A steady, continuous beeping was the first thing Blaine became aware of as the fog in his head began to dissipate. There was a few seconds of strange, heavy numbness. Then the pain hit.

It was a dull, burning pain like a low, dampened fire flickering in his bones and nerves. He couldn't pinpoint any one place where the pain was coming from or where it was worse; he just ached all over. His limbs felt heavy as if they were weighed down with lead and even if he wanted to move them he didn't think he could. His thoughts ran as slow as honey and it took him a while to notice the sharp, sterile scent of harsh cleaning products not quite masking the thick, choking smell of sickness. It took him another few seconds to put it all together: the beeping, the pain, the smell - he was in hospital.

Gingerly, he opened his eyes and blinked up at the white ceiling. He turned his head slowly to the side; a bolt of pain shot down his spine and he grimaced, which triggered more pain to burn across his face.

He had no idea how he had ended up here or why. His memory was an empty, black void in his head; the last thing he could remember was finishing his English essay, but that must have been in the morning - hours ago.

Footsteps approached him, sounding louder than normal as they rang through his throbbing head. The footsteps stopped and in his peripheral vision he saw a nurse checking his drip and the machines by his bed.

"How are you feeling?" she asked as she flipped though the charts at the bottom of his bed before stepping up towards the head of the bed and peering down at him, looking concerned.

Blaine tried to open his mouth to speak, but found he couldn't and he simply winced as pain ran down his back in a wave. The nurse nodded and began fiddling with his drip. "I'll give you some more medicine for the pain," she said gently.

Blaine tried to acknowledge her, to thank her, but he couldn't do anything but lie there and breathe. He could feel the medicine entering his veins, feel the pain slowly burning out to ashes and his eyelids became heavy as drowsiness spread through his system alongside the pain relief. He fell into a drug-induced sleep.

When he woke some time later he was relieved to find that he wasn't in much pain and was able to move around a bit. Flashes of memory were coming back to him: Eric calling him to make sure he was still happy to go to the dance, picking out an outfit for the dance, laughing at something Eric had said as they stood in the school gymnasium...He strained his memory to try and remember what had happened after all of that, what had landed him here in hospital, but he couldn't remember anything beyond around halfway through the dance.

Seeing that he was awake, a nurse came over to check how he was and see if he needed anything.

"Wh- What happened?" he asked her quietly as she checked his cannula.

She hesitated, her hand stilling on the needle in the back of his hand. "You were attacked," she said in a low voice.

Blaine struggled to sit up straighter. "When? By who?"

The nurse bit her lip. "You had just left a dance at your school and were waiting outside when several older students attacked you."

Blaine stared at her, his mind whirring as images came back to him like watching a replay of the events after the dance unfold in his mind's eye...

He and Eric were talking happily as they waited for his dad to come and pick them up. They didn't think anything of the footsteps and mutters behind them as Eric checked the time on his phone to see how long his dad would be.

"Hey, fairy boys!" someone shouted.

Another angry voice snarled, "You fags can't just come to the dance together. Ruining our night by making everyone watch you two together - it's disgusting!"

He and Eric had tried to back away, to get inside the school where the teachers were, but they were surrounded by this point; there was nowhere to run.

Something else was shouted at them, but Blaine, paralysed by fear, didn't hear it. And then the punches started, followed by kicking, shoving, thumping... Shouts filled the air, but there was nobody to hear and help them. Agonizing pain ripped through him with each hit and he had curled up in a ball on the ground, his hands and arms curled protectively over his head as blow after blow was driven into him. His lungs felt like they were on fire and each breath caused him extreme pain. He couldn't hear Eric anymore, just the thuds of more kicks and punches hitting both of them and snarling voices yelling spitefully that they deserved every hit they were getting.

‘Let this end,' Blaine remembered thinking. ‘Please, let it all stop.'

But it didn't, and more fists and feet were thrown his way until, eventually, a knock to his head had left Blaine hanging onto the edge of consciousness, the sounds of his tormentors drifting in and out like a badly tuned radio. He thought he'd heard the screeching of tires and the sound of panicked shouts, but he lost grip on consciousness at the point and plummeted down into the dark void...

The nurse was looking at him worriedly, patting anxiously at his hand as she asked him if he was ok - a stupid question, really.

Blaine swallowed with some difficulty. "Where's Eric?"

