Chapter Text
~ What compelling force draws me into this mysterious darkness? ~
Jay Lear had known for a long time that he was different. And not just because he was interested in guys, but because he often noticed things that other people didn’t. He was good at catching misspellings and incorrect quotes, and sometimes the smallest details would stand out to him, while apparently those same details completely eluded everyone else’s attention. He often wondered why that was. You might say these sorts of things were “hidden in plain sight”. If he noticed them, then why didn’t anyone else?
Jay was at the library, hard at work on his current project for his information science class. He didn’t have the clearest idea of what kind of topics he would cover in this project when he first started working on it a few days ago, but now it was finally beginning to come into focus. He was on a roll, which made him glad, even if it meant drinking a few more caffeinated beverages than normal and poring over so much audiovisual material that his eyesight began to blur and his hearing began to buzz. How long had he been here, anyway? What time was it?
He glanced at the clock, making his eyes widen. No--could that really be the time? He was in a dim part of the library as it was, focusing most of his attention on the glowing screen of his laptop, and thus hadn’t noticed just how late it was getting, but one glance at the darkened windows in the library confirmed that indeed, night had long since fallen.
At times like these he tended to use the library as a crutch, since he couldn’t check out the reference materials to take home with him, but seeing as he’d reached the part of the project that involved analyzing material made available for public viewing on the internet, he figured he could give himself a break and continue this project at home--after a good night’s sleep, of course.
Just one more video, he told himself, then I’ll pack up and leave.
He clicked on the next video he had randomly queued up. There was a lot of green. The picture came into focus, and he saw that it was someone’s backyard, or looked like one anyway. The trees, grass, and bushes in the background stood in contrast to the pale bodies of the two young guys clad only in shorts in the foreground. There were sprinklers showering on them from all around, and the way they had their hands on each other reminded Jay of himself and his boyfriend Mike, that day at the lake, the day they first met. How many months ago was that? It felt like forever.
It also felt like forever since he last talked to Mike, he suddenly realized. And that was his own fault; he’d been preoccupied with his project, and had left his phone on silent all day.
Mike must be wondering where he was. Jay paused the video, then took out his phone and checked his text messages. He hoped Mike wasn’t too worried.
“Jay? It’s late,” the most recent text from his boyfriend said. “Where are you? Is everything ok?”
Fortunately, Mike had sent the text less than twenty minutes ago. Mike hadn’t tried calling him yet, so hopefully that meant he wasn’t very worried, at least not yet.
Jay typed a response: “Hey, Mike. Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m still at the library, but I’m about to leave.”
“I knew you’d be busy,” Mike responded a minute later, “I just didn’t know for how long. Ok, get home safe. See you soon.”
Jay packed up the laptop along with the rest of his belongings and left the library.
I must be crazy.
It wasn’t the first time he’d done this. He’d parked his car by a coffee shop several blocks away from the university campus, gone inside for a cup of coffee and a bagel, and then walked the several blocks to the library, leaving his car in the coffee shop’s parking lot. It was daytime when that happened, the weather was beautiful, and it wasn’t that it never occurred to him that this might pose a problem when the time came to walk back to his car from the library. He just didn’t believe it actually would be a problem. (Apparently.)
Jay had long identified as a nyctophile: someone who finds comfort in the darkness. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for the other parts of the day; he loved the beauty of a crisp, new morning, or the radiance of a golden afternoon, and of course, being a California boy, he’d grasp at whatever sunshine he could get here in Pennsylvania. But there was something special about the night. The whole world looked different after dark, like it was a completely different place. He didn’t know how to explain it, but as time went on, he’d grown more and more used to the idea that the dark was nothing to be afraid of.
Walking through the streets of Philadelphia alone at night, on the other hand? You’d have to be crazy to think that there was nothing unsafe about that.
And yet, here he was, doing that exact thing.
Just a couple more blocks, he told himself, round the corner, and then you’re done.
He stopped, and listened. There was nothing to hear but silence, nothing to see except dull shadows cast against the brick wall of the nearest building by nearby trees and lampposts. As mentioned, it amazed him how different this street looked at night. Not only looked, but felt .
There was an alleyway that ran between two buildings, and at the other end, far off in the distance, he could just about make out the illuminated sign for the auto parts store across the street from the coffee shop. If he traversed this dark alley, he’d reach the coffee shop much sooner than if he continued taking the long way around--he’d practically be there as soon as he emerged from the other side.
If he ever did emerge from the other side, that is.
You could have called a cab from the library to take you back to your car , Jay thought. Or you could have just not left your car by the coffee shop in the first place. And yet here you are, about to take a pleasant stroll down a dark alley. Are you crazy, Jay Lear?
Obviously.
It was almost startling how dark it was, once he was actually in the alley. Darkness, once it engulfed you, had a way of being such an enormous thing, more than you remembered from the last time you experienced it, as if the enormity of such darkness was more than your memory had the power to contain.
Jay kept walking, but then he stopped. Listened.
Nothing.
He continued, and this time he didn’t stop, but he definitely heard the sounds advancing from behind.
Multiple footsteps. Snickering.
Some people were definitely following him. Where had they come from? What did they want?
“Hey, pretty boy!” one of them called out.
That was all he needed to hear. He broke into a run.
His pursuers sped up as well. Could he make it to the other end of the alley before they caught up to him?
Stupid, he thought. You’re stupid, Jay.
There was a dumpster against the wall on one side of the alley. Somehow the shadow it cast against the wall was even darker than anywhere else. Just another one of those details Jay sometimes noticed.
This wouldn’t work. It couldn’t work.
Jay rounded the dumpster and jumped into the shadow it cast.
The shadow seemed to expand around him. He ran further into it, and it expanded even further.
It was like a time lapse video of a receding tide, where the water’s edge moves farther and farther away, leaving behind more and more dry ground. He would eventually reach the solid wall if he kept running, but as it stood, the darkness within the darkness had stretched around him so thoroughly that he was well out of arm's reach within it, and out of sight.
“Hey! Where’d he go?” Jay heard one of the thugs saying. They crowded around the darkened corner, staring into a space that must have looked (to anyone outside of it, at least) to be far too small for a person to hide in it. From where Jay stood, the void of absolute darkness surrounding him ostensibly adhered to its own sublaws of physics at the moment, and Jay was taking advantage.
The thugs couldn’t see him, but he wondered what they’d do if they were to hear him…
Jay pitched his voice as deep as he could, and let out a low, gravelly moan--the kind that you might expect to hear in the cheesiest of old horror movies, but took on a different characteristic in the present environment.
“The fuck is that?” one of the thugs said.
“Fuck this shit, I’m outta here!” said another.
They all ran off. Jay waited several minutes, until he was sure they were gone, then stepped out of the shadows. The space around him shrank back to its normal size, and he hurried along towards the end of the alley, almost sprinting across the street to his car once he’d emerged back into the relative brightness of the lamplit street.
He’d never be able to do that again. Not that he was itching to try. Even if all the conditions necessary to repeat the reality-bending phenomenon were in place, the danger involved had permanently put him off of the idea. He was sure Mike would agree.
Should he tell Mike about what happened? No, there was no need. It would only upset him to hear about how Jay had put himself in danger, and besides, he’d already vowed never to do it again. He’d park at the library from now on. As for the other part of the story, well...Mike would just never believe it.