Chapter Text
Some children are afraid of the dark. They hide under the covers at night, relying on their favorite cuddly to protect them. They have nightlights to cut through the darkness. They shake and shiver when things go bump in the night. They run for the protection of their parent's beds after nightmares.
But other children welcome the dark. For them, it means safety and protection. It means they can stay hidden just that much longer. It means crawling into small dark places only they can fit into. It means they can hide from the monsters that haunt their daylight, not the nighttime. The nightmares hurt them when they are awake, not asleep.
These children have a reason to love the night, not fear it. For the night brings their protector. The shadow that haunts other children's nightmares embraces them. It wraps them in strong arms and gives them the affection they are otherwise never given. It soothes those wounds it can. It feeds the hungry. It gives gifts to the neglected. It protects the helpless.
It loves them when no one else will. Even if they can’t see it.
~C~
Percy was laying in his bed, staring dreamily around his room at the moonlight streaming through his window, when the slamming of a door jolted him back to reality.
He sat up, the pinpoints of light in his room no longer having his attention, and he looked around in a panic. He saw nothing, and was about to relax when-
A loud, ugly, despicable voice echoed in the house, grumbling and yelling.
The words weren’t completely comprehensible, but to Percy, they were enough to make him boil with anger and tremble with fear. The voice of the one and only, the ugliest, dumbest dumb dumb, Gabe Ugliano.
There was a loud shatter of glass, so loud that it hurt Percy’s ears. It startled Percy like a piercing to the heart. He heard this sound before, multiple times actually, but it happened only at night where he was already fast asleep. He always thought that it was nothing but something in his dream..
A voice came in reply, a pleading, female voice begging for him to stop. Percy could hear that he was asleep amongst those pleas and to have him sleep well. All that came in response was another loud shatter of what seemed to be glass bottles.
Percy realized that it was only Gabe’s voice speaking, no other people. None of his useless, smelly goons came to play some card games with money in the middle. Maybe...just maybe….they cancelled on him? That probably accounted for his terrible mood.
However, that didn’t account for how Gabe treated his mom.
More pleas and yelling progressed, scaring and infuriating Percy at the same time. He tried to go back to sleep, to go back to his mother’s embrace in his dreams.
It continued for a bit more, until it suddenly stopped. No more yelling, no more noise. Just deafening silence after a dreadful encounter.
A strong yelp shattered the fragile silence. A yelp that sounded like someone was getting hit. Someone that was in abrupt, stinging pain. Percy knew how it sounded because he had received that pain before. He has yelled like that before.
“Shut up before you know what’s going to happen Sally! You don’t want him to get hurt, do you?” a threatening voice boomed, quickly shutting the screaming out.
Another shatter of glass pulled Percy back from doubtful shock. Percy couldn’t handle it, the screaming, the soft sobbing behind the door, and most of all the anger about to erupt inside him with a full-blown explosion. That was his mother, his mother getting hurt. Percy didn’t know much, but he knew how much his mother sacrificed for him, knew how much his mother suffered for his sake.
The fear that used to trace down his spine and make him hide behind his mother only dissipated to absolute, uncontrollable fury. How dare this monster hurt his mom like that? How dare he threaten her with such force? How dare he even stand his ground before his mother?
Percy ripped off his covers and stomped towards the door, grabbing anything he could find that could be used as weapons. Anything to protect his mom from this monster.
He turned the knob and walked out.
In the compacted living room were three piles of shattered glass bottles scattered across the stained carpet. His mother was kneeling on a couple of glass shards, her hair was pulled viciously, and her body was trembling from the hand gripping her.
Percy didn’t know how, but he sensed traces of blood trickling from her scalp and on her cheek, mixing with her tears, and dripping onto her legs and clothes.
The sight reminded him of the several scars she had on her face. Reminded him of the many times he asked what was wrong, and when she said it was only an accident at her job. Reminded him of the painful smiles she gave him whenever Gabe came and left.
His mom stared at his unexpected entrance, and in her bright blue eyes were only fear, not fear for her own sake, but fear of what would happen to her little boy.
Percy stood his ground and looked up, crying at the distress of his mother. There was the monster, originally emerged from hell itself. He was the devil in disguise.
A fat, stinky man stood right next to his mother, drunk from his long time at the bar. His eyes were driven wild from anger and alcohol, his hand gripping a large beating implement, right over Percy’s mother’s back.
Percy was too blinded from the overwhelming surge he felt to do anything. The small toy trucks in his hands dropped to the ground along with the shards of glass piercing the floor.