"He's in another ward. He needed to have surgery on a broken arm, but he's recovering well," she replied.

Blaine nodded; he was starting to feel tired again. "How badly am I injured?" he asked.

"A couple of broken ribs, a lot of bruising, a mild concussion, and some cuts on your back and arms. You were lucky, it could have been a lot worse."

Blaine glanced down and examined his arms properly, seeing multiple shallow cuts and scrapes and numerous large, angry bruises that were deep purple and blue - almost black - in colour. Judging by the pain in the rest of his body, he suspected he looked like this all over: purple and blue blotches like some strange, moving piece of artwork.

"How long do I have to stay here?" he asked the nurse, his words starting to slur a little with exhaustion.

"You'll need to stay until we're sure the ribs are healing well and that there are no aftereffects from your concussion." She hesitated again. "Your parents will need to sign your release forms and they haven't been in to see you yet..." she trailed off, looking uncomfortable. After a few seconds of awkward silence she smiled stiffly. "I'll leave you to rest."

Blaine watched her walk away and tried not to feel upset that his parents hadn't even come to see if he was ok after nearly being beaten to death. He shouldn't expect them to care. He remembered his dad examining his back on the afternoon he told them he was gay; they probably thought he deserved what he got.

The house no longer felt foreign to Kurt. Now that they had been living in it for almost a week he no longer had that weird feeling that he was in someone else's home. Everything was starting to become familiar now, from the layout of his new bedroom to the way the front door lock was sometimes a little stiff. Finn seemed to have gotten over his previous worries about the house being haunted and he reacted in the same way as the rest of the family whenever anyone brought it up: saying the stories weren't true and it was just a house like any other.

No matter how many times they said this and despite the fact that they had been living in the house for almost a week and had seen nothing out of the ordinary, the majority of Lima still seemed to believe the stories of ghosts and strange presences. Their neighbours still shot them apprehensive looks when they saw them out in the street as if they were afraid that whatever haunted their house had possessed them, and Rachel continued to text Kurt daily to ask if he had seen anything out of the ordinary. Kurt had no idea how to convince everyone that there was nothing unusual about the house. Nothing he said seemed to sink in.

Since his best friends still believing the stories was the most frustrating for him, Kurt decided to invite Mercedes and Rachel over one day after school so that they could see for themselves that his house was just that - a house.

Lifting up a neat stack of papers on his desk, Kurt hunted around for the biology textbook he was sure he'd left on his desk after finishing his homework last night. He checked the time again and began pushing books aside as he saw he was cutting it fine for getting to school on time. He went through a pile of textbooks slowly, carefully checking the cover of each one even though he had looked through the books already and knew the biology one wasn't in that pile. Glancing at the time again, he blew out a sigh of frustration and set the stack of books down on the desk with a thump; he would just have to go to school without it. Snatching up his satchel, he turned to leave his room when something caught his eye. He strode across the room to a large shelved cabinet. He shouted an exclamation of relief: there, on the bottom shelf on top of a tidy stack of other textbooks, was his biology book.

Grabbing it and stuffing it in his bag, he thundered down the stairs, shouted to Finn that they were leaving now, and flew out the front door. When he was sitting behind the wheel of the car, and Finn had folded his large body into the passenger seat, and they were speeding towards school, he started to puzzle over his search for the textbook - he was positive he had sat it on his desk, he never put books that he needed for class the next day on his shelves.

Still feeling confused, he pulled into a space in the school's parking lot, not hearing what Finn was saying as he climbed out of the car but waving a lazy hand in acknowledgement anyway. The textbook was driven from his mind when he met Rachel and Mercedes at his locker.

"You two still coming over today?" he asked after they had greeted him - Mercedes with a hug, Rachel with her latest pitch on a song idea for Glee.

Rachel opened her mouth, but Mercedes quelled her with a warning look and said, "We'll be there."

Kurt beamed at them as he grabbed his books from his locker. "Great! After today you'll never believe another one of those stupid stories again."

"Aren't all stories based on some level of fact?" Rachel asked. Mercedes nudged her in the ribs with a stern frown, but she ignored it, a triumphant gleam appearing in her eyes as Kurt took a moment to respond.

Kurt inclined his head. "True, but in this case the only fact is that the house used to look a bit like an old haunted house from the outside, but there is not the slightest bit of truth in those stories other than that."

