Nailed Shut

Chapter 1

Kurt Hummel finds himself roaming the tall halls of Dalton Academy. He doesn't know how he ended up there and he doesn't know why he has no urge to leave. He doesn't know if he has actually been there before, but the place feels so familiar somehow. It is starting to get dark outside, Kurt notices as a boy in blue rushes past him. He follows him down the hall with his eyes, wondering if maybe he should have asked him something, but he just can't seem to think of anything to ask.

Kurt starts to look around and finds many tall rooms, some full of fitness equipment and some full of books. He goes back into the hallway and hears the faint sound of singing. He follows the multiple male voices and ends up outside an open door, the voices flowing out into the hallway. He peeks inside, not wanting to disturb and sees a bunch of boys in blue blazers doing some kind of singing and dancing number. He looks at them for a while, enjoying their acapella performance. They stop and sit down in a couple of couches placed in the room, facing a long table where three of them place themselves. A dark-skinned boy starts talking about some singing competition and then they all get up and start walking toward the door, toward Kurt. Kurt hides behind the door, not wanting them to see that he was watching them. They pass by him, walking in different directions. None of them notice him, and he is glad. The boy that talked earlier walks out last, together with a boy that looks like he might have Asian roots, and a boy with dark curly hair. They close and lock the door, Kurt standing petrified against the wall, since he can no longer hide behind the door. They just continue their conversation and walk off. Kurt wonders where they are going so he follows them, a few meters behind.

Kurt follows the three boys through the empty halls, up a stairwell and to a long corridor with multiple doors on both sides. The curly-haired boy says goodnight to the other two and they disappear into a room in the beginning of the corridor. Kurt stops and looks at the third boy that continues to walk to a door farthest away, next to a tall window with heavy red curtains. He steps inside and Kurt wonders what he should do now. He notices suddenly that he feels tired and that his head is aching. He waits for a long while, just staring out the window at the full moon. He decides that he should try to get some sleep. Kurt walks toward the window, and that last door. He opens the door as quietly as he can and steps inside. He can hear steady breathing from the far side of the room. It is completely dark, so he drags his hands across the walls next to the door and finds the light switch after about a minute of searching. The room is lit up and Kurt looks in horror toward the bed, forgetting that the light might wake the boy up. It doesn't though, so Kurt looks around.

The walls are littered with photos of boys, and Kurt recognizes them all from the singing group earlier. On the wall next to the bed is a picture in a thin silver frame, of the curly-haired boy with an equally curly-haired girl on his lap. The two look kind of similar and Kurt figures that is must be the boy's little sister, maybe four or five years old. On the other side of the room, in a corner, is a big flowerpot with a small, bushy tree in it. Kurt has seen those kinds of trees before, but he can't place where. For some reason he starts thinking about clothes and coffee though. He shakes his head and walks closer, seeing as there seems to be something on the wall behind it. When he is next to the small tree he moves a few branches and sees another photo, this one with a thick golden frame. In the photo there is a woman that resembles the little girl from the other photo a lot, except the girl was smiling and this woman has sadness in her eyes, her lips closed tight. Next to her is a man in a suit, looking stern. He looks a lot like the boy, except his hair isn't curly and Kurt has only seen him smile. The man looks like the kind of man that never smiles, for whatever reason. Kurt thinks that those people might be the boy and girl's parents, but he can't think of a reason one would want to hide a picture of one's parents behind a tree. Parents are amazing, Kurt thinks, though he doesn't think about it further than that.

Kurt sits down in a red armchair close to another door that he thinks might lead to a bathroom. He tries to sleep, but can't remember how to. So he sits and looks at the sleeping boy, his curls now loose from the product it seemed to be covered in before. Kurt stops thinking completely, and just follows the rise and fall of the duvet covering the boy.

Blaine Anderson starts noticing things in the end of October.

When he awakes on a Thursday morning after a late night Warbler meeting, the lights in his room are on. He always turns the lights off before he goes to sleep. He thinks that it's weird, but forgets about it when he realizes he overslept about ten minutes. He rushes to get ready and runs out the door toward his morning class.

