Alternate Universe

Vigilantly the brown-haired young man had set foot in the common living room. Cautious of the atrocious -presumably supernatural- man who had been lingering in his brain folds and haunted his dreams during fidgety nights he struggled through, ever since he had first laid his eyes on him. Fearing the possibility of him popping up out of nowhere, including this particular room—although he had only encountered him in pubs up and till now. Deep down he knew Jeremy was unpredictable, and knew he could all of a sudden appear anywhere, anytime.
           Fortuitously, this was not the case this time, the room was lacking the presence of any living peculiar whatsoever. It was entirely vacant aside from the warm colored furniture and decorations covering every nook and cranny of the capacity. A crackling sound originative from the fireplace adjacent to the wall on Rafe’s right was the only sound his auditory senses captivated. His visual senses capturing the scenery, bended by the warmth radiating from the bright orange flames. The circumstances were simply superb; the pursuit of tranquility, right in this room. A long withheld content sigh escaped from his lungs, incarcerated since forever, as he walked towards the couch facing the fireplace. A small grin crept upon his face as he let the comfort of huge mushy cushion, adapting to his body shape, take over. Briefly he closed his eyelids while his hand traipsed across the rough cover of the book he had had clamped in his hand the whole time. It was an old novel, still written in Old English, barely capable of holding its pages altogether—hence the abundant attempts of taping lose pages back in place. Some successfully, others undeniably showing their last signs of strength, inevitable to disassemble once again. Despite the disintegrating state of the novel, Rafe cherished it, had read it numerously in the countless years he had resided in the loop. Rafe carefully took his pair of glasses out of his pocket. He seldom wore them, only when he when he would read. Normally his enhanced senses would countervail his slight deteriorated visual capability, but it simply did not work that way when it came to reading. He had prolonged the inevitable for years, he hated the concept of himself wearing glasses. Eventually after all these years he gave up on his own obstinacy when he could barely distinguish the different letters anymore, and acquired a pair of decent glasses—which he nonetheless still refuses to wear on any occasion besides reading. After he had put on the pair of glasses he let his ethereal blue with brown mixed eyes roam the room once more, trying to detect any potential changes since he had entered the room. Subsequently his slightly calloused finger glided across the corners of the innumerable pages, searching for the dog-eared one, which he found within seconds. He opened the novel and allowed his eyes to meander through the myriad of words covering the yellow pages, until they settled on one in particular, the one where he had left off. It did not take long before he had departed to an alternate universe, the one of the novel, mesmerized by its story, its words, allowing his mind to focus on something else than the fearsome man haunting his every move.

Old ink was ambling through his brain folds, tantamount to rustling water meandering through the bends of an ancient river, inevitably returning to its originative source and perpetually starting its journey anew. Beguiled by the novelist’s words, and the construction of its metaphorically composed sentences, the young man did not descry the percolating occupation of the once vacant room. A little girl had pierced his anticipated bubble of privacy, he had only not yet realized the newly acquired circumstances as his eyes kept skimming the yellow pages with its blunt sides and partially faded words due its age. Occasionally he nudged his glasses back to their original position after the gravitational pull caused it to gradually descend and dwindle the distance between Rafe’s noise tip and the frames.
          When all of a sudden a soft sensation tickled the back of his hand he jolted up and looked at its source cautiously. His hands clamming the feeble cover of the novel, which quietly protested by emitting a slight cracking sound, suggesting potential fracture. However, since his full attention was drawn to the girl, he did not notice. A callous expression covered his face, subduing his darkest fears which had ascended to the outer surface momentarily as soon as she had touched his hand, and broken the imaginative veil covering him while he was residing in the alternate universe in which the novel had captured him. What in hell was going on in that kid? He did not even know her, let alone that he approved of any physical contact originative from the stranger kid.  'Why are you scared? It is not for the Hollows, but for someone,' spoke a soft angelic voice, not matching the perceivable age of the child at all. Rafe’s brows created apparent hooks on his expression, furrowing, finding it inconceivable that the child could have read his emotions within such a small period of time. He was known for his remote expression and the incompetence to dissect any emotion from it. It caused confusion to arise in him. “It is way past your curfew kid, and I don’t know what you’re talking about” his languid voice muttered, covered with slight annoyance due to the disturbance she had caused. “Just quit prolonging your bedtime, do both me and your mother a favor and go to sleep,” he continued while slightly gnashing his teeth, partially avoiding answering her question which poked at his greatest fear. Before he had the chance to shift his attention back to the novel, hoping she would return to her room, the child asked another question regarding the story of the decomposing novel he was holding. A scoff was pressed out of his respiratory system immediately after the realization of what she had asked hit him. Why would a child her age show interest in such an old novel? “Did your mother not teach you to not approach, nor talk to strangers? Or should I offer you some candy and invite you to my room to get the goddamn message across?” he snarled, hoping to intimidate her and thus scare her off. Rafe was not your most socially interactive person, nor did he mentally prepare himself for a profound conversation with a child of all people in this house. He is quite an ill-tempered guy.