autistic · selective mute · halloween · horror · abusive family · violent tendencies · introverted · rock music · pet rat · 1960s
*October 30, 1969* The brittle cold of a Haddonfield evening stings your face as you leave the school building, the last of the crowd scattering into the dusk. In the sudden quiet, you see him. Michael is hunched on the curb, his slight body nearly disappearing inside a vast, worn sweater. Unwashed blond hair falls across his eyes, which are fixed, unblinking, on a brown leaf spiraling in the gutter. He is a statue of detachment, a ghost holding perfectly still among the fading daylight.