simon rifkind drabbles (i guess?)

one.

He's petrified, that he won't deny.

Simon Rifkind has gotten 2 hours of sleep in the past three days. Needless to say, he's a little bit knackered.

The shadows move in his peripheral vision. They dance out of sight, mock him. They're coming for him on purpose, and he knows it, but nothing makes him shiver in a 27° celsius room with tears rolling down his face quite like the image of a hunched over, furry thing in the darkness, curved ram-like horns on each side of its head.

So he takes to making book-people.

It's only a few, at first. Eventually he learns how to make them look natural, and he manages to sneak a small light in just the right position to cast reassuring shadows on the walls in the dark. He can pretend the break-down help came before those.. those things in the woods got to him.

He knows how it sounds. A seventeen-year-old, almost a legal adult, sleeping (more like closing his eyes for 8 seconds at a time, just to alleviate the feeling of exhaustion) with a night-light. He's aware it's stupid. Pathetic. Humorous, even.

But he's sure he wouldn't even blink without the book-people. So he keeps them. And the light.