He wakes like he's startled to find that he's alive. He claws his way to consciousness and it feels like emerging from the depths of the ocean. He chokes on air, his chest tight and his head spinning with adrenaline. Sometimes, in the ungodly hours of the morning, the corners of his bedroom watch him with red eyes. They reach out to him longingly. Gnarled hands emerge from the deep corners toward his vulnerable form. In these moments, he's as human as everyone else. The fear slides down his spine. It prickles gooseflesh across his skin and he trembles. The unknown is out to get him again. He dipped is hands into dark, twisted minds and this is the result.
This is what curiosity awards you. This is what comes out of research. He is just another mad scientist raving in the wind about the things no one wants to believe. Look too longingly into the night sky and its eyes will stare back. Black holes aren't just in space.
The gnarled hands creep. His sleep fog lifts. He remembers he isn't afraid anymore. The corner eyes flinch and withdraw, as if they, too, remember. There's no telling what it all means. The Hollow is unknowable, and the little that Sebastian does know isn't enough to bring understanding.
Sunlight streams into his bedroom. It is no longer the devil's hour. Let there be light and God said it is good. Sebastian peels himself out of bed in a weak, protesting body. An ache in his neck travels up to his brain and stabs him with a poking needle. This is what the dark is afraid of.
There isn't a day that goes by where he doesn't think about it. The Hollow's claws are deep in his skin.
He finds himself in the kitchen making breakfast. Domestic chores remind him he has a life to live. He must put one foot in front of the other to walk just like everyone else. Sebastian cracks an egg open and wonders if a human head would break the same way. The egg yolk sits in the middle of the egg whites. A brain in a sea of blood, divorced of its skill. Sebastian swallows nausea. He cracks another egg just as Micah's bedroom door swings open.
“Oh, uh,” Micah fumbles. “Hey.” He stares dumbly from the doorway wearing nothing but his white undershirt and a pair of black boxers. He scratches the back of his head and looks away to the bathroom as if there's something to be embarrassed about.
“Good morning,” Sebastian says as he looks back down at his eggs. Clumsily, he flips them and one breaks. Yellow spills across the pan. He broke the brain. It's spilling everywhere. It's whispering its life and secrets. You can't fix a broken brain. You can't fix the exploding splatter of brain matter when a gun shot has split it open. The cracked egg. He flips them over onto a blue plate and almost gags. “Do...Do you want breakfast?”
Micah doesn't move. Sebastian looks up to catch his stare. Micah watches, somewhere between spaced out and concerned. Sebastian isn't sure what the problem is now. There's always a problem. Sometimes, he hates Micah for his pity. Most of the time, he loves Micah so much it hurts.
“Should you be up?” Micah asks, finally padding from the bedroom doorway into the living room. He leans over the back of the couch like he's not decided yet on whether he should clean up first or chat.
“You're so cute sometimes.” Sebastian laughs as Micah cringes. “I'm fine. I need to do something.”
Micah looks away again and hums as if he disagrees.
“I think that's kinda your problem.”
Ah. So he does disagree. Well.
“So... you don't want breakfast?”
Sebastian peels out several pieces of back and slaps them on the pan. The eggs are getting cold. They skinned the pig for cold breakfast. They cut up the belly for its meat and the eggs are going to be cold. He will eat this. Micah deserves better. This would be unkind, rude, disgusting of him. Sebastian stares at the bacon. It sizzles as it shrinks and crisps.
“Yeah, sure, sure. Lemme just shower up first.”
The batch is definitely his. By the time Micah exits from the shower, Sebastian has choked down breakfast. He pretends it doesn't sit in his stomach like a lead weight. Micah will be fine. Micah won't magine scrambled brains on his late or slivers of human skin. It will all be normal—chicken eggs and bacon. Sebastian plates it. He sets it down on the coffee table where Micah sprawls out on the couch.
“Thanks,” Micah says as he straightens up. Sebastian sits beside him with a mug of hot coffee. He almost feels bad for not making Micah a cup, and then he remembers that Micah hates coffee. “Where's your food?”
“You took so long, I ate it.” Sebastian shrugged. “I didn't want cold food.”
Micah pauses, bacon hanging in the middle of the air between the plate and his mouth. He shoots Sebastian a searching look.
“Better not be lyin', Bastian.” He points the bacon at Sebastian. Sebastian stiffens as if it will bite him. “Your skin and bones as it is and always getting sick on me.”
“Promise, promise. I’m not lying.”
