Fall: Four

It was at night, when Jack awoke, that he felt something was different. He hardly ever woke up in the middle of the night, which was good—he hated being the only person not sleeping away the dark and shadows, the whispering quiet. The quiet always whispered, just more so in the dark. During the day, Jack didn't mind the little sounds that moved beneath the normal noises of life, the talking and birds and moving cars. In fact, he rarely even heard it. But when he was lying in his bed, and Kyle and his parents were in their rooms breathing deeply in their sleep, dreaming dreams they wouldn't recall when they woke up, Jack couldn't help but concentrate on the whispers. He never quite understood them; they were like the shadows that flitted about his room, always just barely out of the range of distinction. Even though he found the whispers eerie, he was usually able to drift back into sleep on the rare occasions he woke up in the middle of the night.

This time was different, though. This time, when the boy's large, gleaming eyes blinked open fully-adjusted to the bluey darkness and his ears took in the nearly audible whispers, he got the strange yet definite impression that they were about him. Jack wasn't sure why he felt that. He'd never wondered what the whispers were going on about. They'd been in his life since the day he was born. He was never certain who or what was doing the whispering, just that it had always been there, and since he'd never been able to understand it, he hadn't cared what they were saying. Now, however, as he slowly sat up in his bed, a tingle shivered across his shoulders and down his back, marking out the ridges of his spine. For whatever reason, he could tell that the whispering was about him. No exact words—just the overall subject matter.

He wished he hadn't woken up. He wished he was still soundly sleeping. But wishing was pointless, because there he was, more awake than ever, knowing that he was woven into whatever discussion was taking place between the layers of the realness and what it backed up against.

"Kyle?" spoke Jack into the gloom, not sure why he said his brother's name. He knew Kyle was sleeping. Knew he was nowhere in the room. Knew he had never been the source of the whispering.

Something about hearing his own voice was disturbing. Jack had thought it would reassure him, but it had the opposite effect.

He glanced across his room, looking at the dresser and bookcase, the desk and half-open closet, the ceiling fan and mobile he'd made in fourth grade hanging from it, twisting softly in the moonlight. Luckily, most of the shadows were either gone or resting. Jack saw only one small spot of dark, quivering over by his window, right on the sill until he tried to stare at it, at which point it shifted to the edge of his desk. Rather than turning on his light to scare the thing off, Jack felt suddenly that he wanted to look out the window as well, so, slipping off his mattress, he crossed the wooden floor. It was cool on his bare feet and made his legs break into goosebumps.

The one window in Jack's room was at the back of the Kemper's house. It looked out onto the field. The boy had never particularly liked that, but he also hadn't been scared by it. He felt safe in his house, regardless of what he felt on the outside of it. Now, though, as he looked out into the black field, some strange feeling came across him. Some feeling that began in his stomach and rose up into his chest, behind his ribs. It was a panicky sensation, although he was unsure why he felt it. His mind remembered the ground. The movement he'd earlier felt beneath his feet.

Something was different.

The whispers had never concerned him. The earth had never trembled. He had never felt so alarmed in his own room.

Now at the bottom foot of the boy's dresser, the blot of gloom pulsed slowly. It, too, knew that something was different. Even without possessing material senses such as hearing and sight, it could tell through the undercurrents in the air, the knowledge it had always had, the way it felt more agitated than it ever had before.

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