《The Last House on Main Street》
Chapter 1
It was still dark outside when I woke, and the temptation to roll over and go back to sleep was overwhelming. The truth was that I didn¡¯t have any pressing reason to get out of bed. Each day has been the same as the last, for God knows how long. However, something made me feel restless today. Groaning, I rolled out of bed and pulled on my pants.
Dawn was going to break soon, and whenever it did, it illuminated the sorry state of this house. It was something I have been desperately trying and failing to ignore. I got dressed and dragged myself down the stairs, careful to avoid the stacks of magazines permanently situated on the steps. Nothing in this house was in order anymore.
Where there once was order, there was chaos. Dilapidated homes lined the streets of my formerly idyllic suburban neighborhood. This house and that street out front had been home to many of my firsts, like the first time I rode a bike. I had hit a snag and fallen. My mother had scooped me up and kissed my scrapped knee. Those were better times.
My house was now the only one still mostly intact. It sat dead center on Main Street, and it was the last place left where I still felt safe. Under normal conditions, it would have been nothing to brag about; it was simple and modest. The humble two-story house had white walls, a brown-colored roof, and a formerly green front lawn.
The house now leaned to the side and sagged at parts where the holes in the roof had let water in. I had never patched them, and when it rained, it poured. The front door had been knocked off its hinges a long time ago as well. I could have tried to replace it, but that door had served me well, so I had simply propped it back up over the entryway.
Out front, the streets were now covered in craters and littered with items hastily left behind in the scramble for cover; many of those were singed and deteriorating themselves as well. There was one particularly strange reminder that children used to play here. It was a handlebar from a purple kids¡¯ bike hammered into the middle of the road. I think it used to belong to a little girl from down the street, the one that was trouble. Every street had a kid like that.
The handlebar had faded to a dull purple, and its colorful streamers had become tattered with time. Still, they continued to blow in the wind. When the light hit it, it cast long, thin shadows on the ground. The shadows moved with the sun, and I used it like a sundial. It was my only way to keep track of time.
All of this was a gift from the war, the war that I knew nothing about and played no part in either. Life was cruel like that sometimes. The people who paid the most were the ones least likely to benefit from it. There were rumors of involuntary conscription. Maybe if I had been a bit older, I might have been drafted, but I was only seventeen at the time, so it wouldn¡¯t have affected me.
Instead, I was left to my studies, where everyone around me scrambled to prepare for the worst, my mother included. It was all anyone could talk about for months. Every time someone opened their mouth, words like bunker, food stores, and shelter would pour out. I remember getting rather sick of hearing about it.
It only got worse when the air strikes were announced. I remember how they were boldly emblazoned on every newspaper headline. News anchors would avidly share the newest and most alarming details on television broadcasts. Everyone was frozen stiff with terror, and you could have cut the air with a knife.
It was suffocating, and all of it felt like someone else¡¯s problem. I didn¡¯t even know what the war was for or what would happen if we won. However, I did know what would happen if we lost ¨C disaster. That was something anyone could understand, and it was what everyone was afraid of.
I think I might have been afraid of it too, but I¡¯m not sure anymore. It was a long time ago. Everyone around me had been busy shoring up supplies and sheltering for cover in their basements. They were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Meanwhile, I was distracted. It seemed unreal and far away, and I had more pressing problems to worry about, or so I thought.
I¡¯m not sure what I was doing when the bombs finally fell. Maybe it was just that time had corroded my memories, but I wish I knew sometimes. I think I was in my bedroom, but it could have also been any other room of the house. The only thing I was sure of was that I had been at home while my neighborhood was being blown to bits. If there was anything I had ever been good at, it was blocking out the rest of the world.
The world had gone to hell, and I was just¡ fine. I was fine. My mother had saved up quite an impressive hoard of food in the period leading up to the air strikes, and there had been boxes upon boxes of meal replacement bars, canned goods, and water in the basement. Of course, I had run out of clean water years ago and now had to rely on the rain barrels instead, but it was a small price to pay for survival.
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The sun had risen while I was lost in thought. Over on the far side of the house, sunlight was now faintly streaming in through the gaps in the boards over the windows. They cast stripes of light on the floor. The floorboards creaked as I walked over to peer through the slates. It was a part of my daily routine; it was the most essential part of how I started every day.
Maybe I was just keeping busy. Maybe I was trying to alleviate my fears. I didn¡¯t really know. For a while, there were monsters, and for all I knew, there might still have been. There used to be banging. There used to be screaming, scratching, and wailing. Most of the time, it came from outside, but sometimes I swear I could hear it coming from that one room upstairs that I didn¡¯t dare enter anymore.
I had attempted to seal the windows and the door to that single room to dampen the noise. To my surprise, one day it all just went away. Suddenly, the house had fallen silent, and even my breath seemed unnaturally loud. The monsters, or whatever they were, seemed like they had come and gone in the blink of an eye. I should have been relieved, but instead, I felt uneasy. There was something eerie about the silence, like it wasn¡¯t meant to be there.
Part of it nagged at me; I felt like I was forgetting something. Birds sang from that stubborn tree behind my house, the one that refused to die, and it pulled me back to reality. My eyes coasted over the front lawn. It had certainly seen better days as well. Wherever the grass wasn¡¯t dead, it was yellowed and nearly two feet tall. However, the lawnmower had been broken for ages, and despite my best efforts, it still sat pathetically nonfunctional in a pile of endless unfinished projects.
My mother had loved her projects as well, and they were all consuming to her. No matter how many she cleared away, there were always more. It felt like the more she worked with them, the more they grew. I rubbed my temple with my thumb and index finger. That was enough of that; thinking about all of this was making my head hurt.
Instead, I redirected my thoughts to making myself a cup of coffee. Wedging myself between piles of her treasures, I worked my way to the back, where the kitchen sat. On my way, my foot caught on the corner of a cardboard box. It tumbled unceremoniously to the ground.
