"The Midnight"

“Okay, let’s go, then.” He ducked beneath the lights, reflected from street lamps and windows. If only the light couldn’t reach him here. He looked back at his companions, hiding among the shadows with him. He scowled at Macabre’s desperate look upon his face. “What is it now, Macabre?”

He shook his head, glancing back and forth between Sable and Gelid. The only people to accept him. The only people he could consider close to him. It was interesting how that worked, him of all people as an outcast. He just watched as the reflection of a car’s late headlights streamed through the windows again. “Nothing. I’ve just…”

Sable put a finger to his lips. “None of that. We can’t have your fears sparking up on us now. The Midnight doesn’t go for fear. That’s why we have our names, remember? Sometimes I wonder if it was a good idea to let you in… just because you were an outcast, too.”

“Aw, Sable, give him a break. He wasn’t exactly a prince back home. And I’m sure you’ll have to explain the names thing to us all again at some point, why not now?” Gelid, despite his name, was probably the most generous and kindhearted of the trio. The Midnight, however, did not deserve much credit for being kindhearted.

Sable ran his fingers through his hair and leaned back against the concrete wall. They had some time to kill. So, why not explain the Midnight to them again? He sighed and stared into the lights cast on the opposite wall, gazing aimlessly. “We are the Midnight, each of us with a fear, correct? Something strange about our fears is that they are mainly what would bring people comfort. I, Sable, was alone for a while in my own beliefs and such, until I stumbled upon Gelid here. Then, we found you, Macabre. The names? Simple. Our comforts. You see, each of our fears has to come with a comfort, a fine-tuning point that fixes it in. My fear is light, bright and vivid. Therefore, I have called myself Sable. His fear is heat, warm and torrid, making his name Gelid, his comfort of the cold. My comfort is blackness, pitch dark. Your fear is peace and life of enemies, which allowed us to call you your comfort, Macabre. Understand? Together, we form the Midnight, a trio of those of us who find comfort in the darkest, most mysterious things and ways. We are the Midnight. And this is what we do to prove it.”

Gelid nodded unevenly. “You hit that right on, brother.” He had always considered Sable as such, but no more than a kind, broken prince. Still, when they had first met, first discovered one another, it was like a fire had been started. A small spark had appeared when he, a lost schoolboy, had made first eye contact with this outcast royalty. He scratched at his bandaging on his chest that symbolized him, much like his other apparel. His underwear was pulled well up to his stomach, and his pants hung by belting, low enough for free expression. He also had his blood-red headband that he wore over his forehead that held his hair in its comfortable position. He gazed at his “brother,” Sable, pulling at his necklace. They each had three pieces; a bead string, a feather string, and a necklace. Sable’s necklace held a white stone in the shape of a tooth and two black beads, while Gelid’s was simply a large, black orb and two black beads. Macabre simply wore a tattered old rope around his neck, which he thought might someday be easy to choke himself with. His clothes weren’t nearly as extravagant as the other’s, though, with only a large tee-shirt and skimpy old shorts. Sable, being the apparent “leader” of the trio, had the most attention-drawing attire on his person. It could only be his simple black tank-top, fitting easily against his slender frame, or his old, baggy pants that were a cross between jeans and cargoes. But he also had his own features; his vest, with one sleeveless side and one side were a rip and re-stitching was between the vest and the sleeve. He also had his metal cuffs that he wore very proudly around his wrists, not even covering the flame-like, gray tattoo on his right arm. His belt was normal, a deep gray with pale lining and a usual black buckle for fastening. His pants were baggy and broken-in, with a tear on the left knee and the unexplained bandaging around the right knee, pressing tightly to his leg, causing the remains of the pant leg to sag. His strings of bead and feather were tied casually to his belt, allowing them fall where they please. If you topped that off with his handsome face and shaggy black hair, not to mention hypnotic green eyes, you had a regal, presentable young castaway of a prince, abandoned not too long ago by those he called a mother and father. But he never seemed to mind, and that’s what Gelid liked about him.

