Eternal Night

(I) Chapter 4: Francesca Chase

Darkness.

Beautiful, soothing darkness.

The blissful reprieve of unconsciousness had abandoned her a while ago, yet Frankie continued to hold the linens of her bed tightly to her figure. Cocooned between the cool and gentle weight of a down comforter and the flawless support of an expensive mattress, she willed herself deaf as the sound of her elder brother's singing came drifting down the hall. But no matter how hard she tried to block him out and succumb to complete and utter relaxation, she could not win.

He had awoken her from stasis nearly a week ago now, and still she continued to deny herself a proper feeding, which left her strength far more depleted than it should have been. But if Francesca Chase was anything, she was stubborn, and with clenched-shut eyes and furrowed brows, she fought her growing conscious state, desperate to stay in the hollow, numbing relief of a dreamless sleep.

Like death without the commitment.

Frankie had no desire to face the world outside her bedroom – the toil and endless hardship, the evil, the memories. Reason told her that she could not wallow in self-pity forever, but finding the will to climb out of the familiar hole of depression had proven more difficult than usual. Not only was the chasm deeper than what she was accustomed to, but even her bones felt heavier, afflicted with guilt and past disappointment.

And worse – the apathy.

That numbness.

It was almost worse than the sorrow, the despair – to feel nothing, yet everything. A state of contradiction, a slowly creeping madness that she was too tired to fight against.

Frankie logically understood that she was not wholly to blame for what happened, but the emotional burden continued to linger, proving just as obstinate as she was.

If it had been up to her, she would have stayed in hibernation for all eternity, until the world had finally ended and the day of judgment had come. Thankfully, she supposed with a bit of ire, God had blessed her with an equally tenacious brother who loved her when she could not love herself.

As if on cue, the door to her bedroom opened, light from the hall flooding out the darkness. Her brother, Rémy, entered without invitation, the catchy thumping of a familiar beat pulsating through the air as some now-obscure early 2000s pop song blared from the stereo speakers out in the living room.

"Come on, Frank – no rest for the wicked," he announced, reaching for the switch on the wall to turn on the light over Frankie's bed.

"Is that why you're up at this ungodly hour?" she grumbled into her pillow. "The sun doesn't set for a while longer."

He ignored her baited remark.

"Come on! You have an appointment at the office with Rob and we can't leave until I get you sun-proofed, so let's go! Up, up, up!"

"Sun-proofed?"

"New tech I developed while you were out. It's much easier to produce than those pesky daylight charms we've been relying on for the last two centuries and a lot more difficult to misplace," Rémy explained as he threw open her closet doors, starting to rummage through her wardrobe to find something for her to wear.

She knew from experience that he was only doing this in the hopes of irritating her enough so she'd get out of bed, but he'd have to try a little harder.

"What's wrong with my daylight ring?"

"Nothing's the matter with it. I'm sure it still works fine – wherever it is."

"What do you mean wherever it is?"

"I may have lent it to Lily who lost it in a raid last year."