I would have just left it there, but a hint of a worn red cover caught my eye. A pile of albums peaked through the open flaps. I pulled it out and shook off the dust. Large, colorful foam letters were glued to the front. The familiar lettering read, ¡°Victor Lewis¡¯s Great Big Art Book!¡± and I scoffed; it was one of my old art books from back when I was still a kid. Of course, my mother had saved it. She saved everything.
I had never been very gifted in the arts; the book was filled with an assortment of crudely drawn dragons. The messy crayon drawings were barely discernible, and they sported a smiley face whether they were turned to the front or the side. Let it be known that whatever I lacked in ability, I made up for in enthusiasm. Even I had been an excitable boy once.
I let the book fall from my hands. It clattered noisily and kicked up a cloud of dust. That was enough of that too. This day was proving to be filled with more memories and unnecessary things than I cared for. Gratefully, I arrived in the kitchen. The coffee machine sat on the counter. It didn¡¯t quite work right anymore, and I¡¯d had to get creative to keep brewing my daily morning mug, not that it really mattered.
The only coffee I could brew was both bitter and bland. Sometimes I wondered if I was punishing myself by continuing to drink it, but there was a bit of comfort in following a routine. I plopped down in my regular spot at the table and sipped coffee from my steaming mug. This was also something I used to enjoy. A newspaper still sat on the other side of the table, in front of the seat my mother always used.
All the canned foods and box mixes had run out ages ago. Now, I had to force down horribly monotonous meal replacement bars across from the two other seats at the table, the ones that always sat empty. If I could, I would have stopped eating entirely. Every bite was a chore, and I cursed the way my stomach growled when I ignored the pang of hunger.
Around noon, I watered the plants; they were my mother¡¯s. Maybe some of her sentimentality had rubbed off on me too. After all, the only reason I still bothered with them was for her. Watering them was a ritual I performed for her sake. Considering how often it rained, I didn¡¯t need to bother at all, but it felt wrong not to, so I always did.
It was one of the great many things I always did. One does what one must, or so they say. There was the way I read the same book after lunch every day ¨C the one I had memorized by heart. There was the way I would tinker away with odds and ends and unfinished projects, hoping that this time it would be different and the completed product would actually work. There was the way I made the same stupid joke every day, like the next time it might make me laugh.
It was about my mother, who had simply disappeared at some point and never came back. Internally, just like clockwork, at least once a day I¡¯d repeat it to myself like a mantra: ¡°If she ever comes back, I¡¯ll have to let her know how I feel about her taking such a long time to get the milk. I haven¡¯t had a proper bowl of cereal in ages!¡± Then I¡¯d thank God that at least I still have a sense of humor.
At night, I went to sleep in my bed, and I thought that I heard the faint sound of banging come from that one room across the way. It was the only room I had barred entry to. It was the only room I still feared for reasons even I didn¡¯t know. It was the only room that seemed to call my name like it was desperate.
I almost crept my way over to it and peaked inside, but instead, I ended the night the same way I did every time. I pulled the sheets up to my neck and stared at the ceiling fan that no longer worked. I reminded myself that I was happy. It¡¯s true, I tell myself the same lie every night. I tell myself that I am happy and that everything is fine, but when I go to sleep at night, my dreams tell me the truth¡ªI''m afraid.
Chapter 2
Sleep didn¡¯t come easily to me anymore. I often slept fretfully. This night, however, was worse than most. I tossed and turned all night, slipping in and out of consciousness. Nothing seemed to soothe me anymore; even imagining the broken ceiling fan on my ceiling spinning did nothing to calm my nerves. There was a time that I¡¯d trace the blades with my eyes and count them one by one until my eyelids grew heavy. Those were simpler times.
Every time I briefly dipped in and out of consciousness, I swore I could hear banging from the room from across the way ¨C the one I didn¡¯t dare enter anymore. Finally, in a sleep-induced haze, I made my way to the door.
The passage was blocked by stacks of boxes, trinkets, and knick-knacks. There were all the things that my mother used to love, and I had used them to bar this door from me many years ago. How many had it been now? I turned it over in my mind for a bit and then shook the thought out of my head. After all, there were some things better left in the dark.
All her treasures were covered in cobwebs and dust. The moonlight danced off the particulates that were kicked into the air. Covering my nose with my sleeve, I refused to give up. It was like I was possessed.
When there was nothing standing in my way other than a few hastily nailed in boards over the wooden door, I stood there stupefied. Part of me never thought I¡¯d get this far. It took me several moments before I finally dragged myself to the door and placed my ear against it.
At first, there was nothing, but then, there was sobbing. It was weak and wheezing, and then out of the smallest and most fragile voice I had ever heard, I heard my name. It lit up every muscle in my body on fire, and I fled back the way I had come, like a bat out of hell.
I threw the covers back over me and clutched my knees to my chest. Crushing my eyes shut, I prayed for tomorrow. This day had already been far too long and painful. So many old things, things that I thought I had already overcome, were now pulling me back to them. I told myself I wasn¡¯t afraid over and over again until, gradually, sleep came to take me away.
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It took me from my room and brought me somewhere greater. My consciousness had faded away, and my bedroom ceiling was now replaced with a familiar, clear blue sky. It was one I had seen before, but from where I didn¡¯t know. The sky was filled with clouds drifting by, but it was still agonizingly bright. The light seared my eyes, and I dove beneath the shade of a nearby tree to escape from it.
This world was a perfect mirror image of Main Street, and there was something beautiful about it. Even that strange handlebar in the center of a crater in the road looked lovely here. It was lodged there perfectly upright, and there was something purposeful about it, like if God had put it there himself.
When I pulled myself away from the shade of the tree, a flock of birds erupted from overhead, crying out in unison, but it wasn¡¯t my movement that had startled them. It was the quaking steps of the large figure in the distance that had trembled the earth with one of his great steps.
