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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.
Nakhett stepped out from her bathroom, dressed in a comfy shirt and shorts for bed. Toothbrush held in the corner of her mouth, pale eyes roved her loft until she found what she was looking for: the remote for her stereo system. As she continued to brush with one hand, the other keyed the commands to start soft music on a timer with which to fall asleep. Thankfully she hardly took out cheerful holiday music at this time of year, so she didn't need to switch through CDs in the tower. As soon as Dean Martin began crooning through the speakers, the redhead drew her fingers over the dimmer switch and shuffled back to the bathroom to rinse while tossing the remote over her shoulder and onto the couch.
Sleeping wasn't necessarily her favorite activity, but after a night of wandering through the town looking at decorations and a holiday church service she was rather worn out. Too tired to even read a little bit of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, one of her favorite Christmas stories. No, tonight she'd just settle under the covers and drift off to carols. The timers on the lights and music were only set to thirty minutes, and both systems were set low enough that she'd likely be snoozing before that short time was up. Sure enough, mere minutes after she'd hopped into bed and settled, Nakhett's eyes were fluttering open and shut.
Snippets of Elvis Presley murmured at the edges of her flickering consciousness, and just as she was about to drift off she saw it hovering in the corner of her bedroom. It was almost featureless, but definitely humanoid: a dark figure loomed in the near-darkness, its surface roiling like agitated mist. Lifting her gaze to meet that of her intruder, Nakhett was instantly overtaken by waves of nausea when she beheld that glaring empty whiteness. It expanded outward from the figure, blanching everything in her surroundings until it faded into complete nothingness. Even her tormentor itself was gone. It was just her and endless eternity.
"Khett?" came a tremulous voice, instantly recognizable despite the years that had passed since she'd heard it.
Only one person had ever called her that.
"Mom?" the woman in question responded, twirling in a full 360 but finding nothing but a limitless expanse of that headache-inducing whiteness. "Mom, where are you?"
"Why weren't you there?" the voice came again. "I looked for you. Why weren't you there?"
Nakhett was quickly wracked with guilt, the question dredging up something she'd managed not to mull over since her arrival in Destiny City: her mother's death. She and her mother had always been close, despite her father and brother moving away when she had been about ten years old. She'd never gotten the full story about why, but in their last years together her mom had begun to let her in on her family's rather dark and sordid history.
In the end, Nakhett had even begun to help research that history. She'd go on trips to various countries, often Egypt and Japan, looking to uncover anything she could about her family. She often likened herself to a treasure hunter, and was quite fond of her name being what she could imagine on an Egyptian princess. Her ancestors had really gotten around.
It was on that last trip the Kanto region of Japan that she'd gotten the news: her mother had suddenly passed away. She hadn't had any chronic health conditions and even the coroner hadn't been able to offer a definitive cause of death. Just like that, she was suddenly gone. The one person left in Nakhett's life. In the months following, she'd packed up her life and moved to Destiny City for a new start... but she still hadn't quite gotten over the grief.
"You left me to die!"
Suddenly her mother's face, contorted in rage, was all she could see. Everywhere at once, eyes accusing. Teeth gleaming as she spat the denouncement. Nakhett awoke with a start, drenched in cold sweat and fervently searching her bedroom. The figure was gone, and her adrenaline soon began to follow suit. Logical thought took hold again.
Her mother had been the one to encourage the trip. While they had their disagreements, she had always supported Nakhett's decisions. Whatever this wraith was, it wasn't her mother. But it had reminded her of her important mission: despite a new home here in this city, her search was far from over. She rolled over and pulled her covers tight.
