Chapter Text
It was the quiet void in the corner of the ceiling.
The phantom hands that crawled from below one’s bed.
The silent and cold abyss while drowning in the ocean.
The carved figure in the street at nine o’clock, watching him silently.
Mydei felt a chill travel down his spine as he watched that patch of darkness meld back indecipherably back into the shadows. As though they were one and the same. He couldn’t tell if it was actually someone or not, but it felt fucking creepy. He shook his leg impatiently, ignoring the hammering in his heart as he went back to revise his history notes. He didn’t have time to imagine things like this. He needed to beat Castorice tomorrow, and pride wouldn’t let his uncrowned title of ‘History Buff’ slip.
Mydei was no stranger to these sorts of things, funnily enough. Castorice had somehow wheedled out from him—how he would see three children knitting yarn while staring at him, how he would swear he'd seen a statue move out of the corner of his eye–yet, she had thankfully, never judged. “I believe you. Mydei, won’t you tell me more?” She’d ask calmly, even as her sparkling eyes betrayed the excitement she felt. He snorted. Truth be told, she had enough blackmail to lock him up in an asylum for life. If he told her that he was scared of shadows, or worse–claimed that a shadow was stalking him , she might actually send him there for real.
He chuckled, tension bleeding from his shoulders a little. Alright, she wouldn’t do that. But all the same, it was better to keep some things to himself.
His mind wandered back to all the other strange occurrences he came across. He sighed. At this point, it would be more productive to sleep. He shot the empty street one last glare before pulling the curtains shut and leaving the desk lamp on.
Sleep came, and with it, faceless apparitions. Someone with white hair, someone bathed in gold, another in dawn, and in the distance, ever singing, was a child’s lullaby:
O heir of strife,
O harbinger…