Chapter Text
“It’s luh-staht,” Lestat said as he ran his fingers through his hair so that it curled by his chin in that particular way he liked. He was sitting on a rickety stool and swinging his leg so that it hit the lower rung in a steady rhythmic manner. “It’s French,” he added proudly just in case the photographer was curious. He knew he was taking up extra time—his own, the photographer’s, and his classmates’ but he didn’t care. He wanted his photos to come out perfect.
The photographer, a scruffy, tired looking middle aged man who looked like he was not particularly excited to be taking yearbook photos for middle schoolers, either did not seem to hear him or did not care that he was saying Lestat’s name wrong. “Listen Lestat,” the man said, pronouncing Lestat so that it rhymed with “cat” instead of “dot”, “could you hold still and straighten your shoulders for me?”
“For the last time,” Lestat snapped, ignoring the man’s requests, “it’s luh-s—” The camera bulb flashed in his face, effectively cutting him off in the middle of the sentence. Lestat blinked. “I wasn’t ready.”
The photographer looked at the camera’ LCD screen. “Looks fine to me,” he lied. Lestat was sure he was lying.
Lestat felt annoyance surging inside of him. He’d always been quick to act on his emotions, quick to cry or scream, but now he held himself back—a herculean effort. Balling his hands into fists, he slid himself off of the stool and made his way out of the gym, purposely dragging his feet on the epoxy floors so that it made an obnoxious squeaking sound. He could only hope that the photographer had been telling the truth, that his photos had turned out well though somehow, he knew this wasn't the case.
***
Lestat groaned as he grabbed the plastic sheath that held his pictures and walked down the hall slowly, bumping into people without care. His photos had turned out terrible and he examined them now closely. His mouth was half open, revealing his newly straightened teeth along with a glimpse of his metal retainer and he could practically see the way his lips were forming his own name while his brows were pinched with undisguised annoyance. At least his hair looked nice. Dejected, he slipped his photos between his binder and the books he was carrying to hide it. He couldn’t wait to shove it into his locker and forget about it.
As he pushed through the crowd, a hand reached out and grabbed him by his left shoulder and Lestat startled at the touch before he turned and realized that it was only Louis. Lestat smiled brightly at him and reached around to grab Louis' hand and pull it over so that his arm was wrapped around his shoulder. Louis' fancy digital camera was hanging from his neck by a strap. He’d joined the yearbook club that year and had been taking his job very seriously and had formed a habit of stopping in the middle of walking to take pictures of everything he found noteworthy—which was somehow everything. Now, with his free hand, Louis lifted his camera up to his eye and snapped a picture of Lestat, no doubt something very blurry and much too close to his face to be flattering.
“Ah, Lou!” Lestat flinched, breaking away from him. “I don’t need more awful photos of me.”
“Did your yearbook picture turn out bad or something?”
“Worse than bad,” Lestat said, shaking his head. He lifted his books up slightly so that Louis could take a peek at the photo before hiding it again quickly before anyone else caught a glimpse.
“Ain’t that bad,” Louis attempted to reassure him. “At least your eyes are open.” When Lestat didn’t look convinced Louis elbowed him hard. “Cheer up, it’s your birthday.”
Lestat brightened up at that. He shrugged. “C’est vrai.” Slightly comforted by this, Lestat turned to his locker and began to twist his combination into the lock while Louis hovered by his elbow.
“We won’t be able to make it to your party, Lestat,” a voice said behind them. “So sorry.” Lestat whirled around and found himself face to face with Nicki who was holding a thick blue binder under his arm. Nicki’s posse of friends, a group of boys who did nothing but bow to his every whim were standing behind him. Nicki loved to refer to them as “we” as if they were all a collective conscious, a single entity.
When Lestat had moved to New Orleans from Auvergne three years ago, he’d had a hard time adjusting to life in America. While the girls had liked him almost immediately, running their fingers through his hair whenever they sat behind him and finding any excuse to speak to him because they liked his French accent, the boys had been much harder to win over. His accent, which the girls found charming, was the subject of much ridicule among them. Lestat could still remember how they used to tease him relentlessly whenever he spoke. “Say squirrel.” “What about burger?” They found his long hair too feminine and sometimes reached out to tug on it with the sole intent of irritating him. Making him angry had become a sort of game for them over the years.
