Thomas kept on looking at Sean with concern. It was not the first time that he had said something such as this. He would often say it, and it took whoever was around to get him to stop thinking in such a manner. A normal human reaction to losing someone close to you due to death was to not want to let go of them, but it was almost unhealthy to take this long to actually move on and accept the loss. Thomas shook his head as he looked at his friend. Greg’s death had definitely hit him hard, indeed.

Usually Sean was full of energy and vibrant. He was the sort guy you would turn to if you needed a laugh to cheer you up if you were having a bad day. He always had a sarcastic but respectful comment to make about everything. You would have to look for a long time to find someone who did not like him. Yet since Greg died, he had just stopped everything. He seemed to be living his life on autopilot and going through his daily routines without emotion. He would not open up to anyone except his closest friends, and even then his opinions and thoughts were limited to a select few topics. Those topics usually involved his brother. His personality had changed so much. He would constantly try to act like nothing bothered him. When you got him alone and seemingly at a good time in which to discuss the important issues, all he wanted to do was keep to himself. He had to take several months off from his programming job while he tried to cope with his loss. He later went back, but his coworkers noticed the change. It was as if he just did not care much for anything. It was such a radical change, and those around him worried constantly about it. Most people who knew him well thought that he was just a few stressful thoughts away from having a nervous breakdown.

Thomas took Sean’s hand off of his shoulder and applied enough pressure to make him sit back down in his chair. He got off of his own chair and stooped down in front of Sean and looked right into his eyes. In the moonlit night, those blue eyes of his looked dark and distant. The spark had long since faded away and now the smoky remains of that fire were all that could be seen. Thomas hoped that the mind behind that stare was not as distant as he feared.

“Sean…look at me. Greg isn’t coming back. Look, if he had survived that bombing we would have known by now. They would have found him and they would have told us about it. I know you don’t want to let go, but you have to.” Thomas’ voice was pleading, begging his friend to snap back to normal, “You HAVE to, man. You have your parents to keep in mind. They’ve already worried enough about him, now they’re worried about you. You don’t want to give them that sort of stress, now do you? Please, Sean, Please. Don’t let them keep worrying.” It was all his blank mind could muster. Sean seemed not to hear a word of it and continued looking off into the darkness for a long time before he eventually spoke.

“You don’t understand, Thomas. Sometimes I just get this intense feeling that he’s somewhere out there and it’s like we connect. Like I know something that the world refuses to believe.” Sean’s voice sounded as disconnected as ever. Thomas could almost imagine that this was a dream, such was the manner in which Sean spoke.

“Look man, I can’t say I know what you feel, because then I’d be dead wrong. But you can’t keep going on like this forever.”

Thomas was about to say something else but a movement caught his eye. He stood up to see the door to the house opening up and the silhouette of his cousin coming outside. The spring mechanism shut the door automatically behind her, but she seemed to take no notice of the sharp rapping noise it made. She kept walking toward the two men, apparently not feeling the coldness of the night, neither does she seem to care about the fact that she was barefooted. All she was wearing was her thin pink nightgown, which provided little protection against the crisp nighttime air. Both Thomas and Sean had jackets on, Thomas in a leather, Sean in a faded denim. Thomas walked towards her but she refused to notice him either.

It is then that he realized that Katie was looking directly into the same region of the woods that Sean had been looking at just a moment ago. A slight chill went through Thomas as he looked into the darkness between the trees. He knew not what lay in that darkness, or why it seemed to beckon to those around him. He prayed that it was just a coincidence. His prayer was cut short when he noticed Katie’s sudden change of direction. She had turned almost at a right angle and was now walking toward the steps at the side of the deck. He needed to know why she was behaving in such an odd manner.

“Katie? You okay? Something the matter?” His normally quiet voice sounded much louder in the dark night. Katie made no apparent response to his questioning. She walked right past the two men and started to make her way down the steps leading down and into the backyard. Thomas turned to follow her but a flicker of light high and to his left caught his eye. He looked up in its direction and found that the flicker was coming through her bedroom window from inside the room itself. The candle flame alone was not enough to create such a large flame, that was certain. It snapped him completely out of any thoughts he previously had and he started to run toward the house.

“She might be sleepwalking,” he hastily muttered to Sean while in mid-stride, “keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn’t get into any shit.” He flung open the door to the house and disappeared inside. The door swung shut behind him as Sean, brought back to the real world, got up and started to follow her.

Inside the house was so dark, Thomas thought. It was as if his night-adjusted eyes had suddenly lost all of their clarity and everything was a black haze in front of him. Despite knowing the house well, his haste caused him to become a little disoriented and he almost ran into the wall more than once. He finally reached the staircase and hoped that he did not trip and fall as he ran up their length, taking the stairs two at a time. He stumbled a few times but he managed to grab onto the handrail and keep his balance and finally he made it to the top. The flickering light cast an orange glow along the wall opposite to the open doorway from which it came. As Thomas got closer he can feel the air grow hotter and his suspicions were on the verge of being proven correct.

He ran into Katie’s room to find flames leaping up from the top of the dresser. A thick smoke was starting to fill the room and he quickly ran to the window and tried to open it but it refused to budge. A swift kick to the double-paned glass quickly solved that problem. He turned to the bed and grabbed a pillow and starts to beat out the flames, throwing several cosmetic articles all over the floor. A bottle of perfume suddenly exploded, throwing shards of glass up at him but he refused to let the pain bother him. The liquid within the bottle itself instantly ignited, creating even more problems for him.

