It was still dark out when Kurt woke, but the soft gray sky was lighter, close to dawn. He sat up with a groan, twisting the cricks out of his neck and shoulders, feeling sore all over from the hard wooden floor. 

He blinked. Floor. He was in the lighthouse.

He shivered violently, tucking his knees into his chest as he looked around wildly. It was real. The lighthouse was real. He'd thought he'd just dreamt it up after he'd passed out in the snow when he was eight and had woken up in his bed, safe and sound. He'd tried looking for it once more when he was twelve, but he'd never been able to find it or that clearing with the well...

Kurt shuddered as he tucked his head in between his knees. The well. He'd hoped and prayed that that had just been a nightmare as well. 

Licking his lips, he stood cautiously, twisting his spine to crack it as he brushed the dust off of his slacks. He turned to look out the window.

The man was still standing in the snow, staring up at him. 

Kurt dropped back down below the window, heart hammering. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He wrapped his arms around his knees, shaking as the gray sky above slowly and steadily turned lighter and lighter...

There wasn't really a point in staying still. If he went now, maybe he could make a run for it before the rest of the field hockey team arrived. Crouching down low lest he be seen, he gritted his teeth and started walking slowly down the dark staircase. His breaths echoed loudly around him as he was robbed of sight, carefully placing one foot after the other as he descended. The metal creaked and groaned and he winced as the sound echoed through the lighthouse. His heart steadily crept up and up and up into his throat as he neared the bottom, the floor coming to his feet unexpectedly and he stumbled forward.

Grasping the door handle shakily, he pushed it open.

The shock of outside distracted him from the giant claw marks on the wood of the inside of the door.

There was a path cleared for him. A perfectly cleared path that led into the woods, completely clear of snow. He looked over to where the man had been standing, but found no one. Frowning, he walked over to the area but found...nothing.

A prickling feeling settled on the back of his neck, like he was missing something but he shook it off and walked back to the path, venturing down it.

It took him through the woods, but not a way he'd ever been. The trees started getting thicker and denser, and the snow piles larger and thicker until they were piled as high as his head, but there was still a path cut through, all the way down to the soil with straight edges. It would've taken a machine to do it, but the path was too narrow for a snow plow. The canopy above wove together to block out what little light had been achieved by the early morning and Kurt shivered as he continued in the darkness.

He nearly ran into the open gate, mistaking it for a tree in the dark, and put his hand on the cool metal, blinking at the large ornate 'A' surrounded by hammered silver flowers. He walked through the gate and stared. 

Beyond the large snow-covered garden there was a large mansion in front of him, made entirely of some sort of...blackish wood that loomed overhead. It was in the classic New England style that he'd seen all across Provincetown. He walked down the dirt path cautiously, before freezing. What if this was just some big stupid prank of the field hockey teams and he was walking right into a trap?

He turned around, looking back out of the gates into the thick woods. But why would they go to all the effort just to get him here when they had all night to get him from the lighthouse? It hadn't been locked or anything...

He turned back towards the house and let out a scream.

There was a man standing less than two feet away from him. 

Kurt caught his breath, clutching his chest as he stared at the man, wide-eyed. He didn't look terribly older than Kurt--college maybe? He was about the same height with slicked back curly black hair and a slim black peacoat. He had olive-ish skin but was sort of...pallid. Almost sick-looking. And he had light hazel eyes that were just sort of...staring. At Kurt. And not blinking. It was incredibly unnerving. 

"It's cold outside," he said quietly, his voice still seeming to carry through the whole courtyard. "Won't you come in?" He raised his hand in offering.

Kurt didn't think. He turned and ran.

***

His grandmother's house was empty by the time he got back and the sun had risen behind the watery gray clouds. Kurt was soaked to the bone from the random snow piles he'd tripped over and the rain of icicles that had scraped his cheek. He wearily went up to his white and gray and black room and collapse on his bed, crying quietly against the comforter. 

He stripped his clothes off and climbed under the covers, shivering violently and sneezing. He couldn't quite get warm but sleep took him anyways.

***

It was dusk. The skies were heavy with clouds. Kurt stood in the middle of the meadow. The one he'd stumbled across when he was eight. It was springtime though. Flowers were everywhere, their sweet scent filling the air. 

He walked further into the meadow. The closer he got to the well, the fewer flowers there were. And then they started dying. As did the grass. He stood in front of the well and there was nothing but dirt and browned dead plants around it. It looked the same as it did when he was a child.

Only this time it didn't have lid.

Kurt's toes stood against the base of the well and he leaned over it, looking down into the dark depths. It seemed to go on forever, endless, down down down...

His fingers that hooked over slid on something on the inside wall of the well and he brought his hand up to his face. Dark and sticky and red...was that...blood?

Out of the darkness, a hand reached up and gripped his other hand and he looked down into a mass of dark hair and two sunken glittering eyes and a horrid crooked sharp smile before he was dragged down, the horrid grinding stone sound of the lid smacking back into place echoing above him.

***

Kurt sat up in bed, covered in sweat and throat raw. It was dark already. He looked around wildly, tears streaming down his face.

There was someone in his room.

He screamed, lurching over to the wall and flicked on the light.

There was no one there.

Breathing heavily he sunk back into his covers, sobbing into the material as shakes wracked his body. 

***

His grandmother returned the next night and Kurt looked like hell, a fact that she reminded him of all throughout dinner.

He couldn't really bring himself to care. He'd had another sleepless night and haunted day as he tried to stay awake and forget the well.

"...and I hope you'll smarten up for the White Christmas Cotillion on Friday."

Kurt blinked, looking up from his cold mellon soup. "What?"

His grandmother raised an eyebrow. "The White Christmas Cotillion. St. Andrews and Prudence put it on every year to debut the young men and women of society."

Kurt's mind flickered vaguely to Prudence, the all-girls private school that his mother had attended in her youth. "Aren't those supposed to be when you're like...seventeen?"

"They do it for the juniors," his grandmother said evenly. "We'll have to find you a young lady to escort."

"I don't want to escort a young lady, grandmother," Kurt said quietly. "I don't want to go to some cotillion, I don't want to parade around, I don't want to smile and make nice with those sycophantic assholes."

"Kurt Elizabeth Hummel!" she snapped, standing sharply. She tottered slightly and Edmund lurched forward to steady her. Kurt stood, napkin in hand an a worried expression on his face.

"It's quite alright, Edmund," she said distractedly, sitting down cautiously. Her eyes flashed up to Kurt's. "See what you've done to my nerves? Stop this foolishness instantly before you wear me out further. Do you really need to be responsible for the death of another family member?"

Kurt went rigid before putting his napkin down on the table and excusing himself curtly, rushing back to his room where he slammed the door shut.  

That night he dreamt of the well again. And the next morning he awoke screaming.