Out of all of them, only Louis had been kind. Sweet, gentle Louis. Shy as he was, he’d made an effort to befriend Lestat not that it had required much effort—Lestat had loved him from the start. He loved Louis' hair, his smile, his voice, his large, dark brown eyes. He loved the way Louis always looked down timidly before he spoke and how he liked to twirl a pencil between his fingers whenever he took notes in class and how excited he got whenever he talked to Lestat about the book he was currently reading. He did not love the fact that Louis was a whole inch and a half taller than him. That had to change.
And Nicki, Nicki was very nice most of the time. Lestat adored Nicki. He couldn’t help himself. He’d only made fun of Lestat’s accent twice—his own family was French and Lestat suspected this was why he wasn’t particularly inclined to take part in this genre of teasing. He was a good-looking boy with delicate features and wavy brown hair that he liked to keep hanging over his forehead and above all, a very talented violinist whom Lestat was hopelessly enamored with. One time, in a practice room, Nicki had let Lestat play on his very expensive violin, a Stradivarius copy, and since then, Lestat had viewed him in both an enviable and admirable light.
“Why can’t you come?” Lestat asked anxiously, reaching up to tuck his hair behind his ears.
Nicki glanced behind him briefly as if checking that the other boys were still in agreement with him. “We’re just worried that we’re going to be bored.”
“Bored?” Lestat gasped, offended. “Nicki—Nicki, I could never throw a boring party.”
“Prove it,” Nicki demanded. “Are your parents going to put a PG movie on for us and then hover in the background?”
Lestat frowned. “No. I told them to stay upstairs. They won’t talk to us.” His parents hadn’t been interested in conversing with his friends at all. This was true.
This seemed to satisfy Nicki but only a little.
“There’ll be alcohol,” Lestat added. Now this was a blatant lie.
Nicki seemed a lot more interested all of a sudden. “Really?”
“Yes.” Lestat nodded confidently hoping that if he spoke definitively, they would believe him. “My brother Augustin, he’s twenty-two. I asked him if he could get me a few beers for my birthday and he agreed.”
This seemed to satisfy Nicki and his friends altogether. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll be there.”
The group walked away and Louis waited until they were out of earshot to grab Lestat by the elbow. “Lestat! Why would you promise that?” he hissed. “Has Augustin even agreed?”
“What?” Lestat asked, pretending to be clueless. He turned to his locker and began to put in his combination. The lock clicked open and he slipped it off before opening the door and putting his books in. “Augustin is away at college but he has a six-pack that he’s been keeping in the back of the fridge for whenever he comes to visit. While my parents are upstairs, I’ll take it. They won’t notice it’s gone and even if they do, they won’t care.” Lestat shoved some of his books around in his locker in an attempt to arrange his things. “And besides, Nicki is nice. I want him at my party.”
“In what world is Nicki nice?” Louis scoffed. “He’s jealous of you. I’ve always known it to be true.”
“Louis!” Lestat grabbed a binder and slammed his locker door shut. He struggled to slip his lock back on for a second. “That’s not true! What could he possibly be jealous of?” There was a lot Nicki could be jealous of. Lestat just wanted to hear it from Louis' mouth.
Louis threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know,” he said frustratedly and then, after a moment he added, “You’re a better violinist. He doesn’t like that.”
Lestat was deeply flattered by this. He leaned in close until his mouth was right by Louis' ear. “You’re just saying that because you’re my friend.”
Louis made a face and shoved him away. “And you like him too much so you’re too blind to see it.”
If Lestat didn’t know better, he would think that Louis was at least a little bit jealous of Nicki specifically because Lestat was so fond of him. He suspected this from time to time and he enjoyed the potential that this was almost definitely true.
Louis, stubborn as he was, did not relent for the rest of the day, subjecting the Lestat to critiques of Nicki even on the school bus home. “He rolls his eyes whenever you answer a question correctly in Ms. Williams’ class.”
Lestat gasped, appalled. “Does not.”
“Does too.”
“And when we were playing soccer in P.E. and you scored a goal—Do you remember that? While everyone was cheering, he turned to Celeste and whispered something in her ear that made her laugh. I’m sure it was about you.”