Rachel look stumped for a few seconds, before starting to say something else. Mercedes interrupted her before she could get going. "Just drop it, Rachel. We'll see the house later, save your arguments for then."

Smiling at Mercedes, Kurt walked through the classroom door with her, leaving a slightly put-out Rachel to trail along behind them.

Rachel appeared to stick to Mercedes' words since she never brought up Kurt's house again that day, even on the drive from school when Kurt expected her to launch into a rehearsed tirade. She pestered Finn about doing a duet for glee club instead.

When they arrived at the Hummel-Hudson abode, Finn jumped out of the car and scuttled off inside as soon as Kurt pulled up, muttering vaguely about a video game session with Puck - Kurt suspected he just wanted to get away from Rachel. The rest of them got out of the car and Kurt joined his friends, who were standing side-by-side staring up at the house.

"Coming?" he asked them as he started walking up towards the front door. They nodded and followed on behind him, Rachel looking strangely determined, Mercedes a little reluctant.

Finn had left the front door swinging open and Kurt was glad he didn't have to fight with a potentially stiff lock, which may have spurred a comment or two from Rachel. He stepped into the entrance hall, the heels of his boots tapping slightly against the wooden floorboards. "See? It's just a house," he said to his friends as they followed him inside.

Mercedes nodded slowly, glancing around the entryway and into the rooms she could see with darting eyes. Rachel was also looking around, but her eyes were narrowed ever so slightly and she appeared to be searching for something, like she was expecting to find some piece of evidence that the house was indeed haunted.

Leading the way through to the kitchen, Kurt asked, "Do you want anything to eat or drink?"

Mercedes politely declined, but Rachel wasn't paying attention, still searching for that elusive fact behind the stories. Kurt pulled a couple of glasses out of a cupboard. "I'll get you some water, Rachel," he told her and she nodded vaguely at the sound of her name.

After pouring out some water he pressed Rachel's glass into her hand and led the way out of the kitchen and upstairs to his room, passing Finn's closed door - which was issuing copious amounts of bangs and shouts - on the way. He didn't turn around to face his friends until he had set his water glass down on his desk.

Mercedes was looking around his room curiously while Rachel scrutinized it with the air of a judge desperately searching for faults in a seemingly flawless performance. Kurt watched patiently for a moment, before stepping towards them.

"What's the verdict?" he asked levelly.

Mercedes smiled sheepishly at him. "Sorry, Kurt. You were right, I shouldn't have doubted you." She shook her head slightly. "The whole thing is ridiculous when you think about it."

Shooting her a smile, Kurt raised an eyebrow at Rachel. She held her determined posture for another few seconds before huffing out a breath. "Fine!" She threw up her hands in defeat. "As much as I hate to believe that I fell for a load of stories invented by someone with an overactive imagination, I admit I was wrong and you were right." She looked annoyed at the thought and Kurt couldn't help but smirk - Rachel hated being proved wrong.

Resisting the urge to say ‘I told you so,' Kurt sat down on his bed. "Now that we've got that out of the way, what do you guys want to do? We could watch a movie or something?"

Still looking a little annoyed, Rachel came over to join him on the bed. "Where do you keep all of your sheet music?" she asked, looking around the room. "We could-"

"Can't we have a break from glee stuff for a while?" Mercedes protested, dropping down beside Kurt. "I vote for a movie."

Rachel huffed again as Kurt got to his feet and padded over to his DVD collection.

"Hey, Kurt," Mercedes said, seemingly struck by a sudden thought. "Do you have that book on essay writing you said I could borrow?"

Abandoning the DVDs, Kurt walked over to his desk. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I set it aside for you this morning." He reached for the book on the top of the stack and frowned, his hand freezing - the essay book was no longer there. A wave of déjà vu from that morning hit him as he flipped through the pile of books and searched the rest of his desk. Like this morning, the book wasn't there.

Spinning on his heel, he strode across the room to his shelves and looked through the books there, but still not finding the book he could distinctly remember placing at the top of the pile on his desk that morning. Frustration building inside him, he straightened up and scanned his room, looking for other possible places where the book may be but coming up with nothing.

‘Finn,' he thought and he headed for the door. He couldn't imagine Finn borrowing the book, but it seemed stupid not to ask him.

"Kurt?" Mercedes called after him as he strode out of the room. He marched down the hall and pushed open Finn's door after knocking once.

"'Sup, dude?" Finn asked, barely glancing away from his video game.

