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He was too young to wake up in the night, jumping at shadows in the corner; was certainly too old to lie awake, staring at the closet of his room, thinking about the low echoes through his parents' home.

This was not a cozy place. It had never been a cozy place. Austin was sure that his parents cared, in their way. He was sure that their pushing (sometimes demanding) for him to take on more responsibility, to try harder, was their version of affection. High expectations and expensive gifts served in place of long conversations or family dinners, and did nothing to take the chill out of the halls of the massive Elswood home. At fourteen years old, this was a lesson and a realization that was just starting to sink into Austin's skin.

His parents cared, but in a frosty, inexpert way. Their home was home, and it was theirs, and it was nice, and it wasn't cozy.

It echoed. It creaked. Empty rooms sat with sheets draped over unused furniture, off-limits to children -- and even not-quite-children, like Austin. Expensive curtains blew over an open window like they were alive. The whole place moved like it was alive, spoke, with dark shadows that seemed to grow even as he watched them.

Waiting wasn't helping him drift off back into sleep: instead it was making the shadows grow larger and more ominous, was turning the drip of a faucet into the distance into claws against tile, the tapping of something wicked approaching. So he gave up, instead, hauling himself out of the bed and padding on quiet feet aside to the bathroom, to duck his face into the water and try to wash away the trembling edge of fear that had chased him for years.

And when he looked up again into the mirror, there was something behind him --

_______________________

Austin came out of the dream with his heart hammering, with the rest of the night pounding in his head. He remembered waking up everyone in the house with the sound of his surprise and alarm. He remembered the annoyance that followed, the scolding, even as he was sure he saw that creature in the corner, watching the lecture. He remembered days of sleepness nights -- or maybe it had been weeks -- and the way he'd learned to smother those kinds of fears. How he hadn't spoken about them again, after that.

At fifteen, he was just learning to smother his fear and cover it up with bravado.

So when he opened his eyes into an unfamiliar room, a dank room that was sparse and quiet, in clothes that fit him poorly and a soggy, muggy atmosphere nothing like the bite of fall that he'd been expecting, Austin just stared at the ceiling for a long moment. He listened to the murmur of voices down the hall, breathing in and then out slowly, fighting down the rising edge of panic. He dug for that calm that had sustained him in unfamiliar climates before, the charm he was trying to cultivate and turn on his mother's friends when they came to visit, so that he wouldn't embarrass parents in their fancy parties or special events, and so that he wouldn't be sent off to bed early, out of sight and out of mind.

He dug for it, and failed. Eventually, panic drove him up out of his bed and into the things scattered around his room, searching for some clue that could lead him to what had left him here. Clothes -- nice clothes, but none of them fit him. Alcohol, tucked into one of the corners out of the way. And finally, a phone.

A phone filled with selfies of someone who looked like him, but wasn't. A phone with twitter, with strangers chatting, with unfamiliar faces. A jacket that looked like a uniform. A weapon slung over one shoulder.

All of it added up to a fractured picture that stole away any of Austin's confidence. Instead of trying to put himself together, or to fit pieces into something that made sense, he just sat on the floor of his room and waited for someone else to deal with it. It had always worked for him before.