While every complaint Louis had listed up until now had been met with a carefree retort, Lestat was struck with a sudden bout of clarity, the unfortunate realization that perhaps Louis was right about it all. Lestat angled himself away abruptly and pressed his cheek against the cold glass of the bus window. “I don’t know anymore,” he said quietly.
Realizing that he’d upset Lestat, Louis placed a hand on his shoulder and jostled him a little. “Okay, maybe that last one was a stretch. I just—I’m trying to be honest with you.”
Lestat turned to face Louis again, head still leaning against the window, and smiled faintly. “I know you are. You’re too good for me, Saint Louis.”
The bus pulled to stop and they ambled down the aisle to the exit. Lestat enjoyed the convenience of having the bus stop being only a block down from his house and of having his best friend living right next door to him. Sometimes, even as bad as things got, he felt like he was the luckiest boy in the world because Louis lived right next door and because their backyards were separated only by a thin fence with a loose panel that they would remove to sneak into each other’s houses.
Standing on the sidewalk in between their houses, they watched the bus pull away.
“Well, I’ll see you soon enough won’t I?” Louis said.
Louis smiled at him. “You will.”
Lestat took a few steps towards his house and then spun around on his heel to look at Louis as he walked away, up the driveway of his own house. “Au revoir, Louis.”
“Arrivederci, Lestat.”
***
Lestat’s parents did not come down to greet him when he walked through the door. He had told them he did not want their involvement during his party, but he found that he missed the fact that he could not recall ever having experienced the usual excitement other parents tended to have on their kids’ birthdays. And thirteen was a huge deal, wasn’t it? Thirteen was a significant age.
“Maman?” Lestat called out. No response. “Papa?” he said more hesitantly. He was almost relieved to hear no response from his father. Maybe they weren’t upstairs at all. Maybe they weren’t even home.
He went up the stairs, taking two at a time and checked his parents’ bedroom which was unoccupied. His father’s study was empty as well. The house felt larger for it, too quiet, as if his parents had already decided the day wasn’t worth acknowledging.
Lestat made his way down the hall and pushed his bedroom door open with his foot. Slinging his backpack off his shoulder, he dropped it on the ground without care, toed his shoes off and then flopped down on his bed, staring up at his ceiling fan.
His room was painted a dark blue. It had once been Augustin’s room and so the color was his choice but Lestat didn’t mind it too much. He’d personalized it in his own way, decorating the walls with posters—Bowie, Queen, The Rolling Stones, Nirvana. His favorite poster was the one above his headboard—a large blown out image of Kurt Cobain playing the guitar with a cigarette in his mouth. Lestat had purposely grown his own hair out in the futile hopes of resembling him.
Lestat sat up in his bed and touched his Kurt Cobain poster with a single finger. His friends weren’t due to arrive until another hour and so he had time to kill. He changed into his favorite Nirvana t-shirt which he wore with a long sleeved white shirt underneath. He brushed his hair for the umpteenth time. He listened to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on repeat while lying face down in his bed.
Lestat sat up in his bed slowly. On his nightstand, piled under his comic books was an old fashion magazine that had been delivered to their house by mistake. It wasn’t Gabrielle’s. She didn’t read magazines such as these and she had left it on the dining table with the rest of the mail, probably planning to throw it out later. Lestat had secretly stolen it and taken it to his room where he’d laid on his bed flipping through the pages and examining the models and their clothes, their makeup. Lestat pulled the corner of the magazine out from under the comic books and looked at the cover. On it, in the bottom right corner in a looping hot pink font were the words “Thirty and flirty and thriving. Why the thirties are the best years of your life.” How Lestat longed to be thirty. His life was complicated enough right now. He could imagine himself at thirty as a carefree older version of himself but for now he would have to suffer through his teen years.
And suddenly, it was as though all the excitement he’d had leading up to this day had fled him and been replaced with inexplicable dread. He couldn’t wait for Louis to arrive and give him company, anything to distract him from what he was feeling.
Lestat pulled on his ratty old Converses to grab the beer from the fridge and frowned at the left toe. The smiley face Louis had drawn there with a Sharpie three weeks ago in English class had faded into a gray smudge. He would have to retrace it later.
Lestat went down to the kitchen and grabbed Augustin's beer from the fridge before heading to the parlor room.
