Work Text:
"One week to go," Tanaka said to himself, glancing over at the small pile of belongings by his bedroom door.
He took a deep breath as a surge of adrenaline reminded him just how unfamiliar everything would be in only a couple of days. All the new people in all the new places, their stories a mystery, their purposes unknown. Tanaka tried to remind himself that everyone would be in the same situation, scrambling to find classes, and desperate to make friends. They all would be bombarded with their own series of worries. They would never notice him long enough to wonder why he suddenly became so startled, why his eyes followed something in the distance, or why his nights had turned into sleepless bouts of paranoia.
Something had changed. That something initially began as a bit of darkness floating at the edge of his vision, always vanishing when he'd looked towards it. Nothing more than that, and nothing that a good rub to the eyes couldn't fix. Like the sooty smoke rising above a factory smokestack, it never took much shape. But it hadn't stayed that way forever.
Eventually, Tanaka couldn't convince himself that the darkness was from lack of sleep or a piece of something in his eye. When he glanced towards it, it lingered in the center of his vision, moving closer and closer until it was just out of reach, a strange blob of blackness that came and went all throughout the day. The setting sun only made things worse, and his growing concerns about what it was only made it grow larger. For minutes at a time, he would shut his eyes to avoid it. But he began to sense its presence. It seemed to take on a life of its own, wandering around his house, completely unnoticed by anyone else. As time went on, it began to take shape. Parts of the blackness would swirl around, joining together to form the outline of a person, quickly disappearing before Tanaka could believe what he'd seen. Each day the cloud became more and more materialized until it looked more like a wispy mass of black ribbons. And then, one night, when Tanaka's troubled mind had almost succumbed to sleep, he saw it. The blackened mass transformed itself into a human shape, hunching itself in the corner of his room with the silhouette of an intruder. From then on, that's the only shape it would take.
When his dormitory assignment had arrived in the mail, Tanaka had almost forgotten he was even attending the upcoming semester. In a matter of hours, his bags were packed and he'd studied every feature on the campus map. Something--anything--to take his mind off the strange creature. He tried imagining the new room, his professors, or how he would manage the brand new schedule. No matter what crossed his mind, his thoughts always returned to the same thing. Whatever it was couldn't be good, and he feared the days to come. Even if no one could see it, Tanaka couldn't help but react to its presence. His terror was impossible to hide, and he could only hope that he'd grow accustomed to its sudden appearances before the term started. Maybe he could tell someone. Maybe they wouldn't think he was insane. Maybe they'd even experienced it, too.
Tanaka's wishful thinking gave him only a moment of peace before his eyes landed on the creature once more. There it stood again, in the doorway, its featureless face directed at the small pile of belongings.
"...one...week...to go..."