theputterer:

He opened his eyes.

The chronometer said it was three in the morning. No visible light could be seen from behind the closed curtains, and it was entirely silent, no speeders or pedestrians walking past the house, making their way further into the city for the new work day. Next to him, Jyn snored.

For someone who had always had a restless sleep, for someone whose melancholia worsened his sleep; Cassian waking up for no apparent reason in the middle of the night was not unusual. It had happened thousands of times, and would for many more.

What was odd was this feeling Cassian was wrestling with, this prickly feeling that a voice had just said his name, that he had woken up because someone had called for him. He lay still, and listened, but the silence of the house seemed to only deepen.

Yet the heaviness remained, electric, something like static.

And then Fima came running into the room, brown eyes wide, hair mussed, and Cassian sat up, relief flowing through him, certain that his son had called for him, and woken him up.

And then he took in the fear on Fima’s face, and his heart stopped.

“What is it?”

Fima took a deep breath. “There’s a shadow standing outside my room.”

“… What?”

At this, Jyn woke up. She stared.

Fima’s hands were tightened into fists. “I woke up, and I looked out my window, and I saw a man’s shadow. Make him go away.”

Fima’s voice was trembling, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, and so Cassian went into his room, to find this shadow hovering outside.

Nothing was there.

The night was still and dark, illuminated only by the lamp in Fima’s room and the fresh snow covering the backyard, leading to the frostbitten wall of the art museum that Fima’s room faced. The mural was currently painted with purple and blue swirls, a distant ocean facing the endless snow that defined the capital city of Fest.

Cassian stepped close to the window, surveying the snow under it. It was difficult to see, but there was no sign of footprints; the snow was seemingly untouched.

He looked at Fima. “The shadow; the man. What did he look like?”

Fima swallowed, and Cassian did not like the way his son was looking at him, with something akin to wariness, something close to fear.

“Like you.”

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a ghost story [5.5 k] : fathers, sons, and the trauma of abandonment.