In the parlor, the curtains had all been pulled back from the windows so that bright light filled the room. Up against a wall was a white, leather sofa that faced the window with a mahogany coffee table in front of it and a loveseat at its corner.
His parents, likely only his mother, had arranged another table off to the side with an assortment of snacks and in the center, a large chocolate cake. Pinching his bottom lip between two fingers, Lestat examined the cake and was disappointed to see that it was completely plain, with only a simple coat of chocolate frosting and that no one had bothered to get the words “Happy Birthday Lestat” frosted on it. He had a candle at least, a single, thin, red and white striped candle sticking out from the center.
He set the cans down on the table right by a plate of Oreos and jumped with surprise when he heard the patter of footsteps coming down the hall only to become relieved when he realized it was just Louis who pushed the door open with a creak.
“I thought you’d be here,” Louis said. In his hands, he was holding a poorly wrapped box with a bow. Lestat eyed it curiously. “Your front door was unlocked so I just let myself in.” Louis stopped in his tracks when he saw the table. “You got the beer.”
“I did,” Lestat said with pride. “I told you I could do it.”
Louis sighed and set his present down on the table just inches away from the cake. “I knew you could. I just thought it was a bad idea.”
“You worry too much, Lou. What’s in the box?” he asked, brushing off Louis' concern as curiosity got the best of him. He picked it up. “Should I open it?” He looked to Louis for approval.
Louis shrugged and fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt, suddenly becoming shy in a way Lestat hadn’t seen him be in years. “If you’d like. Or you could wait if you want.”
Lestat took the box and sat down cross legged on the floor and Louis sat down next to him. He began to unwrap the present with no tact, ripping off the packaging and throwing it on the floor until only a plain shoebox sat in his lap. He took the lid off of the box and stared.
Inside was a small, stapled stack of pages that Lestat picked up and examined. The cover was drawn in pencil, a little crooked, with stick-figure Lestats wearing crowns and capes, standing on stages under spotlights. “What is this?” he asked, tilting his head.
“It’s a comic,” Louis said quickly. “About you. About…future you. You’re doing all the things you talk about.”
Lestat flipped through the pages, a wide smile spreading on his face. He loved Louis. He really did.
Louis hesitated, fidgeting with the sleeve of his shirt. “Oh, wait—here,” he said, sticking his hand in the box. He held up a tiny crinkly packet. “Wishing Dust,” he said, rolling his eyes. “It’s from Grace. She wanted me to give it to you from her. Silly girl stuff. Said it grants wishes.”
Lestat placed Louis’ comic book back in the box and cocked his head to the side as he examined the packet. “Does it work?”
“Obviously not,” came Louis’ reply.
Lestat glared at him. “You have no imagination, Louis. Imagine it does work.”
“Then try it and let me know.” The disbelief was clear in his voice but Lestat didn’t mind.
“I will,” Lestat replied stubbornly. He took the packet from Louis and opened it, sprinkling the glittery pink and purple dust all over the present. Now that dust had settled, he sat back and took in Louis’ present as a whole. “Oh,” Lestat breathed out softly. “I love it,” he said to Louis before he yanked him into a tight hug. Lestat pulled him closer until Louis toppled on top of him and tried to wrestle himself out of his grasp.
“Lestat,” Louis gasped in between laughter, “let me go.”
They rolled around on the floor, Louis struggling to wriggle himself out of Lestat’s arms.
“Ow,” Lestat yelped when he felt Louis’ bony elbow jab his ribs. He let go of him at last, breathing hard as he laid on his back. Besides him, Louis had already stood up and was straightening out his clothes and smoothing down his hair.
The doorbell rang and the sound resonated through the house. A sudden wave of embarrassment swept over Lestat and he realized he didn’t want Nicki to see how sentimental Louis' gift was. He sprang up to his feet almost immediately and picking the box off of the ground, he left the room and yanked open the door of a small storage closet in the hall before placing it on a shelf. Louis watched him hide the box and Lestat tried very hard to ignore the look of hurt that flashed across his face. “I want to keep it safe,” Lestat explained and he hoped that Louis would buy it. “They’re here,” he added excitedly in a whisper and then dashed down the hall to the foyer.
Nicki had arrived with his friends as promised, not one of them carrying a single present. Lestat tried not to be disappointed by this and invited them inside.
