The child was found later by the custodian, usually assigned to clean up the mess left behind by the ritual; namely bodies. Realizing very quickly something had gone terribly wrong, he had two choices; finish off this new being, as would probably be expected if his bosses were still around; or let the baby go, and cover up the whole situation. Either way the custodian was now a millionaire, as no one else knew of this and there were no other heirs. Never a fan of this brutal process, he elected to give the child to social services anonymously, and let him truly have his new life. He did give them the child’s name (Thomas), but left all other information to be destroyed with the facility in which the fowl deeds had been performed.
The baby wasn’t adopted, although of course there had been opportunity for it; his black eyes seemed to ward off potential parents, deeming him “unnatural” and “cursed” by some. Eventually he was placed in a foster family, where he grew into a child. Those early years were happy, albeit lonely perhaps; the family was composed of a borderline elderly couple, in a secluded home on a street without other children to play with. Thomas was never lonely though! He had friends, “imaginary” friends, and no shortage of them it seemed. He would spend all day, out in the yard, around the house, or in his room talking and playing with these figures in his mind’s eye. There were names for them all too, Patryck and Paul, Matt and Jason, Jon, Mark, Laurel and Silas… and Edd. There were more, of course, but those were just the names the couple had managed to pick up from listening in on his little role playing sessions. They didn’t see this habit as a problem; as long as Thomas was happy and otherwise developing and growing up like any other child, they were happy.
After some years though, the couple came across some health problems that made it too difficult to continue to look after the boy, so he was sent on to the next family. This was a much larger group, with several other foster children; but when the caregivers saw how secluded Thomas was, often talking to himself and flat out ignoring those around him, they took a tougher stance on insisting he play with his housemates and school friends (of which there were few, and certainly none wanting to get close to the black-eyed child). Thomas was upset by this, for a time; but as much as the child was quiet, he was also smart. He learned to interact with those around him, just enough to avoid concern, then took his own quiet time to play with his real friends, ones that couldn’t touch or even speak sometimes, but were always there when he needed them.
Around this time Thomas started getting night terrors; he’d jolt awake in the middle of the night with a shriek, tears streaking down his face and arms flailing out at a danger that didn’t exist. His foster parents would rush in of course, asking what was wrong; but he wouldn’t, couldn’t tell them. The dreams never made sense, scary images of ghostly people, an angry woman, people who he knew, but at the same time didn’t disappearing in front of him. These only lasted a few nights though, or so the parents thought. What really happened was that Thomas learned his imaginary friends could help him here too, reassuring him that nothing was wrong as soon as he woke, whispering comforting phrases in his ears as he laid back down. Soon after that, the nightmares stopped altogether, for as soon as one would start something would change the dream completely, exchanging the darkened room containing limp figures for an image of the playground, or school, or beach.
As he grew older, his selection of friends grew a little smaller. There was still an impressive amount, especially for a child as old as twelve; but they had narrowed down to a few favourites, ones Thomas would talk to most and even take advice from. There was Jason, who warned him about some of the meaner kids at school before they could start to pick on him; Tord, who showed him how to fight back if they did. Matt, who taught him how to keep up appearances; Laurel, who helped him with schoolwork when it became too difficult or frustrating, nudging him in the right direction. Out of everyone though, Edd was Thomas’s favourite. He always seemed to know what Thomas was thinking, and regardless of the people around he was the character who was always there for him, just a step away if he was needed. It was Edd who, when Thomas entered high school and lost the last couple academic friends he had had in the transition between, pointed him towards two others, Elliot and Eddie. They turned out to be just the people Thomas needed, the little group sharing many interests, including film making. They started making home videos together, just silly comedy sketches; one of theirs actually went viral, late in their senior year. At that point they were a well-built team, and even though they were splitting up to their various post-secondary facilities, continued to meet and film together.
By this point Thomas had switched homes a couple more times, and with each transition had buried his past, along with his “imaginary friends”, a little more. Not on purpose or anything, just that with each event in his life, each step to maturity, they seemed to fade a little more. By the time he entered film school, he couldn’t quite picture any of them clearly, not like he used to.
However, there was always a ghost, a bit of a shadow, that followed Thomas through the rest of his long and ultimately happy life. When he quit film school out of frustration at the system, there was something there, reassuring him that no, he wasn’t a failure; he could make his own way. When he broke up with yet another girlfriend, one he had been so sure was perfect, the shadow told him that he wasn’t ready for that kind of engagement yet, but he’d get there someday. When he landed his first directing gig, for a movie that was small but had potential, the specter seemed to whisper advice, such as moving that lighting a bit to the left, casting a slightly different actor for this role. And when he won an award for the fifth movie he had directed, it was this remainder of a daydream that cheered the loudest.
A technical term for this might be a muse, but Thomas tried not to dwell on it. He had gained a bit of an uncomfortable disbelief in the supernatural, even if it was staring him in the face. Along with growing up, he believed he really had imagined all those different characters so many years ago; they were impossible to recall now, just blurs in a childish daydream. And yet… and yet. There was undoubtedly something there, just out of sight, just barely too far away to hear. Right up until the day he died (age sixty-one, heart failure), he knew deep down that something, someone, was there. And when he blinked open his eyes, and found himself in that dark place, the one he had forgotten for so many years; and finally saw once again his best friend from so long ago now, but who had never really left- he understood. And he took Edd’s hand, accepted the warm embrace of the last pieces of a memory, and followed him into the abyss. He had lived a new life, a fresh beginning for all of them. And it had been pretty swell.