We always found our way to each other somehow. The giant and I seemed to be drawn together. In the dreams where I didn¡¯t leave my house, it would find me instead. I would always look out the window to see its impressive visage looming over my house and blocking out the sun. Its large, dropping arms flowed to the ground like a nest of snakes, tangling together and writhing in clusters. Sometimes it would look at me, and despite its lack of eyes, I always felt like it met mine.
I often felt it weeping, even though no tears ever ran down its face. Maybe, instead, they ran down through its body and into those gravity-worn arms that dragged along the ground. They seemed to stay in place as it walked away; every step it took added more to the mass of flesh by its feet. It occurred to me then that if those waterlogged arms ever burst, we might have both drowned together.
My body refused to move, and the ground sang to me. Everything resonated with me. I could have even sworn that I felt the fabric of existence at my fingertips. In that moment, I prayed to God: Please God, if I am going to be torn apart, let it be meaningful; let it be necessary. I don''t want to be dust; I don¡¯t want to be nothing. Please, God, just let me exist, all I want is to be real! And then it all faded to black.
Chapter 3
Dawn had already broken, and the sun¡¯s harsh rays were filtering through the window. A sliver of light came through and settled on my face. My eyes twitched at the intrusion, and then something that was almost a face flashed through my mind -¨C the one that belonged to the giant that never wept.
That was more than enough to wake me up. I was upright now and just as tired as the night before. I always was. Sleep never brought me relief anymore. Despite the fact that I no longer had any reason to keep to a schedule, I still slept and woke at the same times every day, and it was strange for me to still be in bed at this hour.
I was going to walk to the windows downstairs to check the view, as I always did every morning, but this time the door across the way caught my attention instead. The clutter was cleared out of the way, and a set of footprints led to and from the door. They were an eerie reminder of the events of the night before. With the clutter cleared out of the way, the corner seemed strangely barren. I shook the unpleasant thoughts from my head and hurried down the stairs.
The kitchen looked almost the same as it always did, but there was something strange about it today. It took me a while of pacing back and forth until it hit me. The house, which was nearly packed floor to ceiling with clutter, had an ominously sparse section in the pantry. A cold sweat ran down my face as the hair on the back of my neck rose.
I always knew this day would come, but I refused to accept it. The pantry was almost empty, and I would be lucky if there was even enough food to last the rest of the day. Somehow, I had not noticed the food stores diminishing day by day. No, that wasn¡¯t right. There was no way that I hadn¡¯t noticed. I had deliberately refused to acknowledge that the food stores were dropping lower by the day.
Caught in shock, I ran on autopilot, too dazed to even process what had just happened to me. My coffee was brewed, and I had my breakfast the same way I always did, right across from the newspaper, which I couldn¡¯t bear to move and no longer bothered to read. The final box dwindled¡ I¡¯m not afraid.
Around noon, I watered my mother¡¯s plants and read my favorite book, the same as I always did, but it didn¡¯t feel the same this time. After lunch, the box dwindled again¡ I¡¯m not afraid. Some time later, I found myself preparing for the futile task of fixing all the broken appliances and projects. However, the rusted hammer in the toolbox looked strangely tantalizing today. I stuck it in my tool belt and carried on with my day.
After dinner, the box dwindled once more¡ I¡¯m not afraid. Normally, I would have gone straight to bed and stared once more at the broken ceiling fan that refused to turn and that I had no hope of ever fixing. However, today I strode over to that boarded-off door, hammer in hand, and ripped them out one by one. The hastily nailed boards fell to the floor one after another until there was nothing blocking my way other than the door itself.
Without hesitation, I yanked the door open and stepped inside. The moonlight was streaming in from the gaping holes in the roof. Scraps of metal and wood were protruding from the floor and walls. Carefully, I made my way to the center. There was a small clearing, perfectly clear of debris, almost like it was made just for me. Some sort of stain outlined the area, but I was too tired to care.
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Fatigue overcame me, and like a tidal wave, I was swept under my exhaustion. I collapsed to the floor in a heap. My consciousness began to fade, and in my last moments of consciousness, I prayed. Please, God, don¡¯t give me more than I can bear. Then, slowly, sleep carried me away.
That night, I found myself in the sky. My clothes whipped against my cold, clammy skin. As I descended through the clouds, night turned to dawn. Sunlight peaked through and illuminated the world beneath me. It looked so pitifully small. The houses were merely speckles across a war-torn land. There was nothing for miles other than toppled buildings in various states of disrepair and rubble partially reclaimed by nature.
Dawn turned to day as I continued descending towards the earth. My pace slowed, and time seemed to freeze as I moved almost in slow motion. What looked like small orbs floated up from the ground. They could have been considered hot air balloons if not for their breezy, billowing flesh. The flock of hot air balloons floated lazily past me, seemingly oblivious to my presence, and continued towards the heavens.
My hand shot up, and I waved at them reflexively. Their undulating eyes fixed on me in unison. Their bloated lips parted, and the corners rose as they bared their teeth to me. That was when I saw it¡ªmy eyes. Those were my own eyes staring at me. All those massive, disembodied heads wore my face.
They came closer and closer, enveloping me in a warm embrace. I felt loved then the same way a child does in the arms of their mother, but, in an instance, they vanished. I cried out for them to come back. The air around me felt painfully empty without their presence.
Then, as if to answer my call, the giant shook the ground with its thundering steps. I squinted, scanning the ruins until I found it. And then there it was, patiently waiting for me within the ruins of the place I once loved. Slowly, it turned its head, beckoning me to follow its gaze, and on the other side of its gaze, I found my house. I was coming home.
My feet touched the ground, and I made my way down the street with my hands stuffed in my pockets. Ordinarily, I would have been happy to come home, but tonight I felt something else instead. I kicked a small stone out of the way, and it rolled towards the center of the street, landing neatly by the one thing that always called me.
Its fluttering, colorful streamers waved lazily in the wind. There was something mesmerizing about that strange handlebar. Something about it called me, like it was begging me to come closer. Even the cracks that radiated out of it seemed to grow every day.
