[He sprawls out on his stomach with a book on the floor in front of his face, kicking his feet slightly.]
Okay.
[And then it's a nice, normal evening, with a nice, normal dinner. After dinner, he does his homework and goes to bed.]
[His dreams are uneasy. They go strange places. A normal if odd dream about school changes and he winds up walking the empty, dim halls of some kind of palace. The candelabras barely shed any light. Leaning against a painting causes him to rip right through it, so that he falls down through a tunnel. In the place he lands, there are dead trees around him, covered in spider webs and rot. Decrepit paintings, half shredded, falling out of their frames.]
[There's a presence behind him, a looming shadow with antlers falls over him. His blood runs cold and he's frozen in place, terrified, unable to turn to see who it is.]
["What a shame. What a shame. What a shame." The voice keeps repeating the words in the same measured cadence and tone, over and over, like a recording. He's not sure what exactly is a shame but it's the tones someone uses before hurting someone. Like a supervillain in a movie. "What a shame I'll have to kill her, Mr. Bond." But worse. The voice sounds so...disappointed.]
[A hand finally breaks the cycle of frozen terror by suddenly clamping down on Hunter's shoulder. The hand looks like a zombie's, green and rotten, flesh nearly dripping off it. It oozes thick, black ichor down his shoulder, staining his clothes, and the hand digs in so hard he can't break away, so hard and so painfully that he starts wondering if any of the fluid is possibly his own blood.]
[Finally the voice, calm - so calm - says something new.]
["Out of all the grimwalkers, you looked the most like him."]
[The hand yanks and he tumbles back into black nothingness, falling into... some empty place. A terrible place where things go to be buried forever. He never sees who was grabbing him but a voice through the hole above him says blithely, "I was really expecting him to last longer than the others."]
[It is with that abrupt feeling of falling to his doom that he wakes up with a start, gasping and clutching at his chest. He wheezes as he tries to get his breathing under control. It takes time. But he's in his room. Everything is normal. He calms down.]
[It's okay. Just a stupid dream. Maybe he's been watching too much Storm of Kings because that was very high fantasy. (What's a Grimwalker? His subconscious isn't telling.)]
[Then he gets up to get some water and sees... someone on the lawn. Someone in a white cloak and a...mask? Why is there someone in a cloak and a creepy mask on the lawn?! He almost cries out to his aunt but something about it makes him feel... compelled to run downstairs first in a wild scramble to get a closer look at the backyard. His heart clenches when he thinks he sees them again, up closer now - someone his height, just outside, but then...]
[He breathes out a sigh of relief as he realizes it's not someone right on the other side of the glass, just his reflection on the sliding glass door. Still, he saw someone from above, someone down on the lawn below, staring right up at him.]
[He presses his face against the glass, hands cupping around his eyes to avoid any glare. He doesn't turn on the light, instead letting his darkness-adjusted eyes peer out into the darkness, half-lit by the annoying flood lamps of the neighbors that turn on whenever so much as a tree branch moves in the wind.]
[Nothing. Nothing moving in the tree line. If it was someone wearing white, he should've been able to spot them running by the time he got downstairs but he doesn't see a retreating back.]
[No one's there.]
[Maybe it was- was just in his head. He was having a nightmare, right? He used to have night terrors and sleepwalk when he was younger. He'd even had a bout of sleep paralysis now and again. It wouldn't be the first time he thought he saw something but had it be a waking dream. It's just...been a while since it happened.]
[He had a lot more of them when he was little, after his parents died.]
[Then he sees something moving in the shadows near the tree line. A large, gangly-limbed shadow. Two glowing eyes appear in the dark.]
[Then several other glowing eyes appear slightly below the first two.]
AUNT EDAAA!
[The scream is plenty loud enough to wake her up. He runs over to the stairs to meet her.]
no subject
Okay.
[And then it's a nice, normal evening, with a nice, normal dinner. After dinner, he does his homework and goes to bed.]
[His dreams are uneasy. They go strange places. A normal if odd dream about school changes and he winds up walking the empty, dim halls of some kind of palace. The candelabras barely shed any light. Leaning against a painting causes him to rip right through it, so that he falls down through a tunnel. In the place he lands, there are dead trees around him, covered in spider webs and rot. Decrepit paintings, half shredded, falling out of their frames.]
[There's a presence behind him, a looming shadow with antlers falls over him. His blood runs cold and he's frozen in place, terrified, unable to turn to see who it is.]
["What a shame. What a shame. What a shame." The voice keeps repeating the words in the same measured cadence and tone, over and over, like a recording. He's not sure what exactly is a shame but it's the tones someone uses before hurting someone. Like a supervillain in a movie. "What a shame I'll have to kill her, Mr. Bond." But worse. The voice sounds so...disappointed.]
[A hand finally breaks the cycle of frozen terror by suddenly clamping down on Hunter's shoulder. The hand looks like a zombie's, green and rotten, flesh nearly dripping off it. It oozes thick, black ichor down his shoulder, staining his clothes, and the hand digs in so hard he can't break away, so hard and so painfully that he starts wondering if any of the fluid is possibly his own blood.]
[Finally the voice, calm - so calm - says something new.]
["Out of all the grimwalkers, you looked the most like him."]
[The hand yanks and he tumbles back into black nothingness, falling into... some empty place. A terrible place where things go to be buried forever. He never sees who was grabbing him but a voice through the hole above him says blithely, "I was really expecting him to last longer than the others."]
[It is with that abrupt feeling of falling to his doom that he wakes up with a start, gasping and clutching at his chest. He wheezes as he tries to get his breathing under control. It takes time. But he's in his room. Everything is normal. He calms down.]
[It's okay. Just a stupid dream. Maybe he's been watching too much Storm of Kings because that was very high fantasy. (What's a Grimwalker? His subconscious isn't telling.)]
[Then he gets up to get some water and sees... someone on the lawn. Someone in a white cloak and a...mask? Why is there someone in a cloak and a creepy mask on the lawn?! He almost cries out to his aunt but something about it makes him feel... compelled to run downstairs first in a wild scramble to get a closer look at the backyard. His heart clenches when he thinks he sees them again, up closer now - someone his height, just outside, but then...]
[He breathes out a sigh of relief as he realizes it's not someone right on the other side of the glass, just his reflection on the sliding glass door. Still, he saw someone from above, someone down on the lawn below, staring right up at him.]
[He presses his face against the glass, hands cupping around his eyes to avoid any glare. He doesn't turn on the light, instead letting his darkness-adjusted eyes peer out into the darkness, half-lit by the annoying flood lamps of the neighbors that turn on whenever so much as a tree branch moves in the wind.]
[Nothing. Nothing moving in the tree line. If it was someone wearing white, he should've been able to spot them running by the time he got downstairs but he doesn't see a retreating back.]
[No one's there.]
[Maybe it was- was just in his head. He was having a nightmare, right? He used to have night terrors and sleepwalk when he was younger. He'd even had a bout of sleep paralysis now and again. It wouldn't be the first time he thought he saw something but had it be a waking dream. It's just...been a while since it happened.]
[He had a lot more of them when he was little, after his parents died.]
[Then he sees something moving in the shadows near the tree line. A large, gangly-limbed shadow. Two glowing eyes appear in the dark.]
[Then several other glowing eyes appear slightly below the first two.]
AUNT EDAAA!
[The scream is plenty loud enough to wake her up. He runs over to the stairs to meet her.]