The Doors Are Closed

And I'm Still Locked Inside

The blizzard rages outside. The bitter white cold presses against the windows and the doors hard enough that even through the thick wood, it burns with cold.

He tries the door anyway, pressing against it with a quarter of his strength before giving up seconds later. The silence is broken only by the quiet sound of his own breathing unless he focuses. When he does, he can barely hear the muffled howl of the blizzard through the layers of frosting locking him inside.

It's almost a pity that the blizzard thinks it has to barricade him within the walls of his home. He considers it a waste of effort on the part of nature.

Dark Cacao's hand traces the grain of the door, brushes against the indescribably cold metal, and pulls away to retreat into the heart of home.

The hallways echo with shadows.

They're half-remembered and twisting in the corners of his vision. If he turns his head to follow them, they almost seem to laugh, ducking aside to hide another day. He knows they're there. He can feel their smile, hear their silent whispers pressing against his back with oppressive diction.

Something tingles against his back, somehow beneath the cloth of his gambison. It twinges with a familiar pain.

He rolls his shoulders, leans back, and ignores them.

They aren't real, after all. He knows they aren't.

The shadows are familiar but unwelcome. Their twisted, mangled forms linger and smile, murmuring amongst themselves more than at him. He hears his name, he hears the names of those who used to serve beneath him before the world grew quiet, he hears the name of his son.

He turns to the shadows and glares where they are not.

He hears them laugh. He sees them move, dancing around the candlelight and scampering away. 'Oh, we've made him angry,' he can imagine them tittering, taking each others' hands and spinning up to the ceiling. Something coils around his neck, tangling against his vocal cords like a fist that squeezes too tightly. 'What'll he do? What'll he do?'

Dark Cacao clenches his jaw and turns away from them. He learned long ago that arguing with them only encourages them further. They'll get bored, eventually.

They'll get bored.

Or his mind will become too tired to manifest their image. Whichever comes first.

Whichever comes first.

The shadows laugh, and he ignores them.

[Break]

Dark Cacao hasn't touched his son's room since his exile.

Nor has he ever stepped into it since. Nor has he stepped into it since he was a half-baked child, looking up at him with his big, red eyes filled with a firm determination. "Can you stop messing with my room?" he asked in his small little voice.

It never was Dark Cacao who tampered with his belongings. Always, it was the castle's workers, but Dark Cacao grunted his ascent anyway and informed the maids. How are we supposed to clean the young prince's bedroom?, they asked.

"He can clean it himself. Respect his privacy."

They did. He did. Dark Choco was happy, smiling and beaming.

The room isn't empty.

He lingers outside of it now, a familiar routine that he's grown very well acquainted with. He lingers outside of it now, staring at the dark door with the lock he never unlocked, that no one but Dark Choco held the key to once long ago.