I shook the temptation from my head and walked up my front steps instead. It only took a light push for the door to clatter inward, kicking up a cloud of dust. Suddenly, the strong scent of must and mold assaulted me, and I wrinkled my nose in disgust. My eyes watered from the stench. It smelled like neglect and rot, and then it transformed into a graveyard of everything I had lost.
My head swam, and my world turned sideways as I toppled down the steps. Before I knew it, I was in front of that strange handlebar again. My shaking hand reached out towards it, but with contact, I felt nothing but air. Again. I reached out and swatted at the handlebar, only for my fingers to phase right through it. No, again. Again. Again. Again!
I slammed my fist on the ground, scraping it against the asphalt until it bled. Was I asleep or awake? I didn¡¯t want to know. Nothing was real anymore. Nothing made sense either. I was still stuck in a decrepit house on the street I grew up on. My food stores were dwindling by the day, and I couldn¡¯t stand the place that I used to call home. Before I knew it, I was sprinting desperately away from my house, barefoot and bleeding.
Chapter 4
Raindrops began to dot the ground around me. The hot summer air was not doing me any favors; even the air was oppressive that night. The air was thick with humidity; it stuck in my lungs. My chest heaved. My feet pounded the asphalt as I ran desperately away from my house, the only place I had ever called home.
The heat was fighting me. I could have collapsed at any moment, but I forced my body to keep moving. I ran even faster. Faster and faster and faster. My head blanked, and then there was nothing other than the sound of my feet against the pavement and the pitter-patter of the rain. Jagged pieces of rubble cut into my feet, and I left twin trails of bloody footprints behind me.
Once well-loved homes flanked me on either side. Just like ghosts, I could almost see when there were still people here. Bits and pieces of the past came rushing back to me, and once the memories started pouring in, it was like the dam had broken. All those echoes of the past were crying out to me, and I feared that if I stopped or faltered for even a second, I would find myself right back where I started.
I ran until my legs burned. Stumbling forward, I dragged myself forward step by step. My head sagged, and my heavy eyes trailed along the ground until I felt the spring of cold metal wires against my head. It was pitch black. Groping blindly in front of me, I found my hands locked around the rough metal of a chain-link fence overgrown with ivy.
The drizzle had long since turned to rain, and the ground was slick. With my lungs about to burst, I braced myself against the fence and followed it. It wasn¡¯t long after that I discovered a slit in the fence large enough for me to slip through. The jagged edges of the wires caught on my clothes and scraped my skin. I flinched, but it wouldn¡¯t stop me.
When I emerged on the other side, it felt like I had entered another world. The thick ivy vines had been blocking the street from sight, but now that I had crossed through, there was no mistaking it. The area ahead was illuminated by a smattering of streetlights and a dimly lit gas station. There wasn¡¯t a soul in sight.
It felt like I had been transported back to a time before the air strikes had destroyed everything. The world was whole again. How it was possible, I didn¡¯t know. I couldn¡¯t have traveled more than a few miles.
Down the street, I found a grocery store. Its sign had a few missing letters, but inside it was well stocked. The sterile, white interior was jarring. Compared to the crumbling state of my house and my pitifully dwindling supplies, this grocery store was a paradise. Perfectly stocked shelves were visible in every direction.
At one time, shelves like these felt ordinary, but they now felt out of place. Just short of the front doors, there was a display advertising cereal boxes. The beaming mascot smiled at me next to a brand name I didn¡¯t recognize. The text bubble proudly displayed the message, ¡°Bring home a box of Mother¡¯s cereal today! It¡¯s got what kids crave!¡± Advertising was once the bane of my existence. Now, however, I was almost relieved to see it again.
A flicker of movement caught my attention from down the aisle. There was a woman absent-mindedly walking away from me; she contrasted with the otherwise sterile, white surroundings. I could have let it go, but it had been so long since I last saw another person. So, instead of minding my own business, I followed her.
The woman stopped in the baking aisle and began meticulously comparing the nearly endless selection of cake mixes. What was the point? They all looked the same to me anyway. I wanted to speak to her, but I hesitated. What could I possibly say to her that would sound sane? Just as I was about to lose my nerve to speak to her, the familiarity of the woman assaulted me.
There was only one woman I knew who looked like that. She was a small, mousy woman with dark brown hair and eyes too big for her face. Her movements were both timid and frantic, and her many layers of brown clothing were ill-suited to the weather. There was only one person it could be¡ It was my mother.
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My feet moved before I knew it, and suddenly, I was by her side. She jolted in my direction, and then she saw my face, and her eyes shot open.
¡°Victor?!¡± she cried as she stumbled backwards. The boxes she had been holding escaped from her grasp and tumbled to the floor.
¡°Victor?¡± she repeated. ¡°Is it really you?¡±
If there was anything I knew about my mother, it was that she always seemed to be scared of something. And considering how she was looking at me now, it seemed that this time it might be me.
¡°Yeah,¡± I mumbled. ¡°Hi, Mom...¡±
¡°Victor¡¡± Fear turned to relief as tears brimmed in her eyes. ¡°I thought I¡¯d never see you again.¡±
¡°I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d see you again either.¡± I choked back.
¡°How are you doing?¡± she fussed. ¡°It¡¯s been so long; we must have so much to catch up on.¡±
I coughed and shifted my weight to my other leg.
¡°I¡¯m alright,¡± I lied, and hoped she wouldn¡¯t press me further. There wasn¡¯t anything worth sharing.
¡°You look well,¡± she beamed, continuing like she hadn¡¯t noticed.
I sighed in relief. My eyes were puffy and bloodshot. My clothes were tattered and stained. And, to top it all off, I was barefoot and soaking wet in a grocery store at some god-forsaken hour. I must have looked like a lot of things, but ¡°well¡± was not one of them. If ever there was a time that I was relieved that my mother had a knack for avoiding unpleasant topics, this was one of them.
