Kieran's perspective, in this new world
The front door creaked louder than it should've, but Kieran didn't flinch. He stepped inside, shoulders tucked in, shoes squeaking faintly against the tile floor. The house was dim, curtains drawn, a fuzzy CRT television murmuring in the background with static as it flipped through shows.
It was approximately around 2007 if I remember correctly.
He shut the door quietly, then waited.
Listening.
His father's voice echoed from the living room. "You're late."
Kieran didn't answer. He slipped past the doorway, not making eye contact. His father was slouched on the couch in a sweat-stained tank top, with an unkempt beard, drinking at his beer.
His eyes were half-lidded, flicking between the TV and Kieran like a predator too tired to chase but willing to bite if he wanted to.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you."
Kieran froze. Turning his head slightly. Not all the way. Just enough to make it look like he was looking at him.
"What? Are you too good to speak now?"
There was a pause.
"No, sir."
A cold silence stretched before the man grunted and turned back to the TV. Kieran moved quickly, quietly towards the hallway.
His mother was in the kitchen. Her back to him. Cigarette smoke curled toward the ceiling fan, which ticked with every slow rotation. She was on the phone with a friend; she didn't say a word as he passed.
Didn't even glance his way.
He climbed the stairs, each one carefully. His room was at the end of the hall, across from his older sister's, her door closed, music muffled inside. Britney Spears or something like that.
His little sister's door was wide open. She sat on the floor dressing a doll while talking to herself, like every girl does.
She looked up at him. Blankly stared at him and then back to the doll while fiddling with it.
Kieran said nothing.
In his room. The air was stale. A mattress on the floor. Thin blanket. A worn bookshelf filled with secondhand paperbacks, spines cracked, corners folded. No posters. Nothing on the wall, just the peeling wallpaper and a small desk with a busted reading lamp.
He closed the door gently and locked it. He leaned against it and let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding on to.
Only here did the tension slip, but it never stayed.
For he can be eaten by the monster at any time, without cause or reason.
He sat at his desk, pulled out a notebook, and flipped to a blank page. The pencil felt weird in his hand.
He started to draw. Nothing in particular, and neither did he have the ability to draw good pictures; he just felt like it. He started with just lines, then shapes, and shading shows.
Letting the noise of the house blur behind the paper walls he built in his head.
An hour later.
The TV murmured in the living room, something fuzzy and static, maybe the tail end of a local news segment. Faint music crackled from an old stereo nearby: Linkin Park or Soulja Boy. Kieran didn't know, as he never really listened to music, since he never really got a chance.
Kieran sat at the table, knees drawn close together. His plate was full: meatloaf, canned peas, and mashed potatoes. But his appetite wasn't.
He kept his eyes down.
Across from him was his older sister, Aarti, stabbing her food with quiet aggression. She didn't speak. She never really did unless she had to.
To his left, Mira, the youngest, hummed softly under her breath, tapping her spoon on the table like it was a drum. She lived in her own world, barely noticing the tension.
And at the head of the table, their father.
"You gonna eat or stare at it like a damn idiot?" The man grunted, his voice like gravel and spit.
Kieran flinched, lifting his fork with shaking fingers. "yes, sir."
"Don't mumble."
"Yes, sir."
Their mother sat beside him, smoking indoors again. She tapped ash into a cracked ceramic tray and didn't look up once. She hadn't looked at him in the eyes since last year.
Kieran didn't even do anything; she just did it, and it was like that.
Aarti scraped her plate. Mira kept drumming. Kieran forced down one bite after another.
Chewing mechanically. Tasteless. Heavy. Every sound felt louder than it was: the clink of the cutlery around him, the hiss of the cigarette, and the creak of the fan.
At one point, their father slammed his hand down. Hard. Just to make Mira stop tapping. He usually didn't do that since Mira was a girl, but he did.
Their family had a belief: a girl in their family crying in their house would bring bad luck to the family, and his dad believed that, so he wasn't as rude or strict with them.
Nobody spoke after that, but nobody was speaking initially either.
After Kieran rushed upstairs slowly, as he finished his lunch.
Kieran sat cross-legged on the carpet beside his twin-size mattress. A stack of wrinkled school papers sat in his lap. Math problems and spelling and handwriting drills from earlier.
He didn't care much for them, but he worked through them anyway, as he didn't want his parents getting a call about his homework not being turned in. He worked through the questions, his pencil moving in tight loops like the lines on the paper.
The walls of his room were thin. He could hear Aarti's music through the drywall, muted screams and electric guitar solos. Downstairs, the muffled argument of his parents rose and fell, like waves crashing behind a closed door.
On his desk, an old flip phone buzzed once. No messages. Just a low battery warning.
Kieran crawled into bed without brushing his teeth. There was no point. The house was quiet now, but that didn't mean safe.
'Quiet' only meant 'waiting'.
He lay there under thin covers, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. The dark was complete; no nightlight, no window glow. Just pure black, the absence of light.
He thought about school. About the new kid. About Roy.
He thought about the prana writing, about the way Roy moved and talked like he wasn't real.
He barely remembered what his mother's laugh sounded like anymore.
And then he thought about what Roy said.
"I never do. Just black. Every night."
Kieran swallowed, curling tighter under his blanket. That is really sad, as everyone is able to dream.
He closed his eyes. Nothing came.
It was just a black dream.