The Night's Child

Chapter 2: Not Always Alone

Getting home is no comfort. There is no such thing anymore. Not when your dad is long gone and your mom is working her second shift just so she can pay the bills.

So once again, Daniel finds himself alone. The loneliness terrifies him, but he finds company in books. Those are his only companions these days, they don’t seem to notice his condition.

After a couple of hours, he can’t take it anymore. The walls! The shadows! The silence! They scream his secrets. Pushing into his weaknesses, they slowly attack him until there is nothing left for him to do but lay in his corner and cry.

Fog and filth covered the alley between the tall buildings. As Daniel runs through it, praying for a way to escape, the creature only gets closer. Then he encounters what he most dreads, a dead end.

He turns around and looks into the eyes of his tormenter. It’s breath smells of death and decay. Its features are dark and rough.

It gets closer, and closer until its claws caress Daniel’s skin. There was no exit, no place to run, no way out. He can only scream in agony as the night is murdered once again and daylight comes to wake him.

It continued like this for weeks. The monsters at school would bully him and then he would be tormented by the creature of the night. There is no stopping it. No sane way of dealing with what is slowly disintegrating every once of his control. He knows that eventually, there will be nothing left of him.

RING! shouted the school bell. Lunch break was over. As Daniel walked out of his last hiding place, the janitor’s closet, he feels a slight amount of… joy. It’s time for his favorite class, the only one he likes actually. Literature class. The teacher, Mrs. Raymore is always fair in her lessons. She treats every student as equals and that is something he has always appreciated.

There was something different about today’s class. All the back seats, even his usual place, are filled.

They’ve planned this! I see it in their eyes. They’re laughing at me- spoke his mind.

He quickly decided to sit in one of the far right seats; next to Jamie Foster. He’s a teenager with squared glasses and braces. He’s skinny and not that much taller than Daniel. Jamie is also bullied but because of a different condition. The monsters call him “geek” and “nerd.”

"Hi!" Says the boy "My name’s Jamie!"

Daniel didn’t know what to say. It’s been such a long time since he spoke to someone at school.

"Um… hey." He replied "I’m Daniel."

"I’ve seen you around school but you always seem to be alone."

"I kinda like it that way." Daniel didn’t know what else to say. This was all so new to him.

"Well don’t you ever get tired of it?" asked the smart kid with honest curiosity.

"I guess I do."

That’s how their unique friendship started. Jamie was Daniel’s only friend. He never admitted it, but Daniel guessed that he was his only friend too. They sat together at lunch, and sometimes even hanged out after school. Daniel doesn’t talk much but that has never been a problem for Jamie. He does most of the talking.