Kurt wakes up – or so he thinks, he must have fallen asleep at some point – when the sun shines in through the window. He looks at the bed to find that the curly-haired boy is missing. He thinks that it's odd that the boy didn't wake him, or throw him out when he found him creeping in his room that morning. But maybe he is just a nice guy, that lets strangers sleep in his room even if he has never seen them before. Kurt wonders where the boy went, so he gets out of the chair and out of the room. He first searches in the room where all the boys sang yesterday, but the room is empty. He walks around the big building, looking into classrooms and seeing several of the boys from the singing-group, but not the curly-haired one. Kurt wants to ask the boy why he didn't wake him so he continues looking for him. He searches all day, wandering up and down the hallways, not thinking about how nobody seems to notice him being there. Kurt passes a window and sees that it is once again starting to go dark outside. He enters a room full of shelves of books and a few armchairs in one corner. The curly-haired boy is sitting in one of the puffy armchairs, reading something while tapping a pencil against a notebook on his knee. He doesn't seem to notice Kurt's presence and Kurt doesn't want to disturb him, so he walks over to a shelf to look at the books. He finds one about fashion in the last century, and he wants to read it for some reason. He reaches out his hand to grab the book, but looks back at the boy first to see if he is less occupied now. He isn't, so Kurt grabs the book. He doesn't though, he just grabs the air. He looks back at the book, thinking that he must have had his hand too far away to actually grab it while he was looking at the boy. So he tries again, but just grabs air again. Kurt thinks that is really odd, he saw his hand grabbing the book. He concentrates really hard and grabs the book again. He succeeds this time and drags the book out from between the other ones. He is glad he got a hold of the book this time and looks back at the boy again. The book falls to the floor with a loud thud.

Blaine looks up from his history book when he hears a loud thud from the other side of the library. He sees a thick book lying on the ground. But there is no one in the library but him. That is really weird Blaine thinks, closing his history book and standing up. He debates in his head if he should put the book back on the shelf or not, but decides against it and returns to his dorm room.

Kurt watches as the curly-haired boy looks over, at the book on the floor. He looks concerned. Kurt watches him get his things and stand, looking like he is deciding something in his head, before walking hurriedly out of the room. Kurt thinks that maybe the boy got angry at him now, for getting to sleep in the boy's room and then disturbing him while he was studying. That was very rude of me, Kurt thinks and there is a sudden pain in his chest. It is the first thing Kurt has actually felt since he arrived at Dalton, but he doesn't realize that.

Kurt doesn't look for the curly-haired boy anymore. He doesn't want to disturb him again, or make him even angrier. So Kurt spends his nights sleeping in that chair the boy had sat in and his days walking around Dalton, finding out more about the place he is in. He wonders how and why he came here, but he can't think of a reason not to stay.

After two days Kurt thinks it is a Saturday. He heard a few boys talking about it being the beginning of the weekend in the hallway the day before. The boys of Dalton seem to be planning a Halloween-party the same evening and Kurt thinks that he should find and apologize to the curly-haired boy. In the evening Kurt once again hears the voices of the acapella group coming from that singing-room. He walks past a couple of boys talking in the hallway but he doesn't hear them, he only hears the singing. "Did you hear about that guy in Lima-" one of the boys begins, but the other one interrupts him with "Yes, I did. It's so horrible!". Kurt stands right outside the door listening again. And when he looks inside he sees that the singing boys are all in their Halloween-costumes. It takes Kurt a moment to find the curly-haired boy, but finally his eyes settle on his smiling face. He is wearing a red and orange piece of cardboard cut into the shape of a flame on his head. He has another piece of cardboard around his body. It has holes for his arms and it is colored pink, with diagonal lines across it in a darker shade of pink. The boys are done singing and most of them leave the room. The Asian-looking boy and the dark-skinned boy walk up to the curly-haired boy, eyeing his costume.

"Nice Batman-costume, Wes. Really original." Blaine teases his friend.

"I'm Superman!"

"I can see that, David. Also, very original." Blaine chuckles.

"What are you even supposed to be?" Wes asks, seeming slightly annoyed.

"I'm a birthday cake-candle!" Blaine exclaims and does a silly spin.

"Oh my GOD, Blaine! You are ridiculous." Wes says and storms out of the room, David on his heels.

Blaine looks after them and chuckles. He thinks he sees a flash of blue from the doorway, so he moves closer. He closes the doors to the empty room they had been singing in, and looks at the empty wall behind it. He sees the blue flash again, blinking rapidly and hurrying away toward the room where the party is being held.