Kurt's gaze landed on Finn's small, untidy stack of school books and he hurried over to search through them. "Have you seen my essay writing book?" he asked as he reached the bottom of the pile. He shoved the books away from him - it wasn't there.

"You mean your new one?" Finn wondered, frantically mashing buttons on his controller.

Kurt spun eagerly to face him. "Yeah, where did you see it?"

Finn's face was screwed up in concentration as he leaned forward in his chair. "Oh, come on!" he shouted at the screen, throwing up a hand in annoyance.

"Finn!"

His step-brother twisted to look at him. "Right, the book, yeah." He absently pressed a button on his controller. "Last time I saw it was when you were using it downstairs a couple of days ago."

Kurt threw up his hands. "Fantastic!" he groaned and marched out of the room, ignoring Finn as he called after him, sounding confused.

"Kurt, what's wrong?" Mercedes asked when he re-entered the room.

Sighing, Kurt strode around his room, searching for the book in every possible place. "I can't remember where I put that book you wanted." That wasn't true, he remembered exactly where he had put it, it just wasn't there anymore and he had no idea why.

"Oh," Mercedes shrugged. "Don't worry about it; just give it to me another day when you find it. I know things sometimes go missing when you've just moved house."

"Right," Kurt replied vaguely. He gave up on his search of his room when the book still hadn't shown up.

Rachel was rummaging through his movie collection. "Do you guys want to watch The Sound of Music or Chicago?"

"I vote for Chicago," Mercedes said enthusiastically.

"Kurt?" Rachel looked over at him, two slim DVD boxes in her hands.

His mind still on the missing book, Kurt shrugged. "I don't mind."

Replacing one of the DVDs, Rachel jumped to her feet. "Chicago it is!" she informed them happily.

Kurt tried to forget the book which was probably, as Mercedes had said, lying around somewhere, misplaced in the move, but his mind kept returning to it. He was positive he had placed it on his desk, yet there was no sign of it anywhere. Twice in one day books had moved from where he was sure he had left them, was this purely coincidence? Or something more?

Kurt was still puzzling over his missing book when he went to bed that night. After Rachel and Mercedes had gone home he had searched the whole house fruitlessly for his book, but it appeared to have vanished into thin air.

He rolled over onto his back and stared up at his dark ceiling, trying to stop his mind from thinking of other possible locations of his book so he could sleep, but the harder he tried, the more awake he felt. Sighing in frustration, he rolled over again and curled up into a more comfortable position and waited for sleep to come.

A thud broke the silence of the house and Kurt's eyes flew open. He lay frozen, his ears straining to hear anything other than silence. There was another, softer thud and he sat up with his heart hammering, pushing his blankets back and sliding out of bed.

Still straining his ears, he tiptoed across his room and prised his door open slowly with his breath held. The hallway beyond his room was dark, silent, and deserted. He stepped out into the hallway, his bare feet making no sound on the carpeted floors, and peered down the hall to see if there was any light escaping from beneath any of the doors, thinking Finn might still be awake and was the one making the noise, but all the rooms appeared to be in darkness.

He crept down the hall towards the stairs, his muscles tensed in preparation to flee at a second's notice. He wasn't sure what he would do if it was a burglar: run back to his room to call 911 on his phone, obviously, but then what? Should he wake someone? Not his dad, he didn't want any strain on his heart. Finn, maybe. He was bigger than any burglar was bound to be. But what if they were armed?

His heart was pounding almost painfully in his chest as he reached the top of the stairs and paused to listen. Nothing.

A sudden, loud grunting snore came from Finn's room and Kurt jumped back from the stairs, his heart racing and his hands quivering. Cursing Finn under his breath, he turned to go back to his room, deciding the noises he had heard must have just been the creaking of the old house. He was halfway to his room when he heard a light clatter like metal being dropped on a hard surface, but the sound hadn't come from downstairs...He froze again, eyes darting around the shadowy hall, half expecting something to suddenly leap out from a dark corner. But he had already searched the upstairs and it was empty except for his family. He paused, listening hard and heard a faint tapping sound that seemed to come from the walls themselves.

‘Haunted,' a voice in the back of his mind said.

He shook his head firmly. "There's no such thing as ghosts," he told himself sternly.

He went back to bed but laid awake for what felt like hours listening. The house remained silent and he eventually fell asleep.