Antichrist (Frerard)

3: The Thing In The Shadows

"Fra-"

The nineteen year old's whole world seemed to stop momentarily as Ray emerged back from the toilet; tension slowly building, reaching breaking point and then coming to an abrupt and rather anti-climatic end.

The shadow in the mirror fading away almost like an effect in a movie, making the situation feel all so fake, perhaps even as if Frank had imagined it, and perhaps he had, that's what common sense said, but of course, common sense had this awful habit of being wrong lately.

Frank pulled his hand away from the CDs, exhaling in a certain kind of relief; almost as if an enormous weight had just been lifted from his shoulders, but barely anything had happened at all.

"-nk, hey, I just wanna-" Ray continued almost as if no time had occurred since he first began Frank's name, leaving the nineteen year old to wonder whether time had stopped for either Ray or himself, and more importantly, whatever kind of madness had led him to take that time had stopped for a given.

"Is it just me or does it seem colder?" Ray interrupted his own words with a puzzled expression and a question made almost perfectly to fill an awkward conversation, and at first that was exactly what Frank reckoned Ray was doing here, but then he stopped.

Frank stopped.

Because as he finally regained control of his senses, he came to the slow and rather painful realisation, that Ray was right, and it was colder, but not chilly colder, but like all the life and warmth had been sucked from the room.

Frank jerked up as Ray banged his fist against the thermostat. "Work, you piece of shit." Came his oh so affectionately accompanying words, and Frank found himself chuckling at them as Ray finally managed to turn the thing up, letting the heat slowly seep back into the room.

Perhaps it was simply a case of faulty heating, and perhaps nothing was at all wrong or amiss here, and simply it was just the case that Frank was overreacting to nothing - still caught up about the figure on the hill and feeling alien in this whole village, but he was hesitant, hesitant to believe that.

If the heating had turned off, it couldn't have just drained all the heat from the room in minutes - it wasn't a vacuum. Frank momentarily considered the possibility that he was dealing with some sort of rogue, possessed vacuum cleaner, but he hadn't died nearly enough times for this to be Supernatural.

"The heating in this place." Ray shook his head as he casually walked over to Frank, his eyes wandering to the collection of CDs Frank happened to be browsing through, and of course, paying little to no attention to in the process. "Almost like we have ghosts, you know, one minute off, one minute on. I don't believe in ghosts, though - never seen one. I only believe in things I've seen."

"So you don't believe in God then? Despite living here?" Frank exclaimed, excited enough at the thought to send him on an instantaneous one way trip to hell - perhaps then he really would belong on Supernatural.

"I go out on coffee mornings with the big fella himself every Tuesday- nah, I don't, I just... I'm not like a Satanist, or anything, I'm not against him, it's just that I reckon with the state we're living in, he would have shown himself, or at least done something about it. What's the point in a God if he only works to provide us with situations like these?" Ray exhaled rather loudly at that point, shaking his head to himself, as if in reminder that he'd gone too far. "Hey... maybe it's just because I haven't actually prayed for about seven months now, who knows?"

Frank let out a light-hearted chuckle at that one. "I haven't prayed in about seven years, so if anyone's at fault here - it's me."

"Why on earth did you ever decide to move here then? I mean, you're most definitely new, and I don't see much tourism in a place like this." Ray raised his eyebrows as he spoke, looking Frank up and down, then hazarding a glance towards the window, letting out a small gasp in the process - of course a gasp that wouldn't go without question.