¡°Yeah, you do too,¡± I lied again.
There were so many things I wanted to ask her that I didn¡¯t know where to start. What happened? Where was she? And, lastly, why did she leave me alone to fend for myself? I was only seventeen when it all went to hell¡ Still a child¡
I gritted my teeth and tried to force the words out of me, but a halfhearted ¡°Where have you been?¡± was all I could muster.
¡°Sorry?¡± She blinked at me.
¡°Where have you been?¡± I muttered again. ¡°¡I was waiting for you, you know...¡±
¡°Waiting for me?¡± she fidgeted. ¡°Oh, Victor. Why would you make such a big fuss out of something like that? I was just heading out for a bit of shopping.¡±
¡°You expect me to believe you were out shopping for who knows how many years?¡± I asked, feeling my pulse pound against my temple. How stupid did she think I was?
¡°It¡¯s just¡.¡± she sighed. ¡°Well, you know how it is.¡±
I didn¡¯t. She avoided my gaze and began to sweat.
¡°It¡¯s hot in here, isn¡¯t it?¡± She asked, fanning her face with a pamphlet from her purse.
¡°Not that hot,¡± I mumbled quietly.
Her eyes darted around the shelves before finally settling on her feet.
¡°There was always so much to do¡¡± she trailed off. ¡°There was always this or that, and I never knew where to start. The house was such a mess¡¡±
She paused. ¡°We never did finish going through your father¡¯s things¡¡±
The house was littered with clutter, boxes, and endless unfinished projects that she was always going to get around to someday. Among the mess were all the things that used to belong to my father. He had died only a few years before the war. My mother hadn¡¯t been able to bring herself to move any of them, so even his pants still sat at the foot of the bed where he last put them.
¡°No, we didn¡¯t.¡± I agreed reluctantly.
Sweat was running down her face now, and she was frantically wiping it out of her eyes.
¡°Oh dear, it¡¯s so hot in here. It must be all this terrible weather.¡±
She unbuttoned her outermost coat and began to fan herself faster. The color began to seep from her eyes, her skin blanched, and she shook like a leaf.
¡°It was just¡ It was just too much, Victor,¡± she mumbled.
Her already heavy breathing grew more labored, and her sweat ran like water. It spilled from her as she spoke and puddled at her feet.
¡°There was always too much to do, too much to decide, too much unfinished. You understand, don¡¯t you? Especially after your dad¡¡±
She trailed off and looked up at me, hopefully, and I stared down at this frail woman who had never spoken to me about anything unpleasant so directly before.
I swallowed hard. ¡°Yes, Mom. I know¡¡±
Her nearly colorless eyes lit up.
¡°That¡¯s my boy!¡± she beamed, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet. ¡°Now, where was I? I just need to finish up my shopping, and then we can go home. Maybe I¡¯ll make some cake to celebrate. Oh, we¡¯re finally coming home together! You like cake, don¡¯t you, Victor?¡±
Before I got the chance to answer her, she turned to walk away, and with every step she took, the puddle beneath her feet grew. It grew larger and larger until it turned into a bottomless pit and swallowed her whole, leaving nothing behind.
Chapter 5
My mother was gone. There wasn¡¯t even a mark left on the floor. It was senseless. How could it be that my mother, who had just been in front of me, was lost to me again?
The world blurred through my tears, and my body moved without me. Before I knew it, I was snatching boxes off the shelves and cramming them into my arms. I didn¡¯t care what it was or what I¡¯d do with it. I just wanted something, and I wanted it fast. I was feral.
I don¡¯t remember how I got there, but eventually, I found myself in front of the dairy aisle, staring down at rows of milk. It was like all the absurdity of the world had just slapped me in the face. I couldn¡¯t take it anymore. The boxes I was holding fell to my feet as I flung the glass doors open, grabbing gallon after gallon and hurling them across the aisle. The plastic containers burst, and milk gushed out, leaving great white pools in their wake.
I lost my footing on the slick floor. Pain shot through my body with the impact against the ground. Aching, I clutched my arms to my sides, and turned over. To my surprise, I had come face-to-face with a bright, smiling face. It was the same smiling mascot that I had seen earlier in the display.
I blinked twice. What was a cereal box doing here? If I was standing where I thought I was when I grabbed these boxes, then they should have been cake mixes. What it all meant came hurtling towards me. I had never gone to the baking aisle, and I might not even have seen my mother.
It felt like karma for all those years I joked about her being gone. I didn¡¯t really mean it, but I always joked that she was taking too long to come back with the milk. How would I ever have a proper bowl of cereal again without her? It was hilarious, and now the joke is now on me.
¡°Nothing is real,¡± I breathed.
At the corner of my consciousness, I briefly registered frantic employees skittering about. One must have decided to call the police because some time later I was confronted by a uniformed officer. We exchanged some words. Whatever I said must not have been enough to persuade him to let me go, because it wasn¡¯t long after that that I found myself at the station.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
I was in a plain, white room. There was one table in the center and two folding chairs on either side. The fluorescent bulbs buzzed overhead. Finally, the doorknob clicked and turned. A young police officer opened the door and stepped inside. He sat down across from me and clasped his hands together, swallowing hard.
¡°Your name is Victor Lewis. Is that correct?¡± he asked.
I nodded limply, and he moved on.
¡°And your mother¡¯s name is Barbara Lewis; is that correct too?¡±
I nodded again. He then paused before continuing, his brows furrowing.
¡°I''m sorry to have to tell you this, but your mother is dead,¡± he confided.
¡°What?¡± I gaped. ¡°But I just¡ I just saw her.¡±
He dropped his gaze and continued.
¡°I¡¯m sorry for your loss.¡±
I swallowed hard.
¡°How?¡±
¡°What?¡±
¡°Tell me how it happened. Tell me how she died!¡± I seethed.
He seemed taken aback and began flipping through the folder he had brought in with him.
