The Dark

August is annoyed. His mother won't shut up, his half-brother is across the room bedazzling their relatives with his boy-next-door charm, and his father has been ignoring him for the whole evening, and now, he is annoyed.

It's always like this. Every year he came to his father's Christmas function, August's sweaters felt just a little too tight and his jaw was constantly set in a tight vice. These things were always too long, a week and a half of mind-numbing meaningless pleasantries that always left him thoroughly drained; it had only been two days since he arrived, and he was already tired of them all.