his younger twin. Koji's body language was, predictably, disinterested, chin propped on one open palm as he hunched over the table. But his eyes, keen and analytical, had read distress in the wrinkles of his brother's shirt. To what extent, Koichi wondered, did they perceive that distress? Breaking eye contact, the older twin glanced around their mother's kitchen in an attempt to wipe the confusion from his features. He didn't remember getting back, didn't recall starting dinner or anything from going to the author's bizarre talk to now. Clearly events had transpired, without difficulty or his conscious involvement. Even though it struck him as deeply disturbing, the worse outcome was to worry his brother. Twisting his lips into a half smile which he tossed back over his shoulder without meeting Koji's inquisitive gaze, Koichi offered the most comforting thing he could come up with:

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine. Sorry."