You turned all the mirrors in the house around so he couldn't check on you. You hate the feeling of being watched. Everywhere you look there's some sort of skull, staring impersonal gazes, following you from room to room. Everything looks so perfect, but you hate it. It's a cold, lifeless perfection of a place that has never been lived in before.
The silence around you is boxing you in and you want to leave, but you can't make yourself go outside.
Nothing looks right outside. Everything is close but not the same. Every gust of wind sounds wrong against the trees. Everything feels like it's been sapped of magic but you know that nothing here had magic to begin with, nothing here that isn't as old as you and hidden away. Away from the humans.
Humans, the most incorrect thing about anything in the city. They're all that's there. No Ghouls, no Sprites, no Fey, none of the creatures you've grown up being around. Just. Humans.
The outside is to quiet for you anyway, even if you were to leave.
The sound of the students wandering the halls is gone. There's no large bustling kitchen to sit in as you watch the army of servants micromanage the workings of the castle. There's no garden, and even if there was the usual white-noise chatter of friends would be gone. You can't talk to your mom or your sister ever again. You can't talk to anyone you know ever again.
You don't even know him. You've met him twice in your life. The first time 600 years ago, and even then you ran around with your sister, and Zadkiel, and Angel's godling because it was a Conference. The second time you met him was about a day ago. Or, probably about a day ago. You aren't sure anymore.
The doorbell rings, but you continue to lay on the bedroom floor and stare at the ceiling.
Then it rings again. You roll over and get up to look out of the window. Some red haired guy is out front, looking annoyed. Eventually he notices you peaking out at him from behind the curtain, looks you dead in the eye, and holds down the doorbell button with an agitated force.
You shift downstairs, crack open the front door an inch, and glare at him.
"Hey, uh, your dad was wondering if you were okay. He hasn't heard from you and all he can see in the mirrors is wall."
"Hm, I wonder why." you mutter. Not even the energy of sarcasm is in your voice.
"Can I come in?"
"Why would you want to do that?"
"To see if you're alright?"
"Why does whether I am alright or not concern you?"
The man sighed.
"Because I was told to check up on you and to be honest, you aren't lookin' too good, kid."
"How unfortunate. You can leave now."
The man has the nerve to block the door from closing with his shoe. You glare up at him.
"You were told to check up on me and you have. Now Leave," you growl.
"When was the last time you left your house?"
"My house is in the lower realm."
"Have you gone outside in this realm yet?"
"Why would I? Everything's wrong."
"What day is it?"
"How the hell would I know?"
"Do you know how long you've been here?"
"Why are you asking me stupid questions? You're just being obnoxious."
"Your father said that your family has a tendency to loose track of time. How long have you been here?"
"A day or two," the man's face looks surprised, "why?"
"Have you eaten or slept at all?"
"None of the food here tastes right and I can't sleep with all those damn skulls watching me."
The man is silent for a while.
"You've been here for nine days kiddo."
"Oh." Your voice sounds hollow, and you can feel the man on the other side of the door only get more concerned.
"Well, I'm not leaving until you eat a solid meal and get some sleep, so you may as well let me in so I can help you."
"Why should you care if I eat or not, just tell Death that I'm fine and get it over with," you grumble. The man wedges the door open a fraction more so that you can see a whole half of his face.
"Because I'm a dad too, and I'm not gonna let some child neglect themselves."
After about a minute of staring at him you realize that he isn't joking. You let him in.
"My names Spirit by the way. I'm one of the Death Scythes."
"I figured."
"You got a name kid?" he asks as he follows you to the kitchen.
"You can call me Elder."
"Like, oldest…?" the man asked.
"Like the tree."
"What kind of person names their kid after a tree?"
"You dare to question my mother?" You say, holding back a hostile tone.
"Well, uh, why'd she name you after a tree is all…"
"The Elder symbolizes regeneration, creativity, cycles, and rebirth."
"Huh." Spirit looked around a bit as you winded through the hallways until you got to the kitchen. "I guess this place really doesn't look any more inviting on the inside than it does on the outside."
"What does it look like on the outside?"
Spirit stares at you.
"You don't know what it looks like from the outside?"
"Well no, I told you I haven't been outside yet."
"You didn't get in here from the outside?"
