[✔] sciamachy // m. fairchild

vi

❦

The dining hall was silent that night as they ate dinner. Miles was sat right across from Y/n, his foot kicking her leg every so often, but she continuously pulled her leg away, not wanting to be in close proximity with him right now. Before Y/n could finish her meal and escape from the awkward meal, Kate opened her mouth to speak up, just as she had promised. After all, she wanted them to sit at the dining hall table for the moment to talk.

"So, Miles." Kate started, placing her utensils down gently, folding her hands in front of her. Now Y/n knew she was getting serious. Kate only folded her hands and sat abnormally formally when she had something serious on her mind and needed to have a conversation about it to get it out of her system. "Y/n told me that you said she was going to die here." Kate explained, staring at Miles. Miles simply turned to Y/n, sending a death glare at her. His body tensed and his eyes darkened while he glared at her. Then, he kicked Y/n's shin roughly.

"Ow." She whispered, reaching her hand under the table to rub her guaranteed-to-be-bruised shin. Miles ignored Y/n's whimper of pain and turned to Kate, finishing the food in his mouth before speaking calming.

"I didn't say that." Miles said, glancing at Y/n. "I said she's just as insane as me." 

"Oh, sure. What else did you force into her head?" Kate prodded. Y/n panicked. If Kate kept doing that, Miles would end up snapping at her, and couldn't possibly end well. Y/n had already seen the insane side of Miles and she didn't particularly want to see what he could do when he had tipped over the edge and was boiling with anger. Y/n could only imagine him breaking things and screaming at the top of his lungs. She visibly flinched as the Miles in her head started screaming at Kate.

"Kate, it's fine. Leave Miles alone." Y/n said quickly, trying to get her older sister to drop it. However, Kate didn't get the simple hint. Y/n's older sister continued to poke and prod at the situation, making everyone else around her uncomfortable. Flora and Y/n waited tensely for Miles to explode like an active volcano. Miles sat across the table, his jaw clenched, fist wrapped tightly around his knife–not a very good choice in utensils to be holding at the moment.

"I can't tell you because you wouldn't understand!" Miles finally snapped, stabbing the knife into the table. Kate and Y/n both inhaled sharply as the sound of wood cracking echoed throughout the not silent dining hall. 

Miles stood up, pushing his chair over. He hastily grabbed his plate, raising it above his head. Frantically, he threw it down, the china-glass shattering all over the maroon carpet. Flora jumped and covered her ears, Kate glaring at Miles. Y/n watched, stunned, as the whole thing went down. If worse came to worst, Miles and Kate would start physically fighting, fist against fist. Y/n knew if that did happen, Miles would most definitely win, which scared her horribly.

"If you'd just tried, maybe I would understand!" Kate argued, standing up. "But as of now, I've had enough of you! Go to your room! I don't want you to talk to me or Y/n until it's an apology that's coming out of your mouth, Mister." Kate yelled, shoving Miles out of the dining hall. Before he turned the corner out of sight, Miles turned around and used both of his hands to flip Kate off, a frown plastered on his face. Y/n simply watched, her mouth agape. Kate turned to look at her little sister, pinching her nose with her pointer and thumb. Kate sighed loudly, smiling gently at Flora before Y/n had enough courage to speak up.

"You didn't have to drag me into this." Y/n whispered, picking up her plate and walking into the kitchen. She'd forgotten how nice it was to be surrounded by silence as she walked into the quiet kitchen. Gently, she placed her plate in the sink, turning around to see Flora standing in the doorway. Flora's face was emotionless, her hair falling into her face giving her a shady look. The little girl's fists clenched at the hem of her dress, a tear slipping down her cheek, plinking softly on the floor. Flora reached a hand up, wiping the salty water off her cheek, dazedly staring ahead. 

"Why does Miles think you're going to die?" Flora murmured so quietly that if Y/n had been standing even the slightest bit farther away, so wouldn't have been able to decipher what the little girl had just said. "Do you see things too?" Flora elaborated. Y/n sighed, shaking her head.

"No." Y/n answered simply. She wasn't about to scare this little girl by saying, 'Yeah! And your brother's shadow friend is haunting me! Along with that, my chances of going insane or dying have gone through the roof!'

"Oh." Was all Flora said before turning around, about to walk out the room again. "Do you want to go to my room? Play dollies with me?" She whispered, her eyes boring into Y/n's as the little girl stared at her over her shoulder. Flora's eyes pleaded for Y/n so say yes, so, sighing, Y/n gave in.

"Of course, Flora. I just need to talk to your brother first."

"Kate says he's not supposed to talk to you." Flora hadn't said it, but instead implied the fact that Y/n wasn't supposed to talk to Miles, either. Y/n knew Flora was right, but she needed to talk to Miles. He's the only one who saw the same things that she did. If they had any chance of getting out of it sanely, they had to work together. Plan it all out. Stick by each other for balance and stability as they bost lost their minds to this mystery shadow-man.

❦

The only thing Y/n could hear from Miles' room was furious banging. She knocked on his door, somehow hoping he'd miraculously hear her tiny knock. Unsurprisingly, he didn't. She tried knocking again, seeing if he would hear her this time. Still no luck.

"Miles!" She screamed, pounding on his door this time. The sound behind the closed door came to a scratchy as the door flung itself open.

"You shouldn't be here." Miles started.

"That wouldn't be the first time I've heard that, yet here I am." Y/n retorted, stepping into the room. Miles was sitting behind a drum set, tapping his foot rapidly. In his hands were drumsticks, both tapping ferociously against the other, causing a ticking sound to flow around the room. The ticking noise started to get on Y/n's nerves so she walked over, grabbed the sticks from his hands and gently placed them down on his mattress of a bed. 

"Hey!" Miles whined.

"I can't stand that atrocious sound. I'm already losing my mind with this shadow, I don't need something else making me go crazy." Y/n whispered, sitting down on the edge of Miles' mattress. Miles went silent at the mention of his shadow-friend, so Y/n took the opportunity to look around his room.

Miles obviously didn't have a proper bed, just a mattress, pushed against the center of the wall opposite the door. On the right wall–from the doorway–there was a bookshelf, his drum set placed right in front of it. To the left was a bedside table, records and whatnot piled on top of it. Miles had some band posters on his walls, some of which Y/n had heard before, but may not have particularly liked besides a few songs (however, she didn't care about his taste in music, that was his opinion). Her eyes were drawn to a corkboard that was hung in the center of an empty wall, the wall opposite his bed. When Miles laid down, he had a perfect angle of all the pictures pinned to the board. A plentiful amount of pictures of Flora, some of him. One picture had a picture of Miles and some other man. Miles sat on a majestic black horse, a grin on his face–not his well-known insane one–a genuinely happy one. Y/n immediately recognized it as a matching picture to the one in a frame on Miles' bedside table. Carefully, Y/n picked up the picture of Miles and the man, inspecting it closely.

"Who's this?" She whispered, her fingertips grazing over Miles' happy face. Her heart leaped at the sight of him. Y/n realized just how pulchritudinous Miles was from seeing this beautiful picture of him smiling. She'd just wished she could see it face-to-face.

"We should talk." Miles vaguely said, sitting down next to Y/n on the edge of the mattress. Miles laid down backward, staring at the picture in Y/n's hands. "It includes him."

[words : 1503]