¡°It says here that seventeen years ago, an air strike was directed at your town. The area sustained heavy casualties. However, both you and your mother were rescued by emergency services. Despite our best efforts, your mother, Barbara Lewis, died shortly after arriving at the hospital. She had sustained fatal injuries, and nothing could be done. The hospital staff reported you missing after being unable to find you around the time of her death. Under normal circumstances, a manhunt would have been conducted for a missing teenager, but the sheer quantity of victims left the rescue service short-staffed, and a search was never conducted. Your file still lists you as a missing person.¡±
¡°What?¡± I gripped the table so fiercely that my knuckles turned white.
¡°Now, Mr. Lewis¨C¡±
He was asking me questions and giving me information, but the only thing I could think about was that he had called me ¡°mister¡±. When had I become a ¡°mister¡± exactly? In my mind, I was still a boy. It suddenly occurred to me that this police officer in front of me, who I saw as a man, was younger than I was. Time froze then. I saw his mouth move, but I couldn¡¯t hear a word.
¡°I think I¡¯m going to throw up.¡± I groaned, tasting bile in my mouth.
Startled, he jolted upwards and showed me the way to the bathroom down the hall. I stumbled inside, and once the door closed, I was alone again.
Chapter 6
The bathroom was nothing special, but it felt like a relief to me. I had never been so happy to see a toilet in my life. Dropping to my knees, I heaved into the porcelain bowl. The taste of my retching was like death. I staggered to the sink and cleared away the bile from my tongue. Straightening up, I became fiercely aware of the face in the mirror. The man I saw staring back at me was a stranger.
He had more prominent features and weathered skin. Dark circles sagged from beneath his eyes, and a large, bluntly cut mass hair framed both his head and jaw. However, the most unnerving feature sat squarely in the center¨Cthe deadened, bloodshot eyes. They were the eyes of a man who had seen more than they were ever meant to.
I turned my head from side to side and studied my face in the mirror. The years had not been kind to me. I suppose I shouldn¡¯t be surprised. The conditions in the house were often unforgiving, especially in the summers and winters when I went without proper insulation, heating, or cooling. I couldn¡¯t even remember the last time I had had a good night¡¯s sleep. What did it feel like to wake up well rested?
Images started flashing through my mind. I remembered bracing myself against the wall to tear out all the mirrors from the walls. Shards of glass cut my hands and mixed in with the wreckage as they shattered against the floor. Clumsily, I tossed what was left of them out of the nearest second story window. I didn¡¯t watch them fall. No, I just closed the blinds and never opened them again.
Blocking my view and refusing to look back¡ That was a reoccurring theme in my life, probably a much more pervasive theme than I had ever admitted to myself before. Maybe I thought that if I couldn¡¯t see my reflection anymore, I wouldn¡¯t ever have to face myself again. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul¡ if only it were that simple.
It would never be good enough just to avert my gaze. The world had moved on without me, whether or not I refused to see it. I had become a man while I still thought of myself as just a boy, and with every day that passed, I became less myself. Staring transfixed at this face that looked far too old for thirty-four, I cursed myself under my breath.
And the longer I looked, the more alien the face became. Slowly, my features melted away and disappeared entirely. The featureless nature of the face bled down into the neck and shoulders. Before I knew it, I was left staring at the faceless giant that haunted my dreams as both a friend and an enemy.
¡°Who are you? What are you doing here?¡± I flinched.
The faceless giant then spoke the first words I had ever heard it utter.
¡°You are asking me something you already know,¡± it stated flatly. There was neither affection nor contempt in its tone. ¡°I am who I have always been, and I am here because this is the only place I could ever be. The two of us are intertwined.¡±
That explanation, which gave me more questions than answers, did nothing to put me at ease. In exasperation, I rubbed my temple with my hand. When was the last time I felt this way? It felt like a long time ago. Was it at my father¡¯s funeral?
The clear, bright blue sky felt out of place that day with the somber atmosphere of the crowd. My father¡¯s casket was slowly being lowered into the ground. Somebody was patting my shoulder. I think they told me that everything would be fine, but I couldn¡¯t see how anything would ever be fine again. To the other side, my mother was silently weeping into her hands.
That day, I lost both my parents. My mother was never the same again. Her formerly upbeat demeanor morphed into that of someone I didn¡¯t know. I¡¯d come home from school and see her hunched over, once again, on the couch, sorting through yet another box of treasures. At least, that was what she called them. I didn¡¯t agree. Many of them were old and worn, and some of them were even broken.
I wanted to talk to her about how everything was changing and how alone I felt, but it never felt like the right time. There was always too much¨Ctoo much for her and too much for me. She was too fragile, and I was too young. And while I was paralyzed by indecision, her hoard continued to grow. The house gradually transformed from a home into a warehouse.
The day that the bombs fell, I was at home with my mother. She was in a panic, flying from one corner of the house to another, trying to choose what to take down to the basement with us. Of course, it was a moot point; the basement was so full of food and supplies that there was no room for anything else. There was barely even enough room for the two of us to shelter together.
I swore under my breath, hoping she would just let it go, but every one of those odds and ends was important to her in some special and disorganized way. Whether it was a gold chain or a lamp without a shade, she couldn¡¯t choose. There wasn¡¯t anything she could bear to leave behind. Overhead, I heard the sound of engines, and I called out to her.
The bomber planes were getting closer and closer. When the first bomb fell, the ground shook beneath us. Her walls of clutter crashed to the ground, and I screamed at her. We couldn¡¯t wait anymore. It was now or never.
All of my pent-up frustration bubbled up and out of me. Why did she care more about piles of trash than our lives? What good was all this junk to us if we both ended up dead?! What was the point of risking our lives when it was impossible to save everything that she cared about anyway? Why couldn¡¯t she just let it go?! As my chest heaved from the weight of my catharsis, I waited for her to answer me, but all she could offer me were halfhearted words.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
¡°Oh, Victor. You know I can¡¯t handle you when you get like this,¡± she sighed, without even looking up at me.
