Dreamnotfound oneshots

Unhelpful hand

George was in a bit of a predicament.

There was no easy way to admit to your best friend that the reason you've been rejecting his calls, avoiding him and actively stopping him from visiting you entirely was because you were harbouring a very charming vigilante within your home. It wasn't exactly a situation that George ever thought he'd find himself in, and yet here he was.

But let's rewind a little, to how George came to his not-so-little issue.

It wasn't by choice. George didn't just wake up one morning and decide you know what? I'm going to adopt a criminal today!

Well, not exactly at least.

It was a regular Tuesday evening for George; slow, relatively boring and spent streaming until the early hours. There was nothing special or particularly peculiar about it, not even as he desperately searched for something that was. Just another Tuesday like any other Tuesday - he was pretty sure it was a Tuesday at least.

But the day didn't really matter. Nor did the hour, but only because George didn't really bother to check and wouldn't remember if he did.

What did matter was that it was especially dark, all lights already off within his home, when things began going south.

He'd brushed the noise off at first, deciding that either the kitten or the puppy had knocked or broken something and handed the responsibility of dealing with that off to tomorrow morning's - or later this morning, he supposed - George.

But then the noise persisted, only growing louder, and George figured that he should at least check to make sure both animals were alive before procrastinating cleaning their mess. He'd ended the stream some few minutes ago and so turned his monitors to sleep mode before rolling back his chair and standing with a stretch. It was only half-way through plodding towards the sound that George realised that no animal in his home, other than maybe himself, would be able to make such a racket.

There was clicking, clanging, general scuffle and an odd, ssssshhh noise. It sounded, by all terrible conclusions, like a very large, distressed creature.

It sounds, George decided, like something I really don't want to deal with right now.

Despite every sane bone in his body - which wasn't a lot of bones, but I digress - screaming at him to just turn around and go the hell back to bed or maybe call the police, George carefully reached around for whatever he could arm himself with and continued walking. His fingers grazed the handle of a well-loved umbrella and he was quick to snatch it up, brandishing it as he crept into the kitchen and towards the back door.

And it looks, George decided, like something I really don't want to deal with right now either.

Whatever it was was hunched, one hand desperately trying to detach George's dog's jaw and the other clutched around what looked to be a very long leg. It's silhouette was drenched in black, though that may simply be the night's darkness, and surrounded in a horrible clutter that George recognised as his own.

It only took a split second for George to weigh his options: keep quiet and pray the creature didn't see or hear him or call out and hope he was strong enough to fight it off, should he need to.