LOST BOY | PHAN

one

warning: this book might be a little triggering with things like alcohol/drugs/bullying/sex so feel free to skip the things u don't like and let me know if u want me to summarize something !!

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he sat up quickly, blood rushing to his head and making him feel rather dizzy and disoriented. his hand went to cradle his aching head, fingers carding through his soft locks of hair, but he held his breath, trapping it in his lungs for a moment to keep the silence.

the darkness cascaded around him as soon as he opened his eyes, and somehow it seemed even blacker than it had when he had had them closed. he could feel it filling up his eyes, his lungs, his heart and stomach, washing over him like a riptide that was inescapable, tearing the breath from his body. dan despised the dark.

he felt so small in the dark. he felt swallowed up by the night, in a room where he couldn't even see the stars. he felt so incredibly tiny and insignificant.

dan normally didn't wake up like this, with such a violent jolt. something had woken him.

remnants of a frown traced themselves out between his eyebrows, adding a sketch of confusion and slight fear onto his usually calmed and even light features. a curly strand of hair tumbled into his eyes as he looked around slowly.

everything seemed to be of the ordinary. a wooden rocking chair sat in the corner of his small room, still and silent, at the place where the sloping ceiling was the highest. after that point it declined so dramatically that on the opposite side of the room dan had to crawl to even get through. due to the inconvenience of the space for anything else, and how much of an eyesore it was empty, that was where dan kept all of his stuffed animals.

a bookshelf sat against the tallest wall, and across from that, a toy box. above the toy box was dan's window.

dan froze when he heard the noise again, panic and adrenaline shooting through his veins like fire. it was a sort of muffled thumping, like footsteps, but it came from outside the window. dan's eyes widened a bit and he pulled his duvet around him snuggly in his fright.

the quiet thumping sound came again, seemingly echoing in dan's ears, and dan reached out, grabbing a stuffed bear with soft matted brown hair that sat, nestled in a burrow of quilts, beside the foot of his bed. he only realized he was shaking when he hugged the bear to his chest, the soft object trembling with him against his chin.

"h-hello?" he whispered finally, in a fleeting burst of short lived courage.

he shrieked when a face popped up behind the glass of his window, and his hand instantly shot up to cover his mouth to keep any further noises from escaping. if his parents woke up, he wouldn't live to see the light of the next day.

dan squinted, trying to focus. the face was curved and contoured in a way that seemed so man-made, as if he had been sculpted by an extremely talented artist. messy brownish ginger hair tumbled in his eyes; dan couldn't quite make out the color. a wide grin stretched across his face, his mouth curved to the absolute maximum, dan thought a smile like that ought to hurt. even from there and in the dark, he could make out that the person was extremely pale.

dan watched him reach down, unlatching dan's window and pushing it open, and dan's breath caught. who did he think he was?