"This is where I was when I entered the realm."
"Huh. Well buddy, we need to get you something to eat." Spirit said, opening the refrigerator door. "I'm thinking something with eggs since you haven't eaten in so long. What's your opinion on omelettes?"
You shrug.
"You aren't much of an optimist are you." he sighs.
"I don't have any reason to be at this point." You mutter. You see him glance at you sadly out of the corner of your eye, and you glare back once he's turned back to the fridge. You don't need his pity. He's the one who can leave whenever he wants.
"Well, you probably don't know what most of this stuff is so I'm just going to make an omelette and you can see if you like it instead of me asking if you like any of these things individually. I'll leave the pieces of chopped up stuff big enough for you to pick out if any of it really bothers you."
"Okay."
"Do you know where anything is?" he asks. You make a general gesture to everything around you. He stares at you.
"Anything really isn't specific enough for me to help you."
"I need a pan. Like a frying pan."
"I don't know that word."
"You've never had to cook for yourself, have you?" Spirit sighed.
"Well, no, but we spent a lot of time in the kitchen anyway. I just don't know what a frying pan is. They never used english in the kitchens, they used Daemonic. What's it look like?"
"Uh, well, it's like a circle, with a long handle like a inch across," Spirit said, trying to draw it out in the air with his fingers, "the bottom is flat, and it has walls that are curved slightly out so that the rim is wider than the base by a little. It's pretty shallow?"
You walk to one of the cabinets above the counter and open it. There's a rack of what you think he was describing hanging by their handles. You climb onto the counter to get him one.
"This?"
"Y-yeah, please get down from there." You jump down and he makes a scared strangled noise in the back of his throat. You stare at him as you give him the 'frying pan'.
"Sorry, my daughter is four, she's been climbing everything she can get her knees onto since she was two. Seeing a child on top of anything over a foot tall freaks me out a little now."
"I'm not a child."
"Your like, 12."
"I'm pretty sure I'm 13!"
"You look 12."
"Well you look 18."
"You only furthered my point with that kiddo, and I'm 22."
"Isn't that a bit young for humans to have kids?"
Spirit sighs and looks in assorted cabinets until he finds everything he seems to need. You wander out of the kitchen and end up sitting on top of one of the banisters when Spirit goes looking for you. He looks like he nearly has a heart attack when you drop down. It's only from the 2nd floor. You've done worse. The thing he gives you is yellow folded over itself with more yellow, some kind of pink bits, and slices that are red. He says that its egg with cheddar cheese and ham and red bell pepper. These words mean nothing to you so you just eat it. You like the red parts best. He looks really glad when you eat the whole thing.
"Have you showered since you got here?"
"No."
"You should probably do that before you go to bed."
"You're going to make me go to bed to?"
"Well yeah, it's not healthy to be without sleep so long."
"I slept sometimes." you mutter.
"More than three or four hours at a time?"
"No."
"Well you need more than that."
"How would you know? I'm not a human."
"That doesn't change the fact that you still need to keep yourself functioning the same ways humans do, kid. Now go get yourself clean."
You huff.
Eventually you're clean and smelling foreign, sitting on the bed.
"You gonna sleep alright?" Spirit asks from the doorway.
"No."
Spirit chuckles and walks in to sit with you.
"You wanna call your dad?"
"No."
"Do you want to talk about it?'
"About what?"
"Your family."
You say nothing.
"I'll tell you about mine."
You shrug.
Spirit pulls his wallet from his pocket. It has a photograph in it. In the photograph he and a blonde, brown eyed woman sit on the wall of a yellow stone balcony. Sitting half in each of their laps was a blonde little girl in an orange jumper a striped shirt.
"That's my wife Serenity, probably among the strongest Meister's the DWMA has ever had. The girl is Maka, she's our daughter that I mentioned earlier. Isn't she cute?" Spirit beamed, and you nod.
"Well, you ought to get some sleep. I'll be going. If you ever want to talk you can just call your dad and ask for me, I'm the only Death Scythe in the city right now so I'm usually in the room with him unless I'm needed at home."
"Alright."
"Bye. Eat something when you wake up, even if you don't feel hungry."
"Okay."
You still hate being here, but for now atleast, you may have someone to finally talk to.