Chapter Text
-After podcast #181 (I think, please correct if I’m wrong)-
“So, do you have those kinds of dreams often, Gavin? Not the acting like a psycho part obviously otherwise you wouldn’t have been so weirded out by your own actions.”
Gavin looked up at his grinning friend from his seat, an odd frown marring his face, one that his friend hadn’t expected given the teasing nature of his question. “Where I can control the dream? No, not really.” He stopped himself from adding to that sentence. He did dream a lot but no, not those kinds of dreams.
He didn’t even know if they could be counted as dreams.
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He could always remember the first time he’d had his reoccurring dream. Not the date, or how old he was or anything like that because it almost felt like it was his earliest memory, it had always been there. Even though he didn’t know if it counted as a memory and thinking about that just hurt his brain so he ignored that thought process and settled for what he did know. One time he’d fallen asleep and suddenly he was there.
The shadow.
Or that’s what he called him; he had no other words for him.
He’d looked around a dimly lit area and there he was, a shadowy figure who looked about his age, looking in the opposite direction. Gavin had called out to him, unaware that at that moment that he had anything to worry about. He just seemed lonely and being a child, he hadn’t yet learnt about approaching people and his dream self had even less of a notion to care at that moment especially as it just seemed like a kid his age.
That is until the boy jumped and paid attention, turning around as if surprised to see him. That was when Gavin had started to get nervous. There were no features to discern, no eyes, no mouth, nothing but darkness. It was like someone had got a hold of the boys shadow and made it 3D, which is why Gavin had nicknamed him that and it stuck, even as he got older and thought it was unoriginal. Unable to help it, he side stepped a few times, watching the shadow’s head follow him.
How did he do that when he didn’t have eyes?
Gavin jumped back as the shadow waved at him and gestured him closer. When he didn’t do anything, the gestures became more frantic as if it was urgent that he come and see him. The boy stomped before gesturing at his mouth and then at Gavin. It took a while for Gavin to realise.
“No, I can’t hear you. Can you hear me?” Gavin relaxed as the boy nodded. It wasn’t that the boy was panicking; he was just frustrated that he couldn’t get his message through. He took a step closer again; glad when the boy just stretched a hand out instead of his earlier flailing motions. He kept walking forward, ignoring the small alarm bell in favour of making a new friend. As he got closer, he got scared again, like the figure was something he should stay away from. Like the bogeyman his mum always warned him would come and get him if he wasn’t good. His eyes flickered to the shadow as he thought this, feeling something shift. Like thinking the boy was a monster had changed him into one.
His thoughts were confirmed when he stood just out of reach and the boy made a grab for him, his child’s mind seeing the hand reaching for him as a claw and he fell backwards out of the way. The boy didn’t follow him though, instead hitting a barrier. It paused for a second, Gavin watching him trace an invisible wall that stood between them before it slammed its hands into it for good measure and looked up as if it was howling in rage. Gavin didn’t take the chance to stand up and check the wall for himself, using the moment to propel himself away from it all, effectively waking up from the dream with a start.
Gavin always woke up shaking after the dream, even as an adult when he was used to it, even when every single time he was stuck there he knew it was just a nightmare and that he would wake up from it. Sometimes he wouldn’t have the dream for weeks, sometimes every night for an extended period and yet every time was almost the same. The shadowy figure, a small dimly lit area that sometimes let the figure seem more human, as if he was just standing in shadows instead of being one himself and the barrier between them all stayed mostly the same. The actions of the figure changed though; sometimes it would just watch him, other times it would charge blindly at the barrier as if it could break it. The worst times, in Gavin’s opinion, were when it just held out its hand to him as if pleading with him to just try and pass through the barrier himself because it couldn’t. It also grew along with him, ageing, growing taller though soon Gavin was taller and he wasn’t quite sure whether to still be afraid or not, whether as it was just a dream he should just reach out a hand and try and get through the barrier, to see what was on the other side with the shadowy figure. Those times when he started to doubt himself and what he was doing, usually had the shadow gesturing more frantically again as if it knew it was winning and then Gavin would remember the first time again with the clawed hand lashing out at him and he’d realise he was right to stay away.
It wasn’t until a long time later that the dreams started to change. Gavin had grown up, joined Roosterteeth without any worries about the dream, passing it off as a childish fear that came to haunt him once in a while. Geoff vaguely knew about them from the times he’d woken up in the night but he’d brushed off the questioning, knowing in himself that it was no big deal, just something he lived with. Something his twisted brain had forced upon him since childhood.
And then Michael Jones had entered his life.
And the shadow took a step forward.