He eventually emerged victorious in his battle with the flames and held the slightly smoking pillow in his hands. His irritated lungs could take no more and he starts to cough violently, creating a slightly sore throat in the process. His eyes were already producing as much tears as they could, protecting the delicate structures from the roughness of the smoke particles. Eventually the smoke cleared, the coughing subsided, and he dropped the pillow on the floor and surveyed the scene.

With the flames gone, the darkness had returned and that black haze in front of his eyes was competing with the tiny bit of moonlight coming through window. The haze was winning. He could barely see a thing, despite the smoke having almost all cleared away.

A coldness hit him from behind and he shivered as he turned to see the curtains fluttering around the window. He walked up to it and was perplexed as to why he could not feel a breeze, yet the curtains were moving as if there was one. The air was scorching a few seconds ago, yet at the moment he could see his breath in front of his face with each exhalation he had. It was all very strange indeed, but he shrugged and turned back to the interior of the room.

It was too dark to see much, and he would not be able to tell how much damage was suffered or what even started the fire in the first place. He knew it had to come from the candle’s flame, but he had been absolutely certain that he put the candlestand in an area where nothing would bother it. The only way a fire could have started was if Katie had been up to mischief and it got out of hand. He thought about her strange behaviour out on the deck and he sighed as the revelation hit him. She had been sleepwalking and managed to start the fire somehow while asleep. It could not really be blamed on her. She was not a stupid girl and she was fully aware of the dangers of an open flame. He seriously doubted that she was up to no good and he felt angry at himself for having brought that thought into his head before all others.

His shivering suddenly got more intense and he took it as a sign from his body, telling him to leave the room. He made his way back out into the hall, being able to take things at a much slower pace than his entry into the house and into the room. The house was no longer in danger of burning down. He took his time in going down the stairs and as soon as he set foot on the bottom landing, the lights came back on. He narrowed his eyes and shields them from the unexpected brightness for a moment before turning to look back up the stairs. Ideally, the best thing to do was to go back upstairs and see exactly what damage was done. He sighed and shook his head as he slowly climbed the stairs again and walked into Katie’s room for yet another time. This time, however, there was no cold feeling. The temperature in the room was comparable to that of the rest of the house. He was thankful for that, at least.

He switched on the light and looked across at the dresser. A piece of burnt cloth lay on top of where he had put the candle originally. Under the cloth was the candle lying on its side in its short holder. Handing down from the edge of the mirror atop the dresser was a jersey. The burnt cloth looked as if it came from another jersey, which might have come from having fallen off of its spot hanging off of the same mirror. With the power gone he did not notice it there at all. It had basically been his fault for not taking the time or care necessary to prevent those fire hazards from being present at the time. He shook his head as he ensured that nothing else can possibly happen before he left the room.

“Sean? Katie?” There was no sign of either person out on the deck as he opened the door.

He frowned and walked over to the steps and went down into the yard. He looked around, his eyes still adjusting to the darkness outside after the electric glare of the house lights. A slight feeling of dread and worry encompassed him and he jogged around the yard, and across to the side of the house. The gate there opened into a well-cut path into the woods. Across the path, a gate is also present on the Cupid’s property, with the path separating the two pieces of land from each other. The path was also open to the road, and the kids in the area would often go into the woods. In fact, Sean, Greg and Thomas would go exploring the woods all the time when they were younger. They were the ones who had cleared much of that path, the new generation of kids did not have much left to discover. The three of them had already found almost everything that there was to find.

The gate was open and swaying slightly in a breeze that seemed to have picked up since the power came back on. Thomas pulled his jacket closer to him and against the cold as he listened to the leaves of the trees rustling in that breeze. Katie was sleepwalking. He knew that much. Sean must have pulled her back and she woke up, and then the two of them probably went for a walk in the woods until Katie felt sleepy again. It was something that Thomas and Sean had done countless times over the years. They would often take a walk in the woods late at night or early in the morning to relax themselves. There was a stream running through it that opened up into a little lake if you walked far enough. They would go to that lake regularly and watch as the deer came to drink just before dawn. Thomas had taken Katie to see the lake a couple of times, much to her delight. She must have wanted to see it again and Sean would have gladly taken her. It all made sense.

Except for one thing. Katie did not have any shoes on, and she was not dressed for the cold night either. But perhaps Sean had taken her over to his house to get a jacket for her, and maybe a pair of boots that would be too big for her, but it would work. Sean would not carry Katie on a walk into the woods without making sure that she would be okay. It made even more sense now. They would be back in a while. Thomas was just being irrational about everything. He pulled the gate in and walked back to the deck. They were okay. Katie did not sleep much since the power went out, and she would more than likely get sleepy in under an hour. That would be when they would return. He plopped back down in his chair and finished his long-neglected can of soda. He leaned back and looked up at the sky, not worried about them again. Instead, he wondered how he should handle the whole Sean-not-letting-go situation in the future. The night was still cold, but he decided to wait for Sean and Katie to return before he headed back inside. He huddled in his jacket and slumps down in the chair, closing his eyes and letting his thoughts carry him away from the cold night.

He was sleeping when his aunt and uncle arrived home. Their voices awakened him and he cleared away the sleep as they asked him about Katie. He mumbled a question about the time and looked at his watch. It was near 4am, several hours after Sean and Katie had left. And they were still gone.

(Coming soon: Chapter three - Dark)

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