“The party’s in the parlor,” he informed the group, pointing, and they disappeared down the hall immediately. Lestat stayed back for a minute, taking everything in. Nicki had showed up. Lestat had managed to get the beer he’d promised. His party wasn’t a complete dud.
Satisfied by how everything had turned out more or less, Lestat went to join them in the parlor. He took the sight in: poor Louis standing in a corner by himself while the rest of the boys helped themselves to Augustin’s beer. He gravitated towards the table where the boys stood, conversing amongst themselves.
“I’m surprised you managed to get the beer,” Nicki said to Lestat, obviously impressed. “I thought you might be lying about it.”
“I never lie, Nicki,” Lestat replied solemnly, trying very hard to contain the thrill it gave him to know that Nicki obviously liked him.
“Can we cut the cake?” one of the boys, Sam asked, bounding up to Lestat excitedly, beer in hand.
“Oh yes—” Lestat said but no sooner were those words out his mouth that Sam grabbed the cake knife and began to slice through the cake. Lestat felt the smile freeze on his face as annoyance flared up in him. “Give me that,” he said, reaching for the knife but Sam held it out of reach behind his back, laughing.
“Come on, Lestat,” Sam goaded. “Who gives a shit—”
“Shouldn’t we sing ‘Happy Birthday first’?” Louis piped up quietly. His eyes flicked to Lestat, willing him to agree.
Of course, Lestat wanted them to sing “Happy Birthday.” He wanted all the fanfare that came with birthdays but he was receiving none of it. He wanted the singing, the stupid song, and everyone looking at him for once.
“Why bother with that?” Nicki interjected from the other side before Lestat could answer. He sounded bored, like the party was already a drag to him when seconds ago he’d been enjoying it. “We all know it’s Lestat’s birthday. Let’s skip it and cut the cake.”
Louis turned to Nicki, frowning. “It takes thirty seconds.”
“It’s childish,” Nicki responded.
“We are kids,” Louis fired back.
Someone in the group laughed and Sam continued to hack off messy slices of cake and plate them.
Nicki was right, Lestat thought. Who cared about any of this? They were too old for this kind of fuss now.
“Lestat, what do you think?” Louis urged, clearly in the hopes that Lestat would side with him over Nicki. There was a crease between his eyebrows, that stubborn look he got when he decided something mattered. “What do you—”
“It’s fine,” Lestat interrupted.
Louis blinked. “Lestat—”
“It’s fine,” Lestat repeated but harsher this time and regretted it immediately.
Louis went quiet immediately. He looked at Lestat for a second too long, like he was trying to figure out when exactly he’d misstepped.
“Right,” Louis said finally. The word came out clipped and sharp. He spun on his heel and left the table, immediately crossing to the other side of the room.
“Louis, wa—” Lestat started, already stepping after him, but Sam shoved a plate of cake into his hands, cutting him off.
By the time Lestat looked up again, Louis had already dropped onto the sofa against the far wall and was looking out the window with his arms crossed.
Lestat joined him on the sofa, slice of cake still in hand. “Do you want my cake?” he asked. “I don’t want it anymore.”
Louis didn’t respond, stubbornly turning his head away in anger and Lestat’s heart sank at the realization that he was being ignored. He fought with Louis all the time but they always made up. Always. And the last thing Lestat wanted to do was fight with him on his birthday.
He sighed and set the plate down, untouched. The noise Nicki’s friends were making was starting to grate on him—their laughter was too loud and was now coupled with someone arguing over who got the biggest slice.
“Why don’t you go get your camera?” Lestat tried again, speaking to him gently like he was dealing with a skittish, baby animal. He knew how much Louis loved his camera and he was honestly surprised that he hadn’t brought it with him today. “You can take pictures.”
“You want me to leave, don’t you?” Louis said accusatorily after a drawn out period of silence. He was still refusing to face Lestat and so he addressed a potted fern in the corner of the room. “You want to be alone with them.” He jutted his chin out in the direction of Nicki and his friends.
“No, not at all,” Lestat replied, shaking his head desperately. “You have to believe me. I don’t want them,” he said, quieter now, like lowering his voice might make Louis turn around. “I wanted—you. I just—”
Louis turned finally, his expression softer than it had been before. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “If that’s what you want.”
Lestat brightened, sitting up straighter and resisting the urge to throw his arms around Louis whom he could tell hadn’t forgiven him completely yet.