That was the final straw. I wasn¡¯t going to risk my life for someone who cared so little for either of us. She could throw away her life, but I wasn¡¯t going down with her. Turning away, I stalked down to the basement and slammed the door behind me. Part of me wanted her to get what she deserved, but another part of me didn¡¯t really think she would be that careless. I thought she would come to her senses before the bombs hit our house, but she didn¡¯t.
She was in her second-story bedroom when it exploded into shards of metal and wood. The only room in the house she shouldn¡¯t have been in was precisely where she was. I screamed for help, but when it came, she was already unconscious and bleeding out. I wanted a second chance to do the right thing, but she never opened her eyes again. She died quietly in a hospital room with only me by her side.
Guilt was eating away at me¡ Her blood was on my hands. I shouldn¡¯t have let her putter away when I knew how dangerous it was for us. I shouldn¡¯t have screamed at her when it might have been the last words she would ever hear. I shouldn¡¯t have hated her for something that she couldn¡¯t control; I knew that she was sick, and I still resented her for it.
I became an orphan at the age of seventeen. It was too much. Everything was too much. I broke. I ran. In my pain, I sought familiarity. I came back to the only place that was ever mine. It was the house where we were once a family, the house where everything was fine, and the only place where I had always felt safe.
Maybe I thought that if I stayed there long enough, one day I would wake up and everything would be the way it was meant to be. Maybe I was punishing myself for killing her. Maybe I just hated the world and wanted to retreat from it. I don¡¯t know. I might never know. In the end, it doesn¡¯t really matter.
Between the way my mother was at the end and the way she was when I had seen her in the grocery store, not much had changed. It was true, the hallucination¡¯s skin had blanched, and its eyes had faded, but my mother had already been living as a ghost for years. I remembered how, in my vision, she had leaked water all over the floor before ultimately disappearing into it. It occurred to me that the pool might not have been made of water. What if, instead of water, it was made of her tears? After all, she was a woman who lived in fear, and she drowned in her past, unable to see a tomorrow.
The person who had stolen my mother from me was not myself; it was her. She was the only one who could have made the decision to live. If I had dragged her kicking and screaming down to the basement, who knows if she would have ever forgiven me? There was a cruel irony to it, she had spent considerable amounts of time and money preparing for the worst, and when the worst came, she was not there to see it.
¡°You knew,¡± I scowled.
¡°I did,¡± it answered.
¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me? I could have done something else with my life! I could have chosen better!¡± I growled.
¡°Do you mean like how you told your mother? Did she listen to you then in her last hours?¡± it replied.
I blinked. ¡°What?¡±
¡°You already knew,¡± it continued. ¡°If I had told you something you didn¡¯t want to hear, you would have just ignored me. The house and the streets told you as much. The spot where she laid in her final moments is still stained with blood. You had more than enough evidence to tell you the truth, and instead of facing it, you averted your eyes. You knew she would never come back to you.¡±
My knuckles turned white with my grip on the side of the sink. The events of the night before haunted me. There was the room that had called me, the door I couldn¡¯t ignore, and the spot where I slept on the floor. It was both stained and bare... like it had been shielded by something¡ Then, it hit me; it was the very place where she had fallen. I had slept in the very same spot she was when she had taken the blunt of the blast, the one that had blown that gaping hole in the roof. Tears burned my eyes.
¡°Was any of it real?¡± I whispered, dropping my head, and bracing myself against the sink. ¡°Did any of it matter?¡±
¡°Some of it was real,¡± it answered. ¡°And how much of it has meaning will be up to you, both now and in the future.¡±
I raised my head slightly then.
¡°What about the handlebar? Was that real?¡± I asked.
¡°It was real in that it gave meaning and form to your desperate longing for your past and your youth,¡± it considered. ¡°Will that be enough for you?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I muttered.
¡°You will have time to come to terms with all of this. Perhaps you will know when the time is right,¡± it offered.
¡°What if I¡¯m not worth it?¡± I breathed. ¡°What if I¡¯m weak, useless, and pathetic?¡±
¡°To be human is to be all of these things that you speak of, and in the end, you are the only one that can answer these questions that you seek.¡±
¡°But how do you know?¡± I asked.
¡°I don¡¯t; I only have faith. I have faith that we will forge a path to the future together, for we are one and the same. I am you, and you are me. I will always be a part of you, and I can¡¯t escape you any more than you can escape me. We will go everywhere together, and there will be nowhere for us to run or hide from each other.¡±
I paused then and considered what it had just told me. Gradually, the pieces began to click together, and I knew then what he was. He was a part of my psyche. Perhaps those water-logged arms he carried around were full of my unshed tears, and the reason why I had always seen those eyes that he never had was that they were my eyes. The tears that had been burning my eyes broke free then, and I wept more than I had ever wept before. I wept enough for the last seventeen years in which I had held it all in.
¡°We were never meant to be apart this long; we were meant to be one, not two.¡±
I knew he was right. He was all the pieces of me that I had disowned a long time ago. He was all the parts of me that knew the truth I couldn¡¯t bear to see. He was an adult, and I was the child, but I was no longer a boy. Instead, I was a man.
¡°Now that you know what I am, will you take me back?¡± the giant asked.
¡°I don¡¯t have a choice,¡± I answered.
¡°No, Victor, you always have a choice,¡± it replied.
The truth in its words struck me. I looked up and stared at my reflection, illuminated with a new flame. This time, absolutely, I would not falter. I would not look back, and I would move on into the future.
¡°Welcome home,¡± I whispered barely audibly.
Then we merged back together and became one once more. My face in the mirror finally became my own, and I recognized the man that I saw within it. I was the man in the mirror.
Epilogue
Five years had passed since the day I finally recognized myself again. It still felt unreal to me that any of it had happened at all. That entire sequence of events had happened over only three days, but it felt like an eternity. I had spent seventeen years frozen in place, and all it took was three days to change everything.
