Just a heads up, there's a panic attack in this chapter
Snufkin woke up rather early in the morning. It wasn’t still dark out, but judging by how it looked outside, the sun didn’t rise too long ago. He moved closer to the window and looked up at the sky. Yeah, it looked to be probably about 6:15-6:30 in the morning. He used to wake up earlier than this back when he was still visible, but over time, he got less and less motivated to get out of bed and wouldn’t be able to actually wake up until around 10:30am-12pm, some days, he didn’t even bother getting ready for the day and would just lie there staring at the ceiling of his old, yellow tent. The Mumrik let out a slow, but steady sigh and opened the window before taking a seat in the frame and looking up at the sky. It was quiet and peaceful until the morning silence was broken by a loud CRASH that sounded somewhat like glass shattering against the wooden floor. Snufkin figured that Toft must have had dropped a cup or the tea-pot, so he got up, walked out of the room, and made his was down stairs.
Snufkin was looking down at the floor while he walked down the stairs until he heard an incredibly kind, loving, motherly voice say "oh how lovely, another visitor" then a rather mean voice pipe in and announce "an invisible one at that" he looked up, but was quickly frozen in shock when he was greeted by the familiar faces of the Moomin family. He backed away at first while his mind began racing ' why did she call me a visitor? Did she really forget me that eas-' he was cut off from his thoughts when he went to grab the brim of his hat and quickly realized that it wasn’t there. ‘Silly me,' he thought once more ‘I'm still in my pajamas, of course they don't know it's me’, that made him relax a bit.
Snufkin looked at everyone around him. It was actually rather funny. Moominmamma and Moominpapa didn’t change a bit, Moomintroll’s appearance didn’t change that much besides him being much taller and Snufkin noticed his voice had gotten a bit deeper when the troll had greeted him, then there was Little My, thought she wasn’t very little anymore. She had grown to be almost as tall as Snufkin, still a few inches shorter, but it was still rather shocking. He knew Mymble’s were able to grow to incredible heights, and that she was a bit older than him, but seeing My like that was… very odd to say the least.
Everyone looked happy when they looked at Snufkin. It was as if they were just meeting someone new because in their minds, they were. There looked like they did when he had first met them. They stood there in somewhat awkward silence, that was, of course, until Toft came down looking happier than Snufkins ever seen him look before. He gave a quick glance at Snufkin and gasped in excitement “Snufkin, look! The Moomins came home!”
It's funny how the happiest faces can hold the saddest expressions.
Everyone in the room went dead silent after they realized who their invisible visitor was. They all seemed to hold the same sad expression, though, Moomintroll looked close to heart broken. The Mumrik looked down and didn’t dare looking back up at the group, it made him feel sick whenever he tried. He did give a quick glance at Toft, but he just looked confused and a bit scared, trying to process and make sense of what was going on and why everybody was so sad. Sure, he was very sad when Snufkin came back from his winter travels invisible, but he didn’t know why everyone looked the way they did. The happy and loving Moomin family he’d always dreamt about looked so sorrowful.
Snufkin lightly kicked at the floor and held his hands behind his back, getting more and more uncomfortable and ashamed of himself by the second. He knew it wasn’t his fault that he was invisible and that he tried to stop it, but he wasn’t able to shake off that feeling that there was only himself to blame and that the Moomins were sad because of his wrong doings. Snufkin started to feel uneasy due to everyone looking at him and began to retreat back to Moomintroll’s room even though he at least wanted to say (or write in his case) ‘hello’ to the family he’s missed so dearly, but he wasn’t able to muster up the courage to do anything besides hide.
Once he successfully managed to get back to the room, he walked towards the bed and practically collapsed on the mattress, hugging himself until he sat up and formed a little ball in the corner. He heard the family as well as My calling out for him and asking if he could come back down, but he didn’t budge, he felt like he was in some sort of grave danger even though he was in probably the safest home on earth, especially now that the Moomins were back. The Moomins. Were they mad at him? Why would they be mad at him? They might be. It was his own fault. He turned invisible and now they’re going to make themselves go through the trouble of helping him get back to his normal self. Snufkin pressed the palm of his fists on his forehead and wanted to just scream in anger, frustration, and fear, so he did. Well, he tried to at least, but no sound came out. He started to feel dizzy and light headed and it felt like the room around him was spinning.Why was he in so much pain? Why was he shaking so bad? What was going on? His thoughts were cut off once more, but instead of it being himself using common sense, it was Moomintroll placing a hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner. Snufkin flinched and backed away at this, he really didn’t want to be touched right now and he felt like he was going to pass out and his abdomen felt like it was going to burst at any given moment. He looked back up at his childhood best friend and began getting teary eyed.He wanted to yell and kick and just burst, but he couldn’t, he didn’t want to loose his friend again. Even though it’s getting rather hard to keep his head up, Snufkin began looking around before spotting his hat and reaching out for it. He didn’t want to, nor was he able to unfold himself out of the ball he made and wasn’t really able to grab it, leading Moomintroll to mumble "oh, you want your hat" and silently got up to grab it for the poor Mumrik, hand it to him then begin walking away only for Snufkin to reach out and grab his hand. Even though Snufkin wanted to be alone, ever since Moomin walked into the room, he didn’t want to troll to leave his side, his presence made him feel a bit safer, like the world wasn’t going to end.
The two boys shared a moment of silence once Moomintroll sat back down, only for that silence to end with the question "what happened while we were gone?" to which Snufkin replied by shaking his head, showing that he didn’t really want to talk about it and earning an under understanding nod from Moomintroll. Snufkin’s shoulders were tense and he was still trembling; however, his breathing did slow down and found a more steady pace, showing that he had calmed down at least by a little bit, but he still wasn’t quite ready to do things like walk, he did wind up allowing Moomintroll to hug him, though, he didn’t quite return the hug, he just cried in the trolls arms while they just sat in the same silence from earlier.
1331 words
YOU ARE READING
His green hat
FantasíaIt's been almost four years since the well known Moomin family moved out of Moominvalley, but when they come back, they find out that Snufkin had turned invisible. Normally, it would have had been a bit easy to get him back, especially since they've...
