Garm throws his fists against the table with all his might. With a loud boom, pencils, clothes, and a small wicking knife fly throughout the room. He lets out a sob of anguish before furiously wiping at his eyes.

His anger only grows as he gets another look at his hands, still shivering like leaves in the wind. Letting out another sobbing roar Garm continues to hit the table in an attempt to… an attempt to do what? His mind clouded by sadness and anger at his father, but mostly at himself, he just wants to feel anything but what he feels right now. At the final hit, pain radiates through his arms, letting him escape from his thoughts for just a moment.

Laying down on the floor, Garm focuses on the pain, letting its waves of relief wash over him as tears drip from his nose to the cold planks below. Soon, however, the pain dims and the voices make their presence known yet again. They whisper to him that he’s not good enough, that he’ll never amount to anything, his father hates him and it’s all due to those weak, pathetic hands of his.

In a moment of madness, Garm spots the moonlight glint off of the blade of the small wicking knife he sent flying earlier and scuttles over to it. Picking up the razor-sharp blade, he holds it before his eyes and examines it. Breathing heavily, he lays his other hand down on the ground, sizing it up like a piece of meat. Spotting the tell-tale shiver in his fingers he brings the blade slowly down on the base of his hand.

The blade rests in its spot another moment, then another. Without the pressure to let steel rend flesh, the knife simply rests on Garm's skin. Another handful of moments pass like this, Garm trying to will his hands to move, to cut, to do anything at all but shake in a feeble rhythm. Droplets of salty moisture soon drip down on the knife and the hand it’s pressed against.

Letting the knife drop to the floor, Garm rocks over and lets the tears flow. Reason finally returning to him, he can't help but feel even worse at his pathetic state.

How in the world would cutting himself have solved anything? Through his sobbs, he lets out a hollow, raspy laugh. In his mind's eye, he imagined his father coming up to his room the next day only to spot the mangled mess he’d made of his arms. Would he fall to his knees in horror, begging Garm for forgiveness for bringing him to such a state? In his childish madness, he’d imagined something like that. But, he knew better, didn’t he? “Kid can’t even cut straight,” Jonas would mumble and close the door on him, walk back downstairs, and drink his morning coffee. That is if he didn’t bleed to death shortly after making the first cut.

Laying crumbled on the floor in the moonlit room became Garm’s world for what felt like hours. Unable to sleep from the emotions tumbling through his head, he simply lay there on the cool planks, letting the day's events wash over him.

Mrs. Madsen's bout of madness and subsequent drugging. The gory stain that he soon learned was what remained of Mr. Madsen. The terrible fight with his father. The scenes replay again and again, faster and faster, and through it all, his complete inability to do anything at all. He feels haunted by a bone-deep helplessness that’s been following him for a very long time, years maybe, but only coming together in its glorious crescendo over the last few days.

Feeling absolutely spent, garm remains sleepless on the floor. He’s out of tears, yet the chill claws of melancholic emptiness are still buried in his scalp. As time passes, all other emotions eventually give way to the growing hollowness that accompanies him now. “I should get off the floor,” a distant voice, he recognizes as his own, tells him.

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Finally getting to his feet, he nearly stumbles on a mug that’s lying on its side. Through tired eyes, he notes that it’s thankfully not broken. Looking around the little square that is his room, Garm sees the mess he’s made of it. Not feeling the energy necessary to berate himself further, he simply bends back down and begins picking up his belongings and placing them back on the desk.

There’s no light in the room, the sun’s long since taken leave for the night, but the moon shines with pale radiance, highlighting every surface. In the moonlit room, Garm picks up scattered pencils, placing them neatly back into the mug. After stacking a newspaper and leaning down to grab an old sketchbook of his, Garm holds up one of the pages. He angles it so he can see his old creation in the sparse light. It’s a crude sketch of himself holding the Krag Jørgensen rifle he made when he was younger. Sighing to himself, he puts down the sketchbook and leans back onto his chair.

Placing both hands over his eyes Garm lets out another long-suffering sigh. Letting the self-imposed darkness swallow him for a few moments, he focuses on his breathing while rocking gently back and forth on the chair. “When are you gonna learn?” he mumbles to himself, “when are you gonna learn that life’s not going to turn out like in your dumb fantasies?”

Finishing the mantra with another deep breath he takes his hands away from his face and opens his eyes. While Garm stares at the wall, letting his eyes get used to the light yet again, he notices something off about the room. He looks down at his hands, then at the wall and his sketchbook. He’s tired, so very tired, but doesn’t the room seem darker than before?

Stumbling out of his chair, nearly tripping again in the previously moonlit room. Garm rights himself and turns, ever so slowly, towards the window. His legs nearly fail him as he glances out into the night.

Black orbs, darker than dark, set in an ivory visage, hovering right outside his window, and staring directly at Garm.

Summoning all of his breath, Garm wants to scream in fear, but he finds he’s frozen like a statue. Ripples of absolute terror flow through his body as he looks into the abyss that is those eyes. Not a muscle is responding to his command as he remains motionless where he stands, facing the monstrosity on the other side of his window. He can faintly sense that even his hands refuse their usual tremble in the presence of this being, instead remaining still in lockstep with his other limbs.

The ‘face’ Garm vaguely recognizes as a twisted and elongated stag's skull, remains hovering in position as the seconds slink by. Garm gets the sense it’s sizing him up like he’s a mouse caught in a barrel, being observed by a hungry cat.

Praying the windows will somehow be enough to deter the creature, Garm’s hopes turn to sorrow as a thin dark tendril extends from its form. The tendril snakes its way through the gap between the window and the frame and in one smooth motion, hooks around the latch and undoes it as Garm stares on in silent horror.

The creature’s eyes have been locked on Garm during the entire maneuver, seemingly drinking in every instance of hope draining from him. Desperately trying to will his body to move, Garm can only stare as the window creaks open. Looking for all the world like a predator lurking over its captured and helpless prey, the creature’s head finally begins to move. Slowly, only millimeters at a time, the creature pushes into the room. Soon it crests the edge of the window, then it’s inside.

“Move, move, move!” Garm screams at himself, but still, no words escape his mouth, his body remaining frozen like ice.

Looking like it’s played with him long enough the monstrous maw opens revealing rows and rows of jagged needle teeth. Any second now, Garm thinks to himself, those teeth will clamp around my body and it’ll all be over.

After pausing mid-motion, seemingly to let Garm understand his fate, the jaws descend on him in a powerful thrust.

BANG