Blaine. His name is Blaine. And the other two are Wes and David. But Blaine… Why was he just looking at me like that? It was like he couldn't even see me, like he looked right through me. Can't anybody see me? Kurt races after the boy – Blaine – to a room full of Halloween decorations and dancing boys in costumes. Kurt feels loneliness now, but he doesn't realize. He looks around the room to find Blaine, but he is lost in the sea of boys. Kurt needs somebody to see him. He walks up to about a dozen different boys, tapping them on the shoulders and asking "Can you hear me?", but nobody reacts. Except for one boy that starts scratching absentmindedly at the spot where Kurt touched him. Fear starts bubbling in Kurt's chest, so he focuses all the energy he has left on tipping over a cup of punch from a long table. The boy nearest the cup swears when he thinks he was the cause.

Kurt wakes up on the floor of the room, that is now empty except for a small group still standing by the punch bowl. Blaine is among them, as is Wes and David. Kurt walks over to them, defeated. He taps on all of their shoulders, whispering "Can you hear me?". He isn't really trying, but says the words a bit louder when he touches the last shoulder, Blaine's.

"Whoa!" Blaine whips around, looking behind himself.

"What?" Jeff asks him, and moves his blonde bangs from his eyes.

"Who of you touched me?" Blaine asks, glaring at the other boys.

"Nobody touched you. You were looking right at us, talking! You'd see if one of us did that." David says and furrows his eyebrows.

"Then who whispered?" Blaine looks at each of them, a bit freaked out now.

"Nobody is whispering." Nick says and looks concerned.

"You just have the Halloween spookies." Wes declares.

"The what?" Blaine narrows his eyes at his friend.

"It's Halloween! Everybody is more on edge today. You think you see and hear stuff all night, most people do. But it's just your imagination." Wes explains, not only Blaine looking at him strangely.

"Whatever! I'll just go to bed." Blaine says and throws his cup in one of the temporary trashcans (which is just a big black plastic bag hung on a chair).

"And miss Freddy VS Jason?" Jeff squeaks.

"Yes, Jeff. If I've got the Halloween spookies as Wes thinks, then I don't need to watch any scary movies." Blaine starts walking away from the group, but looks back for a moment. "Good night guys."

He felt it! He heard me! I have to keep trying. Kurt follows Blaine back to his room, but stays outside the door for a few minutes waiting. Blaine is probably going to get out of that costume and go to the bathroom and put on his pajamas and…

After about ten minutes Kurt opens the door and finds Blaine on his bed, leaning against the headboard of the bed. He has a lamp lit on the nightstand, a book open on his knees and a pair of glasses on his nose.

Blaine is reading a book that he sometimes reads to his little sister when she is scared. Blaine isn't really scared, as much as he is freaked out. He hears his door open and sighs quietly, waiting for one of the Warblers to come in and ask him about his sudden departure from the party. He looks up to find the doorway empty. He closes the book and puts it on his nightstand, folding the glasses on top before walking over to the door. He looks outside but there is nobody there. "Halloween spookies" Blaine tells himself in his head as he closes the door. When he walks past his armchair he suddenly shivers. He repeats Wes' words again in his head, getting back under his comforter. He hears a creak and looks over to his window. It is open slightly. "What the hell is this?" he hisses and stands again, closing the window and getting back in bed hurriedly. The window creaks again and he looks back to see it opening slowly, little by little. That window is usually very easy to open, it pretty much slides up by itself. But this is weird, really weird. This time Blaine crawls down deeper under his duvet, pulling it up to his nose. When the window is open as far as it will go, the wind blowing a few orange leaves through the opening, it starts to close back down again. Even slower. "This isn't happening. This isn't happening. This isn't happening!" Blaine whispers to himself and closes his eyes, feeling tears prickling behind his lids.

Kurt hears the click of the window when he finally closes it all the way. Blaine felt me earlier, and heard me. He can see the things I am doing now. There has to be a way to make Blaine see me. But Kurt can see that Blaine is crying silently now. So he decides to stop. This must be really scary for Blaine. Kurt thinks that maybe whatever is happening should be scary to him too, but he can't find it in him to figure this out. Kurt sits down in Blaine's armchair and there is the tiniest of thuds as he does so.

Blaine looks over at his armchair where he thought he had heard something. There is of course nothing there to see. Except for the sudden flash of blue again, and something brown and red too. Blaine blinks away the last of his tears, rubbing at his eyes with his fist. He looks again and there is nothing. He lets out a shuddering breath before turning his lamp off and turning his back to the chair, trying his best to fall asleep.

Kurt sighs. "I will try again tomorrow." he whispers. He is absolutely exhausted after using all his energy on that window, so he passes out for the second time that night.