Exit Light, Enter Night
A/N: Just because I happen to like Boogey-man!Axel…
Prologue
I can't sit down in this stupid house.
It's not because there's something wrong with me… At least, I don't think there's anything wrong with me… It's late, and I can't concentrate because it's the first day of school tomorrow. (Well, okay, my first day of school tomorrow. Not my fault my folks decided to move at the beginning of October!) I don't know what's wrong with me; I really don't. The only way I can sit in this house is if I have my back against a wall, or if someone's in the room with me. Other than that, you can pretty much kiss the concept of sitting down peacefully good-bye.
My mom told me it was excitement, but I highly doubt it. If I was excited, I'd probably be out of my room and searching for secret passages. This house is, after all, one of those too-big Victorian manors that parents seem to be so compelled to buy. Usually ones with really gross colors, too, like pink and green together and then another one with orange and puke green. Don't laugh. There's one like that down the street from here. But trust me, if I was excited to be in a new house, I'd be looking everywhere for secret passages. Yup. That's me. 'Secret Passage Finder' Demyx. Like I'm gonna be on Multiverse's Most Haunted one day and I have to use my 'skills'. If you call banging on the walls for five or six hours skills. Which I don't.
She also told me it was nerves. "Just take a deep breath and they'll go away," she said. Well, guess what. I took like three thousand deep breaths and this feeling isn't going away. My mother's a psychiatrist for loony people, and she thinks there's a 'rational solution' to everything. That ghosts are just elaborate hoaxes and that the supposed monsters aren't real. She's actually tried to psychoanalyze me a few times (well, alright, more than a few times), asking me questions on why I believe in ghosts and stuff like that. I simply said, "I don't know. I just do,"
She obviously wasn't too satisfied with that answer.
Despite all these reassurances that everything would be absolutely fine, I still can't shake the feeling I'm being watched. I can't get to sleep, and it's really starting to piss me off. I'm sitting on my bed in my pretty much empty room with my back to the wall and my knees drawn to my chest. It's raining outside, thunder and lightning, too. Ordinarily, I like the rain, but tonight it's only serving to, quoth the mother, 'enhance my paranoia'.
I sigh and get off my bed, grabbing my flashlight from my desk. Since I need to get some of what my mom calls my 'natural energy' out of my system, I figure I can walk around the house a bit. I used to do it all the time back in my old house when I couldn't sleep. It's not like I don't know the house, right? I open the door and click on my flashlight, shining it down the corridor.
Wait a sec.
Wait. A. Sec.
This hallway's not the one outside my room.
As crazy as it sounds, this hallway's not the one that's supposed to be there.
Alright. Now this is really freaking me out… I shut the door, take three deep breaths, and open the door. Once again, wrong hallway. Maybe I am going nuts… I play the door opening and shutting game for a while before figuring out that the new hallway's not going anywhere. So, like any normal person would do, I go outside my room and see what's there.
The hallway's long. I mean really long. With lots of doors and a window on each end of it. The banister is in front of me, and the stairs lead upstairs and downstairs. My flashlight still on, I decide to try and take a peek around. If this is a dream, this is one freaking awesome dream. Just to make sure, I pinch myself. Nope. Not a dream.
It's a nice hallway, whatever it's from. The floor's carpeted, which is good for bare feet. Trust me. Hardwood and bare feet just don't go, no matter how you defend it. The carpet's one of those old types, with really freaky patterns and usually three colors. This carpet's colors are black, white and blue with some sort of flower in the center of a large black-and-blue rectangle every so often.
I take the left hall first, and then go back down the way I came. I paused long enough to look over the side of the banister, and I expected to see the first floor underneath me. No such luck. I had no idea what floor I was on, but just the fact that there were more floors under me scared me slightly. I shone my flashlight upwards to see how many floors there were. Again, same result. That's when I decided to go downstairs.
Suddenly, as I start walking down the stairs, the feeling I was being watched comes back. I whirl around to face the top of the stairs. No one. Unless you count the patch of now illuminated window panes with a lean very humanoid shadow splayed across the wall. I scream and abruptly lose my footing, and I fall backwards down the stairs. I hear my flashlight clatter down the stairs as I fall, and I swear that I see my life flash in front of my eyes…
"Mother, Demyx had another one of his episodes…"
Episodes. That's what everyone in my family calls the ghost hunting expeditions I conduct in my houses. Not really a fitting description, but whatever floats their boats. In a second, my mother is down in her white nightdress and begins to play the One Hundred Questions game. You know, the old favorite of mothers: "Are you okay? What'd you break? What'd you sprain? What'd you twist? What'd you do last summer?" etc.
I start to bat her hands away and right myself. "I'm fine, Mom," I growl. "I just fell down the stairs trying to go to the bathroom,"
My older sister, Larxene, scoffs slightly and leans against the banister. "There's a bathroom upstairs, too, you know,"
I glare at her and start back upstairs. What the heck was that? Some sort of insomnia induced dream, maybe? I'd have to sleep on it, definitely. Probably was just some dream that I had while sleep walking… I have the weirdest out of all my friends. Usually, I don't tell my mother my dreams, because then she starts analyzing them in detail. Y'know, stuff like, "Oh! The leaf! It means this!" or "Oh! That's a dog! It means that!"
No offense to my mom and shrinks everywhere, but I like talking to people who don't try and analyze my every word.
So, I get back into bed, and try to get to sleep. Operative word: try.
I still have the feeling someone's watching me…
Author's Notes
Well, okay, because I like Boogey-man!Axel and Inspiration bit me in the middle of listening to Twink's music box rendition of Enter Sandman. I love that song…
Anyways, welcome to another fanfic brought to you by UltimatePalmTree! I hope you like! As you can probably tell from just reading this (short) prologue, this story's gonna deal with the paranormal and all that fun stuffs. Yes, Demyx is going to high school and stuff like that, but I'm not sure if it'd count as a high school fic… Hm… I'm confused now… Also, if I got Larxene's personality wrong, please tell me. Although she didn't really show up in this chapter, in later ones, please let me know if any of the character's personalities are wrong! I'll even rewrite the whole chapter to make it work; I promise.
And to answer any questions, yes, this is a shounen-ai fic. Not so much in the first few chapters, but it will be later on. My current obsession pairing (for Kingdom Hearts, anyway) is Axel/Demyx, so this is what it is. I suppose you could call it a sequel to Insomnia's Pet, but… (shrugs) I don't think so. It just has the idea of Boogey-man!Axel in it… Not really the same.
By the by, I'm not sure what world in the multiverse this is… Hm… I don't think it's Twilight or Traverse Town… I'll have to catch up with you on that. It could be an original world I just thought up for the purposes of this story… (shrugs and thinks)
Also. One last thing before I go off to write chapter one: I don't own any of this except for some original characters (all of whom I love dearly and unless stated otherwise, they're mine) and this concept. I also don't own any songs that may 'happen' to show up over the course of this story, such as Enter Sandman. Enter Sandman is metal-head love… XD Although, I dunno if ES is gonna show up or what as of now… All I've thought ahead to is the first and maybe second chapters… I am so lazy, aren't I? XD