Micah keeps staring but he shoves the bacon into his mouth. Sebastian lets out a sigh as if he had been held at gun point. Maybe he had been.
An awkward silence descends upon them. It fills with whispers. Something in the distance calls out to Sebastian. The eyes in the walls. The broken egg. One day it will be Micah's brains, cracked open and bleeding. He has to keep the pieces together. He has to make sure they never crack. He doesn't think he can glue them together if it happens. He can't let it. He won't. No matter the cost. He has to excise the poison. The leeches must feed.
“Bastian,” Micah says, and Sebastian almost jumps. “You... workin' today?”
“In what capacity?” Sebastian says as if he hadn't just been disappearing into the dark crevices of his shattered psyche. “Do you mean am I wasting time or doing research?”
“What?” Micah shakes his head, but his tone is off. “You're not wasting time with the blog.”
“No?” Sebastian scoffed. “What would you call it? They're the ravings of a man half-mad. I sound like one of my old patients at the center. Half of my comment section is full of even crazier people than I. The other half question my logic, ask me if I'm of sound mind and the ones who have figured out who's behind it all-- they tsk and talk about how the mighty have fallen. And the worst part is they're right.”
Not that Sebastian had ever thought of himself as mighty, but his colleagues respected him. He had a network. Students looked up to him. Colleagues sought him out for partnership. Sebastian had a glowing future spread out before him and now.
Now, he blinks and Micah's face is bloody and peeling away like a banana. The banana is bloody and if he doesn't eat it Micah will die. That's how it goes. That's how he died and now he's just a ghost in the machine.
“They're not right.” Micah's skull clacks as he talks. “They don't got any idea what we went through. They're not gonna get it. The blog isn't for them, anyway. Besides, I thought you said you liked writing it.”
Sebastian shrugs. He blinks and Micah is back to normal. His skin is where it should be, covering muscle and skeleton. Not sloughing off.
“I don't know,” Sebastian says. “Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm tired.”
Micah heaves a sigh and leans back into the couch.
“I dunno what I'm even saying half the time, so don't listen to me.” Micah waves it off. “It's just... something's always going through your head and you never talk about it. We used to talk about this stuff. Now you talk about it on there. At least you get it down somewhere.”
Sebastian hides a wince. They used to talk all the time. About everything. Hopes and dreams. Fear of the future. Sebastian can barely hold onto the present without drifting off into the dark cracks the hollow left in his mind.
“Do you miss me?” Sebastian says, suddenly, the words out of his mouth before he can take them back.
It feels cold. Like the world's been leeched of its warmth. It feels like a taboo. The kind of question you don't ask unless you're not looking for the truth. He can't take it back. It's out there in the wild.
Micah looks surprised. He rolls his eyes like he won't even entertain the question.
“What the fuck kinda stupid question is that?” Micah says at least. “Why would I miss you when you're right there? Is this one of those psych tests or something?”
Sebastian almost pushes the issue. Instead, he laughs. It doesn't sound right. It sounds fake.
“You're right. That is a stupid question. I told you, I'm tired.” He smiles and pivots. “How's your job search going?”
Micah groans and picks up his plate to take to the kitchen. Sebastian watches him and the second shadow in the kitchen. It's him, though he's not sure how it got there. He hasn't stood up yet. There's no reason his shadow should be over there. He should do something about it, but then he blinks and it's gone.
“Dude did you hear anything I just said?” Micah sighed at the kitchen sink.
Sebastian feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. He picks up and has never been more glad to see Eamon Castillo’s text.
“Yes, sorry,” Sebastian lies. “I just got a message from Eamon. I have to go.”
“What? Bastian, you just been saying you're tired. Now you're goin’ out with your… whatever he is?”
Sebastian stood, ignoring his body's protest. Ignoring the shadow that lingers in the kitchen. Micah doesn't see it, so it's obviously not there. Micah always knows better than him.
“You know how it is,” Sebastian says. “It could be a work call. I need to keep up my end of the bills, somehow.”
And it isn't by writing half-lucid blog posts about broken minds. His former colleagues pity and laugh at him enough as it is. At least Eamon finds a use for him.
“Bro, you really don't…” Micah says, but Sebastian already has his jacket on, and Micah’s jaw is missing.
“I do,” Sebastian says to the viscera on the floor. The shadow falls into step with him. “I'll be back later, I promise.”
The door shuts behind him and Sebastian swipes a hand down his face. He stands there for a moment in the hallway, waiting for something to change, and glad when nothing does.
