Chapter Text
Cold, frigid air soaked into Craig's pyjamas as he took a step outside of the front door. Lighting up a cigarette, he inhaled a mix of smoke and air so cold it burned his nostrils. Somehow he always ended up doing this, sneaking out at night to smoke and wallow in self pity. It didn't take long for his tense muscles to relax and give his posture a slight hunch. Flicking his cigarette, a few ashes were easily carried in the breeze and landed on Craig's slippers, burning tiny holes in them.
The pond near his house was glistening ever so temptingly under the moonlight. Craig felt himself pulled towards it. It would be rude not to go.
After taking a long drag he stood up and slowly walked towards a lonesome bench by the pond. The slight frost on the bench burned his fingertips and left a small wet patch on his thighs, and later his back as he leaned against the bench. The moment would be better with music, but he had left his phone on charge by his bed. Several drags later, his gaze drifted up towards the moon. He wasn't one of those people who left jars of water out overnight during a full moon to make 'moonwater', but he was so easily fascinated by the moon. Or, just space in general. A question that often stumbled into his mind was, 'Would it be scarier if we were all alone, or not alone?'.
Craig had subconsciously squinted his eyes as he pondered the question again. It was probably scarier if we were all alone, Craig thought. There was no way in the entirety of everything that ever could and will exist in space, that there wasn't at least some sort of germ out there on another planet. Surely not. Then again, what did he know?
He didn't have a very long attention span, but he could find himself just staring at the sky for hours. Never during the day, though, only at night. He never really understood those people who took hundreds of pictures of the sky when it was all pink and yellow during sunset. Sure it looked kinda cool, but you could only see it so many times before it just got boring, at least to him. The night sky however, he found much more fascinating. All the different constellations and planets so easily stimulated him.
For his eleventh birthday, his mom had given him a telescope. Craig could recall sitting by his window for hours on end, just staring at the moon or maybe even mars.
Recently, he had also found himself becoming captivated by the ocean.
He had played a game, Iron Lung (David Szymanski) which had intrigued him a fair amount. In the game, you traverse a moon full of human blood in a submarine, searching hopelessly for anything that you might stumble across. At first Craig found the game boring. He had grown tired of seeing people on the internet preaching about how amazing it was, and finally decided to play it himself, with little prior knowledge. It didn't take long for him to complete it, and he didn't feel particularly scared while playing the game, but he found himself thinking about it for a while after he had finished playing.
It didn't have some crazy premise that had never been done before, there were plenty games that had the concept of human civilisation collapsing completely and some had even done it better, in his opinion, but there was something about the game that had him hooked. He also didn't think it was this 'terrifying masterpiece' that others had sworn it was, but it was certainly an interesting game.
After playing, he had begun to research about the ocean. Come to find out, over 80% of the ocean was still yet to be explored, or discovered, or mapped out, whatever the difference was. He knew it was a hefty chunk of the ocean that hadn't been 'explored' yet, but the more he thought about it, the more it sort of terrified and fascinated him. What was out there?
It reminded him of this manga he had seen a while back, The thing that drifted ashore (Junji Ito). Essentially, it was a horror story of a grotesque creature that had drifted ashore, drawing in a large crowd of curious people. As the story progresses, it turns out that the creature was full of rotting, yet somehow alive human bodies that had been trapped there for God knows how long.
Craig had a similar dream, or nightmare he'd call it, to the protagonist in the short story. Only it wasn't about being alone in the vastness of the ocean, surrounded by all these unknown and horrifying creatures, it was about being alone in the vastness of space, surrounded by all these unknown and horrifying planets. Every time he had that nightmare he awoke in a cold sweat. It never failed to creep him out. He had eventually had the nightmare so many times that he could memorise the planets nearby. He knew it probably sounded silly, being scared of a planet, but something about floating in space, in complete silence, encapsulated by disturbing and unnerving planets really shook Craig to his core.
In his nightmare there was this one planet. The one that caused him to wake up every time he got too close to it. It was a simple, rotund shape with a few rings surrounding it. The colour was of a deep claret, with an uneven surface that almost resembled the craters of the moon. The closer he drifted towards the sphere, the more details he could see. Such as how it had a certain 'dent' on its surface, and how it had these dark patches of a colour and texture that he couldn't find the words to describe. There was nothing inherently scary about the planet itself, but Craig found himself utterly terrified by it.
Shuddering slightly at the thought, Craig took a final drag of his cigarette before twisting it under his shoe to put it out. Just thinking about it made the hairs on his neck stick up, but maybe that was due to the cold too. Ever since he had played Iron Lung, he found himself getting creeped out by the ocean almost as frequently as he got creeped out by space. Craig disliked not knowing things, but he really disliked no one knowing things, and space and the ocean happened to be one of those things where no one really knew. This only fuelled the fire, allowing his imagination to run wild as there was only so much one could find out about the topics at hand.
Craig stood up and quickly made his way back to the house, successfully disturbed.
Once he got back into his room, he was embarrassed to find that he had trouble falling asleep after thinking about all of that. But eventually, he drifted off into an uneasy slumber.
In the morning, he was pleased to find out that he did not have that horrible nightmare about being stuck in space, or any ocean for that matter. He couldn't remember his dream at all, actually. Luckily for him though, it turns out school was closed for the day due to a significant teacher strike. He had been sent work to complete at home, but after messaging Jimmy and Clyde and finding out they weren't going to do it, he decided he wasn't going to either. He didn't bother messaging Tolkien, because he knew he would be the one to actually do the work, which would make Craig feel slightly embarrassed for asking in the first place.
After all that thought about games last night, he felt like playing something more 'calm'. Loading up The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, he let himself relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery of one of his favourite games to play.
Before he knew it, an hour had already passed. He still wasn't going to do his school work, but he figured he had to do something at least a little more productive than sitting around playing video games all day. Contemplating his options, he realised there really wasn't much else to do.
He took a long sigh and opened his old laptop, checking his emails to see his teachers had already sent him the classwork. Maybe he would do some of it and give up on the rest?
45 minutes later, he had already finished his math, physics and history assignments. Figuring there was nothing better to do, he let himself drift off into a calm nap, much needed after his lack of sleep the night prior.