Waiting in the dark

Dark and late. Doubt shuffles as the tangible wavers for a moment. No. Always groundless. Almost.

Figures in the dark crystallize on the periphery, shimmer for a moment under unfocused gaze before resolution, chiding and relief. Safe here, warm and familiar.

The mind's dormant, dull heat prickles; that black, blacker than the surrounding dark, is wrong. It seems... bigger. It isn't; with complete certainty, it isn't. Almost.

Black snow melts misshapen and something shifts and now tense, alert. A shrill crack and murmur (where?), skin pulls taut and furtive doubt creeps close, a few feet away, invisible but almost tangible while the tangible wavers violently.

GREGORY

The mind opens and all floods in though little warmth with it. Those peripheral shapes, frail before now redouble into malefic dark and menace and bay silently. Paralyzed and sure, sure it can hear that sharp respire. Just outside the door now. Fumble for the light, silence severs and light on and door thrown wide and in it rushes, not bounding but gliding with terrible urgency, swift, a warm and desperate sigh and lily-white eyes naked, longing, enormous, twisting and shuddering toward you, half-moon mouth split jagged, bursting hands reaching and eager; blood cold and silent shriek.