Macabre shuddered. “H-h-how do we g-g-get through th-th-this one, S-s-able?” He never seemed to like this type of thing. His companions were growing annoyed with his touchy and cautious personality, but found they could live, they supposed.

"Stop stuttering, moron. You’ll bite your tongue off like that. We get through this just like we get through every sunrise and daytime. Except this time, I’m going in alone.” He stood up again, rising slowly and adjusting his belt. He pulled the necklace from around his neck and handed it to Gelid. “Once a Midnight, forever.”

Gelid simply nodded uneasily and took the string from him, turning the bizarre charm over in his hands. Where had Sable gotten it to begin with? It seemed like something of great value, of much expense. He couldn’t help think of Sable as a hero as he walked away from them quietly, glancing over his shoulders and making sure the light from the windows didn’t touch him. Sable was his brother, true and strong like no one else could be. If it weren’t for Sable, he’d still be an inner, a poor little boy with no life or thoughts of his own, controlled by others. Macabre tapped Gelid on the shoulder, making him jump. “Damn it, Macabre! You scare the crap out of me!”

“You think he’ll really do it? How old is he again?” His look expressed a certain fear to Gelid, making him grimace at Macabre’s weakness.

He shook his head. “Course he will, it’s his destiny, he thinks. When you’re thirteen like Sable, you’ll get it. His brother locked him from the palace when he was eleven. He’s getting what he deserves, now. Sable’s brother is going to die like he should for misplacing an innocent person. You know better than to question him, don’t you, Macabre? You know more than that, don’t you?” Gelid hissed, his words sliding through his teeth like cold air trough a window screen. Well, that was what Gelid was named for, cold. And Sable for darkness, and Macabre for being disturbing and horrifying.


His footsteps echoed along the marble halls. Home again, he thought. Back to this old dump of judgment… He knew it within him. Sable truly was an outcast.

“Elliot?” Her face came from behind an old, Roman-styled pole on the edge of the hall. Sable closed his eyes and stopped dead in his tracks, not bothering to look behind him and see who it was. For the first eleven years of his life, that same face had plagued his mind with compassion and acceptance, making him feel important and possibly happy for once, unlike the rest of his life, consumed by depression and hatred. Elliot. How long had it been since his mother had called him Elliot? Two or three years now, most likely. He turned back to the pole, opening his eyes enough to see her face in the dark. She put her hands over her mouth and stepped towards him. “Elliot! My baby!”

Sable froze, standing straight and numb as his mother wrapped her arms around him. He wondered why this was such a shock. It shouldn’t hurt him now, because he knew something was going to pose a conflict between him and his goal; to kill his brother, who made him the outcast he is. His brother, who Sable believed caused his fear of the light. Even if that didn’t seem possible, it had to be true.

“Oh, Elliot, where have you been all this time? Where did you go? Why did you leave, Elliot? Oh, Elliot…” His mother held his upper arms tightly, pushing him away from her to look him over. She smiled, tears welling in her eyes and flowing down her cheeks. “You’re so… Oh, my baby! You’re growing up so quick… But I haven’t seen you in nearly three years. Elliot, you’re beautiful… Why are you dressed in such rugged clothing? And your hair has gotten so long and shaggy, it’s practically to your shoulders, Elliot! What happened to you?”

Sable remained still and unmoving, questioning whether he should comfort his mother or run while he could. Or possibly kill her. It didn’t seem right to him, meeting her again. She had always been the only person in the whole palace to show him kindness and sensitivity, the only person to make him feel somewhat wanted. It didn’t make any sense to him to be reunited with her, especially after these three years. His childhood in this environment had been quite depressing, mainly uncaring and abusive. He had known for the past couple years that anything was better than his life back as a royal. Much like he knew Gelid thought of his life, but he wasn’t so sure of Macabre’s perspective on this ordeal. Gelid had been a member, or whatever it was considered as, of a single-gender school all his life, where his parents had left him as a young boy. He had always been locked up, however, in a certain room with an old woman, telling him he was crazy for fearing what he feared. Eventually, he found a need to run away and express his own beliefs and fears how he wished, much like Sable had decided to do. Only, Sable had been locked outside the palace gates in the middle of the night, and woke up at noon the following day, terrified by the intensity of the sun. He’d crawled off, like any other creature of the dark, into an old, abandoned warehouse to live, spending his days asleep and tucked away in the shadows, and spending his nights sitting alone in a dusty corner among the rotting concrete, lamenting quietly on his own, and occasionally slinking out into the alleys around him for food, where he had come upon Gelid.