Louis left immediately, promising to be back soon. No sooner had he left that Nicki slid into the space Louis had just vacated, grinning like he’d been waiting for exactly this. He leaned in, voice low and conspiratorial. “Hey,” he said, “we’re playing seven minutes in heaven.”
Lestat stared. He tried to imagine these boys kissing each other in a closet. “With who?” he asked.
“I invited Babette Freniere and her friends,” Nicki went on. “I hope you don’t mind. They’ll be here any minute. We all agreed that you should go first since you’re the birthday boy and all. And you know who wants to kiss you?”
“Who?” Lestat asked, cluelessly, trying to remind himself who Babette’s friends were.
“Babette herself,” Nicki replied, watching Lestat’s face like he was waiting for a specific reaction.
Lestat blinked, taken aback. “Are you sure?”
Babette was a nice girl. She was on the quieter side like Louis was with similarly dark hair and eyes—and Lestat had already kissed her once before. She’d been his first kiss in fact. It had been an awkward and clumsy kiss and memorable only because it was his first. Surely Babette didn’t want a reenactment of that.
“I’m very sure,” Nicki said, taking Lestat by the arm and standing up with him. “It’s what she told me.”
“You said she’s almost here?” Lestat asked as Nicki steered him into the hallway.
“Does this work? This is a closet isn’t it?” Nicki stopped in front of the very same closet Lestat had put Louis’ present in.
“Oui, but maybe we should wait for Louis,” Lestat said, stalling. “He’ll be back very soon.”
“Louis won’t miss much,” Nicki replied, tugging something loose from around his own neck. It was a thin scarf that faintly smelled like cologne. He knotted it clumsily around Lestat’s eyes. “Just so that you don’t peek,” he added.
Lestat laughed under his breath, a little breathless, heart thudding harder than it should have. He didn’t stop Nicki.
Finally, Lestat was in the closet, sitting on the floor with his knees up to his chest and his back pressed against the shelves. It was such a tiny, cramped space, he couldn’t imagine sharing it with anyone, Babette or not.
Outside the room, he could still hear the boys talking. He was glad Gabrielle wasn’t home or she would have surely complained later about how much noise they make.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there before the door opened again. In the dark he’d more or less lost track of time and even the noises outside had become muted to him. At last, he heard the door open and the light from outside poured in, noticeable even through Nicki’s scarf.
“Lestat?” Lestat heard Louis say in an unsure manner. “Why are you in the closet?”
Lestat ripped the blindfold off of himself immediately. Louis was standing before him with his camera in his hands and no one else in sight.
“What are you doing here?” Lestat asked as horror crept up in him. “Where’s Babette? Where’s Nicki?”
“Nicki’s gone,” Louis answered with a shake of his head. “He left with everyone else. And I didn’t see Babette at all.”
Lestat narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?”
“What did I do?” Louis echoed, his voice edging toward irritation now. “I went and got my camera and they were all walking out the door by the time I came back.”
“Get out,” Lestat said, unusually quiet now.
“What—”
“Go,” Lestat snapped, turning on him now. His face felt hot, his eyes burning. He didn’t even know who he was angry at anymore—Nicki, Louis, himself. Maybe all of them.
“Just let me—”
“I hate you!” Lestat shouted. The words shocked him as much as they did Louis. “I hate me! I hate everybody!” His voice cracked at the last word.
In the chaos of the moment, Lestat seemed to have knocked Louis’ present loose on the shelf and he saw that some of Grace’s “Wishing Dust” land on his shoulder. He swiped at it with his hand only to find that it had more or less stuck to his clothes. The sight irritated him. With his foot, Lestat pushed the closet door shut with a slam.
“Lestat, what are you talking about?” Louis asked, his voice muffled from behind the door.
“I want to be thirty,” Lestat blurted out. He squeezed his eyes shut hard “I want to be thirty, flirty, and thriving. Thirty, flirty and thriving. Thirty, flirty, and thriving,” Lestat kept repeating louder and louder until he drowned out the sound of Louis’ pleading with his own voice.
When he opened his eyes, there was nothing—no light under the door, no shapes, no sound. He felt a pressure surrounding him, like the walls were closing in on him and then, just as suddenly as it had started, the weight vanished and faded into nothingness.