An Oddity Among Beasts (BEASTARS)

A New Fabric Forms

"You still hate them, don't you?"

    He looked around, finding himself standing in darkness. It was all around him, not a speck of light to be found. He looked down at his hands, jumping at the sight of sharpened nails poking out. Something was underneath him, watching. All he could see were the glowing eyes gazing at him, freezing him in place as his breath quickened.

"You liked it, though, right?", the voice asked. "The rush it gave your heart, the tingling in your hands."

"Shut up...", he said through gritted teeth.

Dark tendrils shot up and grabbed his wrists, "Stop with the delusions. You're living a lie, bearing a mask just as they do."

"Shut up! Shut up!", he struggled but his body remained frozen. "I'll never be like that! That's not who I am!"

"Oh, but it is.", it shot up and towered over him, forcing him to look it in the eyes.

"Don't you get it? You already are apart of it. The moment you took the stage, the gates began to crumble. Soon they'll find out, and you'll embrace it all the same."

"Shut up!", Alan shot up in a sweat, shaking violently. Light was peeking through the window of the dorm, silence covering the room.

"Alan?", Todd sat up in his bed groggily. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I just...had a bad dream.", he looked down, unease building inside him. He took a shuddering breath, heart beating hard in his chest.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

    He shook his head slowly, getting up and going to the bathroom. Standing in the mirror, he turned on the sink and splashed his face. He looked at the mirror, seeing his dripping face for a moment before it became a dark shadow. Panic gripped the human's body, a fist hitting the mirror enough to shake it briefly.

"Ah!", he gripped his shaking hand and hissed in pain.

He looked back at the mirror warily, sighing as he turned the sink off.

~~*~~

"Alan, you've been quiet all day.", Todd said pointedly as they walked down the hall. "Something's bugging you, isn't it?"

The human sighed, knowing he couldn't keep the goat off his back. Ever since he woke up, he couldn't think straight. His thoughts were preoccupied with the dream and the figure in the mirror. It made him paranoid, worried that something was going to happen and he'd end up in the wrong end of it.

"I'm just...worried about some stuff.", he tried to say dismissively.

"Is it about the Tem incident?"

"W-what?"

"It's easy to tell.", Todd said quietly. "You keep glancing around wherever you go and you've been avoiding conversation. That isn't like you."

He sighed and leaned against the wall, "I don't know what it is, to be honest. It seems alright to me, but I just feel this...tension in the air. It feels like things keep escalating without anything actually happening."

The goat nodded slightly, "Yeah, I felt that too. If I'm being honest, I'm scared. We don't know who killed Tem and they're more than likely somewhere in the school."