His head rose in shock as he heard something crash not too far from him down the alleyway. He ducked back behind a crate, nervous, wondering what could’ve made the sound. It could be anything, a cat, an old dog, a rat, or it could be another person. He inhaled deeply, raising his head above the old wooden crates. He could just make out the outline of a skinny arm, reaching for something on the ground. He watched as it lifted what looked like a necklace, then pulled ahead, revealing black hair over a pale face the he could just make out in the dark. He gazed in amazement as the person got to his feet and rubbed his forehead, stumbling back and cursing. He instantly regretted letting loose a loud breath, turning the head of the bizarre figure. The moment they made eye contact, though, he froze. The strange boy stepped closer in just as much awe, frowning inquisitively. “Who are you?”

The boy came out from behind the crates and shuffled towards the figure, trying to look him in the eyes. All he could see was a small, green glint in the corners. “My name’s George… You?”

“I’m Sable, but I used to be Elliot. Do you… Are you running away?”

George twisted his mouth around, uneasy all of a sudden, but he still felt an awkward comfort between him and the strange boy. “Yeah, you too, Sable? Did you run away?”

Sable nodded. “Yeah. You can come hang out with me if you want. I’m a Midnight boy. Maybe you could be one, too.” He started to walk off, George following him closely behind. “Are you afraid of anything?”

George bowed his head, ashamed. Many a time he had been told he was crazy due to his fears… “I’m afraid of the warmth and heat and such. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Sable turned back to him and seemed to smile in a vague sort of way. “You can be a Midnight, then. Come on.” And he led him even farther to the warehouse, settling him down quite easily. “Your name will be Gelid. Okay?”

Gelid nodded to his new friend. He never felt accepted like this before. “Yeah… brother.” And together, they had become the root duo of the Midnight team. Sable and Gelid.


“Gelid, why do you follow Sable? He’s not destructive or anything, like me, and he doesn’t need to be cold all the time, like you. He just needs to stay in the dark. Haven’t you ever wondered why he is afraid of the light? I’ve wondered for quite some time now what’s so different about Sable that you find appealing…” Macabre continued to jab at the wall with a metal rod he carried around with him, making dust scatter through the air. The other two boys found it a little strange that he only found comfort if there was some melancholy about him. He had to be destructive, or he had to be in danger. Sure, their lives were intense as it was because of their attraction to depressing things rather than typical sources of joy, but did his comfort need to be so… extravagant?

Gelid bit his tongue and shivered with fear as he felt a heat wave sweep from a passing car. He began to blow gently on his hands to make them cold again. “Sable is like a liberator to me, like an older brother. I respect him enough to accept his fears, as he has accepted ours. You have a difficult time doing so, Macabre?”

He shakes his head, continuing to stab the wall. Pieces of loose brick and cement dust took flight around him, making him cough every now and then. “I just… Don’t understand how… He can… Never mind, I guess…” The rod scraped and pulled over the wall surface, making a screeching noise. Macabre smiled as Gelid got to his feet, but the his smile receded when Gelid grabbed the rod from him.

“What’s wrong with you, Macabre? You doubt your savior? Your liberator, the one who opened your life and made you feel wanted, and you doubt him? How can you be so arrogant?” Gelid turned, then, and ran in the direction Sable had gone, leaving Macabre in his lonesome. He turned his face over his shoulder and shouted behind him; “I trust Sable and have believed in him forever! You can stay here for that! We didn’t want you on our team, anyway! Once a Midnight, forever!”

Macabre shrunk back against the wall, his arms wrapped around his knees. He suddenly felt like he was all alone. He was no longer welcome as a Midnight.