the hungry ghosts

three

Daron spent the rest of the day trying to de-stress, to minimal avail. His frayed nerves were still sparking from his earlier encounter, but the main question he kept asking himself was: Why was he so upset? Something about these shadows had gotten to him.

At some point during the afternoon, while Daron was cleaning his kitchen (mostly to just keep himself busy), someone knocked on the door. He took a deep breath and sighed; the last thing he wanted was more human interaction, but he set down the cleaning supplies and walked over to open the door, expecting to see one of his bandmates again.

Instead, it was his friend Violet, who could only visit every once in a while due to the fact that she lived halfway across the country (southern Texas). Daron blinked at her, still trying to process her presence, and she raised her eyebrows. "Someone's distracted."

"Sorry." Daron snapped out of his strange trance and allowed her to embrace him, hugging her back just as tightly. "There's a lot going on in my head right now."

"I couldn't tell," she returned sarcastically. "I'm here visiting my parents at the moment and thought I'd stop by. I didn't know how busy you were, but you're usually here at this time of day, from what I remember."

He nodded, opening the door to let her in and subsequently shutting it once she was inside. "I'm not doing anything important. We're taking a break, apparently."

Violet's eyebrows swept downward, her dark brown eyes fixed on him. "Who? The band?"

Daron sighed, sitting on one of the barstools. "Yeah. They apparently think I'm too stressed out or something, so they came by earlier and told me that we're going to take a break from playing shows so I can get a chance to recharge. I don't need it, but they insisted."

"They... what?" Violet sat next to him. "So you're just... not going to play shows for a while?"

Daron threw up his hands. "I'm just as lost as you are."

"Damn, I was looking forward to seeing you guys play while I was here," she said.

"Sorry." There was little to no emotion in his voice. "You're going to have to talk to the guys about that one."

Violet studied his face, noticing that he avoided her gaze. "Daron, what's wrong?"

"You're not the first person to ask me that this week," he muttered cynically.

"Does it bother you that much?" She didn't break her stare, keeping it fixed on Daron's face. "Do you need me to go talk to them?"

The defensive note in her second question caught his attention. "No, it'll blow over. It's not like we're breaking up or anything."

"No, there's something else going on," she continued suspiciously. "Why did they really tell you to take time off?"

Daron exhaled heavily. "Vi, please, I don't want to talk--"

"Daron, look at me." Her voice was firm. Daron did as she told him to, mostly because he was a little intimidated by her (to be fair, she was built like an elite athlete; she had been drumming for about as long as he'd been playing guitar). "I don't care what bullshit lies you fed your friends about why you're feeling the way you are. You can trust me."

He only looked at her for a second longer before the tears came back. Violet immediately softened her demeanor and pulled him into a reassuring hug. She didn't say anything for a while, which was exactly what Daron needed. He began to explain what was going on, starting with the shadow people and the fact that they made him question his own sanity. Then he told her about how he'd been feeling emotionally unstable recently and how, essentially, it upset him how upset he was. She listened to him explain it through hiccups and sobs, keeping him firmly wrapped in her arms the whole time. When he finally quieted down, she pulled back and took his hands into hers, looking into his tearful eyes. "Sounds like you've got a lot going on."