A lot has happened since then. It was a media circus once the news got out. No one thought that there was anyone still left inside the ruins. The area had long since been quarantined and fenced off from the public. I hadn¡¯t known this at the time, but the area was both contaminated and unstable from the impact. Whatever wasn¡¯t poisoned was slowly sinking into the ground. When it came down to it, I had been lucky to survive at all.
The unthinkable had occurred, and the community was shaken by it. News crews buzzed around the premises, talking about how the contamination levels had dropped significantly over the years but the area was still too unstable to rebuild on. Governmental groups worked with charity organizations to search the quarantine zone to find any other survivors still holding out in the wreckage.
As it turns out, there were three survivors in total. One was a man hiding out in an underground bunker. He was convinced that the war was still raging on, and he was fiercely determined to stay until they brought out his family to tell him themselves. The other two were a married couple. They had been determined to die in the same place they had lived for the past fifty years, not even death could take them from the place they called home.
I suppose I should have been relieved that I wasn¡¯t the only one crazy enough to stay behind, but if anything, it made me feel more foolish. All that time, I had been convinced that I might have been the last person left in the world, and I wasn¡¯t even the only person left for three square miles. It all goes to show you how far the mind will go to protect the psyche from what it cannot bear.
The monsters I had heard banging on the walls and doors were inside my head all along. I must have invented them to justify why I couldn¡¯t leave. And there is a bittersweet irony to that chain of events. I resented my mother for being both unwilling and unable to move on after my father passed away, but I was also unable to move on after she did. We were the same ¨C like mother, like son¡
I had blinders on; I busied myself with pointless tasks that didn¡¯t matter to keep myself from seeing what was right in front of me. I wasted my life holding onto the illusion of better days that had long since passed. The house didn¡¯t need me. Even the plants my mother used to love didn¡¯t need me either. They were happy enough with just the rain; I was just trying to make myself feel useful and keep her alive in some small way.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
I never needed to come back to the house, and I certainly didn¡¯t need to stay. It was entirely self-destructive. In the end, my mother wouldn¡¯t have wanted me to live like that either, but I couldn¡¯t accept the guilt of being unable to save her or the guilt of resenting her for something she might not have been able to control.
There is a unique pain in a situation where there is no clear aggressor. There wasn¡¯t a villain in my story. Both of us were victims, and both of us were in pain. Since there was no one for me to lash out at, I took it out of myself. After all, self-hatred is just anger turned inward at oneself.
A few weeks after I was rescued, another pivotal memory came back to me. That was not the first time I had made it as far as the fence. I had tried once before. There was a time, years earlier, when I had almost left the perimeter. That day, I had been so fed up that I stuffed a backpack with a wire cutter and headed out. I had been fueled by such a fire until I had finally finished clipping my way through the fence.
It had felt more painful to admit that I had wasted all those years of my life than to continue to wallow in my self-induced isolation. In that moment, right before I crossed the boundary line, a single question flickered through my head: ¡°Who would I be on the other side?¡± And when I couldn¡¯t answer that simple question, I betrayed myself. I lost my nerve and turned around.
Change is often more terrifying than any monster could ever be. I ran from invisible monsters that only existed in my grief. I was miserable squatting in a dilapidated house, but at least it was familiar. It was ¡°normal¡± to me, and the future outside of that perimeter was strange and foreign. I couldn¡¯t see what wasn¡¯t mine yet.
That experience taught me something valuable. I just wish I hadn¡¯t learned it in the worst way possible. The first is that we must be willing to face ourselves and reality, no matter how painful it may be. The second is that we are social creatures who were never meant to be alone. And lastly, I learned the answer to my question from the first time I tried to leave.
Who am I on the other side? My name is Victor Lewis. I am just a man, and my strength is my weakness. I may be battered, but I am no longer lost. I may be broken and bruised and damned, and so is so much of the world, but I take solace in the fact that we are all reaching up for the sky together. Sometimes the dam must break before the sun can rise.
Fortunately, the community and several assistance programs rallied together to help me get back on my feet. I am not afraid to admit that I needed help. It is not weakness to be vulnerable and lean on others who are reaching out their hands towards you. No, it would be foolish to push them away. Don¡¯t get me wrong; I still have bad days, but they are still getting better. Whatever you believe in, whether it is God, fate, or luck, I have been handed a second chance at life, and I will not waste it.
Update: Victor Lewis will return in Shattered Glass!
Originally, I was just going to end his story here, but I''ve still been getting new followers on The Last House on Main Street despite it being marked as completed. I''m so happy people have loved this story this much so I''ve decided to keep his story going!
Victor Lewis will return as a side character in Shattered Glass Arc II - The Woman with Half a Face.
Considering that Arc I - Not All That Glitters is Gold will conclude soon, it will be around 2 months before he will show up again.
Shattered Glass will take place 12+ years after this story. He has moved to the city and found his calling as a priest, helping the weak and the poor. Expect to see him in Arcs 2 and 3.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Volare City, the city whose name means to soar, is a graveyard of hopes and dreams. Those who live here know that crime runs rampant and little stands in the way of misfortune.
Lana Walker, a woman still grappling with her identity as a mixed-race woman of Asian and Caucasian decent, is a leading detective of the VCPD. Together, with her partner Gabriel Grant, she works to save the people from themselves. However, both her troubled psyche and familial bonds will be put to the test when the cases begin to hit too close to home.
In this story, faith, family, and resilience come hand in hand, and the age-old questions of why we keep fighting and what it means to be human are explored.
What to expect:
- A deep and introspective journey in trying to do the right thing in a thankless situation.
- An emphasis on character development, profiling, and investigation. Action scenes will be few and far between.
- Although this is not a slice of life story, there are some slice of life elements.
- Chapters between 2,000-3,200 words.
- Weekly updates, generally on Fridays.
"Shattered Glass" will have three arcs that each cover a different crime. Happily, the rough outline of all three parts are finished, and most of the first arc has already been written.