Prompt 3: In the dark of the night, evil will find you--and this is the worst kind. This is the kind you did to yourself. Before bed, between one tired, fluttering blink and the next, you see a figure in the darkest corner of your room--a ghastly silhouette hovering. You lock eyes with it--and then it hits you. A wave of regret, pulsing and unyielding. The combination of something embarrassing or horrible, or a regret nagging at you for an unfinished deed, or remembering a failure of yours--you are consumed with the thoughts of something you regret. It feels like an eternity passes as you're wracked with guilt and grief and regret; you don't remember falling asleep, but when you wake, the figure is gone. If you're lucky, the regret is too.
The clock read 1:09AM.
The tip of January's finger tapped rhythmically at the very top corner of the book open in his lap, with his back leaned against the headboard of his bed and long legs extended and crossed at the ankles in front of him, tucked beneath the sheets. His gaze skimmed over lines of text without managing to internalize anything he read.
But maybe that was the point. January had never been especially fond of night, nor particularly good at sleeping. He didn't prefer to be left to his own devices once night fell, but rationally speaking, there was little else to do besides just that. Most of the rest of the city was sleeping (not all, but the type of activities that went on after dark weren't usually anything he wanted to participate in). So if he occupied himself with something meaningless, like a book, until his mind started to lose focus and his lashes felt heavy, that was the most he could hope for, really.
He slipped a bookmark between the pages, folded the cover closed, and set the book down on his nightstand. He shimmied a bit deeper beneath the covers and reached to turn out his reading light.
His bedroom turned to blackness without the light illuminating it, and that alone was enough to inspire the first thread of anxiety as January rolled to his side and tried to settle in to sleep. 'Just close your eyes and take deep breaths.' There was nothing to get worked up over, no reason for his thoughts to start picking up just because the light was out. He exhaled slowly, and was just about to shut his eyes, when something glinted in the corner.
His heart thrummed a bit faster, and uncertainty made him study the darkness harder to discern if there were any shapes- Eyes. The glint was eyes in the corner of his room. The blackness that hung at the edge of his walls was a figure.
A thrill of terror shot up January's spine, making his breath catch and his entire body freeze. Something was in his house. Something was in his house. How. Why. Who? It wasn't like they were well-known in the city, even after living there a year. He hardly thought he had any enemies. No one should be crawling into his house at one in the morning.
Unless it was someone from before.
Someone who knew his other siblings. Someone who'd done something to them and wanted to do something to the rest of their family too. January had left and abandoned them to all their stupid decisions, and it had broke them apart and killed so many of them... And if he had only stayed and watched and protected like he was supposed to-
January's heart throbbed rapidly, eyes wide as he stared into the corner of the room. His stomach curled so tightly that he thought for sure he was going to puke all over the floor right then, and he had to move or do something. He couldn't just lay there and wait for whatever the thing was going to do- Except there wasn't anyone there. As January stared, breath shallow and mind reeling, his eyes refocused. The glint was just the shiny plastic of the light switch in the corner, reflecting ambient glow from the window. The shadows were just shadows. His mind had immediately started tripping over itself for no conceivable reason other than the light went out.
He flopped to his other side, fumbling to turn the reading light back on while casting frightened, wary glances over his shoulder to be sure that, no, no one was there.
But it was much too late. Bile clawed its way up his throat and tasted like acid. Even when illuminated by his reading lamp, his heart still throbbed and his stomach curled and his hands shook, and he wanted to cry and be sick and just dissolve into nothing all at once.
If he hadn't been so selfish, if he hadn't been thinking of himself and his dreams when he moved across the country, what would have been different?
Everything?
Nothing?
Not knowing ate at him.
He flung the covers from his legs and dropped out of bed with all the grace of someone in a bumbling hurry. And he was. January did not want to be in this house right now. September was at work; it would be hours before his shift was over. But January didn't want to be alone, and he didn't want to disturb or worry November.
He moved to the large, walk-in closet off the bathroom adjoined to his room and selected a pair of dark, tight pants, a white button-up shirt that was almost immediately hidden beneath a ribbed black corset and a bizarre mesh shawl, and a long, billowing black coat, topped off with a black fedora. His ridiculous "goth" attire to fit in at his little brother's bar. January didn't bother with his lipstick or mascara, instead snatching up the tubes of makeup to put on in the car at a red light or something.
Though the reasons for his quick retreat weren't the most pleasant or sensible, September probably wouldn't hate seeing him, and the drive would give January enough time to compose himself.
He locked up the house, got into his vibrant green Nissan Leaf, and headed to the bar where his little brother and their general were surely at work.
