Pact - Monophobia

            He did not awake to the smell of freshly baked bread, nor sunlight streaming through the windows; instead, he came from sleep to find himself in the dark; a single line of sunlight fractured his room, defying the drawn curtains. At his bedside, upon the nightstand, nothing. An unlit candle, recently extinguished. Thin coils of smoke unwound from the burnt tip.
            How long had it been? Weeks? Months? He couldn’t tell. It’d all been one nightmare from the moment it had appeared, broken by dreary scenes of daylight where his parents were missing. Some false semblance of a false reality, and terrible, even for that.
            Thirsty, he called for a servant. None came. He called again, hoarse, waited longer. As he waited, he listened, and through the cold walls he heard only the empty corridor. His room, likewise deserted, for day had come, and nothing more.
            He gave one last call for the servants, his voice wasted for ears that would not hear and feet that would never come. He already knew. Feil pulled himself from bed and went to the window. For several moments, he stood before the heavy curtain. The sunlight beckoned through the break,  and at last he lifted a hand, but then he thought the better of it. He turned to the chamber door instead.
            The hall stood empty, as he knew it would; the torches lit, the sputtering of their flames far quieter than usual, as if they existed only by threat, force, coercion- and not of the nature of torches and flames. He proceeded down the hall, every step preceded by an echo, followed by silence; he looked left and right, behind as he moved forward, seeing nothing- knowing he would see nothing.
            His parents’ chamber, unattended; the door cracked. No guards. No servants. No sound. He listened, and he watched. Light inside from the open window, unlike the unreliable and flickering light of the hall’s flames. He couldn’t bear to go inside, and so he turned to retreat.
            A cry, sharp and piercing, the wail of a babe. It nailed him in place and bled his ears, he was sure. With some effort, he lifted a foot.
            The cry came again, and now he nearly fell over, so rigid, balance almost impossible. He set his foot down.
            There was a voice. A voice he had not heard in a long, long time. “Beautiful,” she said. Mother. So full of warmth, of life… of love, when she spoke. He needed to see her. He turned for the door—and then away again— and then, his father’s voice. Murmuring things he could not understand, hushed tones of affection.
            He pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. He heaved upon it with all his might, to no avail. As he struggled, he could hear more wails, an affectionate cooing, and the soft voices of his mother and father soothing the child.
            “Mother!” He called. “Father!”
            Still, the conversation continued, no mind paid to him. He tried to squeeze through the crack, but it was too narrow for him to fit; peering through did not grant him access. He could see a small sliver of the bedchamber, the wrong portion— his parents stood beyond his field of vision, upon the balcony.
            He pushed on the door, slammed his shoulder into it, but it would not move. Desperate, he scampered away from the door, then came charging back at it with everything he had.
            It gave, and easily so. He fell into it with such a resounding thud and sprawled into the bedchamber, stunned. He tumbled across the floor, and for the moments it took to right himself and let the dizziness pass, he did not notice the silence.
            At first he figured they were watching him; but no, even the babe had fallen silent.  He lifted his gaze to see them, his parents; their backs were turned, his mother clutching a bundle to her breast, leaning over it, his father leaning over them both. Neither noticed.
            “Mother! Father!”
            They started for the door, paying him no mind, all silence, all cold. They passed through the doors and shut them, and the moment they did, the baby cooed.