Gabe spotted the little boy, temporarily forgetting his mother. Instead of threatening him, which Percy would rather like, he laughed. He laughed a disgusting, ear-bleeding laugh that made Percy tremble in fury, made Percy feel like he was subordinate, weak.
“Look, your little son comes for another beating!” he laughed, releasing his mother’s hair and smacking the beating stick against his hands, “How pathetic!”
Percy remembered this moment too. The first time he had gotten beat. The first time he was severely hurt. The first time he experienced true, physical pain. The scars from last time throbbed all across his body. He seemed to suffer from the pain received from last time.
“Leave my mommy alone!” Percy screamed at the man, clenching his fists in anger.
Being the direct target of the laughing and the threatening, he felt crushed as his unintentional tears soaked his cheeks and clothes.
“Keep crying, weakling. Go back to your room little boy, or would you like to see your mommy get what she deserves?” he taunted, mad eyes glinting with pure evil.
Percy’s bottom lip trembled furiously, his whole body shaking with fear. Tears poured down his cheeks as if faucets were running in his eyes. He felt so weak, he didn’t want to feel so weak. He needed to be strong, for his mom against this weak monster threatening him.
But something stopped him. That something was the stern look in his mother’s eyes. A pleading, desperate, yet grave stare was ordering for him to go back to his room. To leave them alone. A part of him rebelled against that, he would never leave his mom alone! However, another part of him begged to go back to the comfort of his blankets and wait terribly for the monster to finally leave.
“Please leave him alone, Gabe,” an unfamiliar voice choked out, a voice stricken with grief and pain, woven like a dissonant chord in a beautiful symphony, “Please.”
Percy knew that she was going to sacrifice her own sake for him yet again. He so desperately wanted to take his mothers’ place, to go through the pain instead of her. But the fear growing inside him, the emotions flowing in him like a surge of massive waves prevented him from facing it.
That terrifying voice rasped again, “Go listen to your mother, crybaby, or you’ll learn your lesson soon enough.”
Percy shivered and trembled, his little fists clenched so hard that his fingernails delved into his skin. He took a deep breath and looked at his mother, the same look urging him that this was his last chance to leave.
But he followed his mom’s instructions and ran straight towards his room, ignoring the sharp pain of glass jabbing on the soles of his feet. Tears streamed again, blurring his eyesight, almost causing him to trip.
A loud, horrible laughter omitted from outside the door, “That’s right, know your place!”
Percy collapsed on his bed, scarred by the look of his mother, so angry at the sight of the devil, and feeling so weak from his words. Feeling so weak and useless against him.
He trembled on his bed, scared of what was going to happen to his mom. Thinking fearfully about what could have happened to him.
He squeezed his eyes shut, a tear trickling down his face. Then he got up, and walked over to the corner of his room, where it was darkest. Where no light reached. He sat down, and held his knees to his chest, and sobbed.
The corner had always been a comfort to him. It was covered in darkness, which calmed and relaxed him. He liked it because it hid him from Gabe. He let out another sob, and sent a silent thank you to the darkness.
And a call for help.
~C~
Nyx was laying on her bed, held in Erebus’s arms, trying to get to sleep when she heard it. A call for help.
A call, surrounded by a powerful aura. A slightly familiar aura.
She sat straight up, jolting Erebus awake. “Is something wrong, sweetie?” He was looking at her in concern.
She looked at him distractedly, and replied, “Yeah, yeah I’m fine. I just need to go do something.”
He looked at her worriedly, but nodded. She jumped out of bed, and snapped her fingers, changing her night dress into black skinny jeans, and a comfy black sweater with gold threads interwoven in it.
She looked at herself in the mirror, ran her fingers through her long black hair, and when she saw that she didn’t look too bad, she dissolved into shadows. Towards the call for help.
And what she saw when she arrived there horrified her.
~C~
Percy was still sitting against the wall sobbing, when he felt something. It was like… the darkness was comforting him, embracing him.
Just then he felt a pair of arms wrap around him, and he stiffened in terror. He was getting ready to pull away, when a soft feminine voice whispered in his ear.
“It’s alright, little one. I’m not here to hurt you.”
Percy looked up at the girl holding him, his green eyes wide, and full of fear. He studied her. She had long black hair that reached to below her shoulder blades, bright silver eyes that glowed with power, and really cool clothes.
“Who are you?” His voice was raspy from all the crying, and it sounded terrified.
The girl smiled at him sadly. “I’m Nyx.”