Chapter Text
Theo nearly stumbled as Arthur shoved him past the giant wooden door and slammed it shut. For a second, the two stood in silence, panting in the near-total darkness. Theo pressed his ear to the door to try and figure out if that—thing—had followed them, but was met with silence. He eventually stood, shaking his head and running a hand through his perpetually tangled hair. He looked over at Arthur, who seemed to be staring off into the distance again. At least he didn’t look possessed this time. “What… the fuck just happened?” was all Theo could say. Arthur looked over at him, the moonlight reflecting eerily off his pale blue eyes.
Instead of answering, he turned resolutely on his heel and once again grabbed the sleeve of Theo’s coat.
They kept walking until they reached their shared room. Arthur plopped down on his bed, not bothering to turn on the lights. Theo followed suit. He squinted at his roommate. Of all the theories Theo had come up with to explain Arthur’s odd behavior, he had to admit that consorting with naked, pale women at three am was not one of them. And that didn’t even cover the whole black eyes, pointy teeth thing. Theo quickly got tired of letting Arthur brood mysteriously in silence. Crossing his arms, he said, “Planning on answering my question any time soon?”
Arthur sighed and looked out the window, chewing on his bottom lip. The moon had almost completely disappeared behind the clouds. “Look,” he said, “how much I tell you depends on how much you’re willing to suspend your disbelief.”
Theo rolled his eyes. “After what I just saw, I’d say my disbelief is pretty fuckin’ suspended,” he replied. He was remembering why he hated English majors, sometimes.
Arthur scoffed. “What you just saw, in case you couldn’t tell, wasn’t human,” he told Theo.
“Yeah, no shit,” Theo responded.
“God, can you make it like, a minute without swearing?” Arthur asked.
Theo smirked. “Sorry for offending your delicate sensibilities, your highness,” he said.
Arthur flared his nostrils, clearly struggling to control his temper. Theo worried for his blood pressure. “Do you want me to try and explain this to you, or not? Because I’d be perfectly happy with going to sleep and pretending this never happened. I have an eight am class tomorrow,” Arthur gritted out.
Theo flopped back on his bed and waved his hand as a gesture for Arthur to continue.
Arthur sighed again, like the dramatic bastard he was. After a moment, he kicked off his shoes, dumping them on the floor, and stretched out on the twin-sized mattress. Theo took a second to be jealous of Arthur’s height. “I don’t honestly know much more than you do,” Arthur began. “I started having weird dreams this summer since I graduated high school. I don’t even know how to describe them. I’m always in a forest, I think—running from something. Or maybe running to something. And then I hit this invisible wall, and I’m terrified, but I never know why. And then something shatters, and there’s this super bright light and my ears start ringing and I wake up. And I’ve had this same dream almost every night.”
Theo lifted his head to look at his roommate. “Arthur-”
“Call me Art.”
“-not a chance. I’ll admit your dreams are freaky and all, but that doesn’t explain the nudist outside our dorms,” Theo said.
“Yeah, I’m getting there,” Arthur replied. “Since getting here, on campus, I’ve been feeling this weird pull towards the woods. I’ve mostly just been ignoring it. Today’s the first time anything has actually happened. I haven’t seen—whatever we saw outside—before.”
Theo puzzled at Arthur’s wording for a second before dismissing it. His head was beginning to hurt anyway. “Look,” he said, “let’s just get some sleep. We can talk about this tomorrow, as long as you’re not disappearing off to wherever you are all day.” Theo finally pulled off his coat, dumping it on his desk chair, and kicked off his boots.
“Whatever,” Arthur replied, rolling over in his bed, seemingly content to sleep in his jacket. Theo shrugged and collapsed onto his bed. He didn’t feel like puzzling over the events of the night just yet. He fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.
-
All too soon, Theo’s frankly obnoxious alarm rang out. He groaned. It had only been about three hours since he had fallen asleep, but he really had to get to practice if he wanted to keep his scholarship. Glancing over at Arthur’s bed, he was unsurprised to notice his roommate was already gone. Still, something in him felt settled upon seeing the neatly made bed. Theo rolled out of bed, grabbing his backpack and a granola bar, and hurried out of the room.
Despite the ungodly hour, Theo smiled to see the lacrosse field lit by the rising sun. The view was spectacular. The field was set on a hill at the edge of campus, which overlooked the small college town that had sprung up next to the university. Taking in the view, Theo headed over to his friends, who were stretching out ahead of the start of practice.
“You okay, man?” his friend Andrew asked him.
“Yeah, why?” Theo replied.
“Nothing, it’s just... your dark circles are looking more pronounced than usual today.”
Theo snorted. “Wow, thanks,” he said. “I’m fine. Just didn’t get a ton of sleep last night.”
Andrew nodded, a few strands of his black hair escaping his hair tie, which held half of his hair out of his face. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not like I regularly get more than six hours a night anyway,” he said with a rueful smile.
Practice went until 8:30, after which Theo took a quick shower and headed to the library to get coffee and get some homework done. He and calculus had a love-hate relationship, especially after the problem set took him a full two hours to complete, but he tried to convince himself he didn’t regret picking a math major anyway.
Walking back to his dorm room, Theo tried to stave off an impending headache. Sitting down on his bed, he noticed—unsurprisingly—that Arthur was still gone. Normally Theo wouldn’t care, but that was before what happened last night. It still felt like a dream. And even though Arthur had seemed to be forthcoming, something felt off about his story. Theo just couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe he could find out more by snooping through Arthur’s things, though. It felt a little dirty, but he figured his morals could take a backseat. In the name of scientific curiosity.
Looking at Arthur’s desk, Theo noticed one of the drawers had a few papers sticking out of it. Tugging on the handle, he found it was jammed shut. He let out a frustrated noise. Mentally weighing the pros and cons of yanking it open, he settled for risking Arthur’s anger to sate his curiosity. He gave the handle a few more forceful tugs. Finally, it flew out, and Theo fell to the floor with the force of it. The entire drawer compartment had fallen out of the desk.
Theo kneeled and looked at the drawer’s contents. It was filled with strange, old-looking books and loose sheets of paper. Some of the books seemed to be of the textbook variety, while others looked like journals. A few weren't even in English. Theo picked up the scrap of paper that had been sticking out of the drawer and turned it over. There, on the wrinkled scrap, was an almost picture-perfect sketch of the creature they’d seen the night before. Next to the drawing was a series of bulleted notes, which it looked like Arthur had written himself. Theo couldn’t focus his mind enough to read them. He sat back on his heels, unable to take his eyes off of the drawing.
Arthur had said he hadn’t seen the woman with the black eyes before. Had he been lying? Or simply dancing around the truth? He clearly knew more than he was letting on. Either way, Theo intended to find out just how much Arthur was hiding.