Miles stood on the lawn of his house, staring longingly at his front door. Vines climbed their way up slowly, draping the house with a striped green pattern. The door stared back at him causing his stomach to fold over itself. He wondered if going inside was a good idea or if he even wanted to know what lay beyond that door. His deep breaths seemed to escape his lungs faster than he could pull them in and his head filled with every possibility he could dream up.
He began walking toward the stairs of his white porch, his legs seemingly moving without his brain telling them to. With each creaky step on his wooden stairs, his legs grew more wobbly. As he reached the top of the porch he found it nearly impossible to stand. He reached his hand out and gripped the brass doorknob. He took a deep breath and twisted it gently before pushing it open.
When he walked in he saw the kitchen exactly how they had left it before they left for school. He saw the cereal sitting in the same place Abel put it down with the milk still sitting beside it, chunks floating visibly in the yellowish liquid. He glanced over to the living room, where he'd expected to see his dad husked in his drinking chair. The chair however was vacant, for the first time since his dad had been laid off. He wondered if he had made it out, or if he had tried to find them. The stairs leading up to their rooms seemed steeper than he remembered.
He gripped the guard rail firmly and gulped loudly before walking up. With each creaking board and each step, the uneasy feeling deep in the sorrowful pit of his stomach grew more. His hands began to accumulate the nervous beads of sweat he had grown accustomed to. His chest began to beat like a lone bass drum in an echo chamber. His ears rang with the sound of his heartbeat and his legs began to quiver. One step after the other, the stairs seemed almost impassible and his breath grew shorter. He thought of turning back and leaving, but he had come this far he had to see what lay in wait for him at the top of those seemingly illimitable stairs.
Then, his right foot stepped firmly on the landing, followed closely by his left. He collapsed to his knees and kissed the floor with relief. The shadows of the vines snaking up the side of the house cast their ominous shadows upon the rugged carpeted hallway floor. The bedroom doors that were cracked slightly shined their illuminating moonlight into the hallway, revealing the vines slithering slowly beside his feet across the carpet.
He stepped cautiously, barely taking any breaths as he did. Abel's room was beside him, he pressed his clammy palm to the door and pushed it open. It creaked loudly as if the hinges hadn't been oiled in decades. The red and black paint on the walls made the room seem like an infinite pit of despair. The only visible red was from the moonlight shining in through the curtains.
On the bed laid the pile of clothes his mom had placed there days ago. The boy who never sleeps. He thought. On the large wooden desk that took up the majority of the small space, sat a ballpoint pen and a few broken pencils. Miles stepped lightly, avoiding the vines the best he could before reaching the drawer where Abel kept his notebook. He gripped the brass handle and pulled gently. The squeaky drawer slid from its housing loudly as he pulled.
At the bottom of the drawer sat a small leather journal with a silver latch on the cover. On the front, it was labeled journal, as if it weren't obvious. He grabbed the journal and placed it on the desk. He unclasped the silver latch and flipped through the pages. Miles had always known his brother used words beautifully but he hadn't anticipated a poet.
Earth shattered sadness, brain scattered madness. Take me to my pitiful end. Do not indulge me for I have seen it, my gruesome and heartbreaking end. I lay in a field, wind whispering sorrow. I promise to survive and come home tomorrow.
The words that sat elegantly on the page meant more to Miles than anyone could know. He thought back to the summer before last when he and Abel had gone camping. The sky was so blue the birds sang their heavenly song and the mosquitoes were extra hungry. This memory sat so vividly in his mind as if it were yesterday when he found his brother, broken-armed laying helplessly in the middle of that overgrown field.
Beneath him, a broken branch from the towering pine beside him. It took all summer for his arm to fully heal, and Miles always blamed himself. Abel had asked him to come with but he was too caught up looking for cell service at the top of the flower-ridden hill. A tear struck his eye, not from the poetry or memory, but from the realization that he may never see his brother again. He closed the journal and wiped the tear from his cheek before snapping the latch back into place.
He placed the journal under his arm and continued down the hallway. Across from Abel's room was Amanda's. Again he placed his sweaty palm on the door and pushed it ever so slightly. Her door creaked loudly as it swung slowly to the wall. Her room was the opposite of Abel's. Her walls were a sunshine yellow and fit with a large orange bed against the window. She had stuffed animals all along the shelves on her wall, and a few guitars hanging beside her desk.
The steady hum of her guitar played through his head as he stood in the doorway of her room. She was always so talented at any hobby she picked up. The guitar was her favorite. She had taught herself over a summer and got very comfortable with the fretboard. She would play the most beautiful melodies and switch chords seamlessly, entertaining the whole family during barbeques and other events.
Miles remembered watching in admiration as her fingers climbed the neck swiftly. He remembered she would close her eyes as she played, she said it was so she could see the music. He never understood what that meant but when he saw the smile spread across her cherry-red face he knew she was seeing something magical.
he smiled softly as he stood in the doorway, staring into the room his sister once lived in. He walked in slowly, looking around the walls as he approached her guitars. She had a beautiful black acoustic guitar with a large sunflower painted on it and a vibrant floral strap to match. The other was an auburn natural grain guitar fitted with a black strap stamped with roses He reached out and grabbed the neck of the auburn guitar and pulled it from the wall. He secured it to his back before leaving her room and closing the door behind him.
His room was next, the light emitted out of his cracked door gleamed on his face as he approached. He thought back to the morning before the blast, where he laid still in his concrete-like bed and stared at his vacant ceiling unable to feel any sense of comfort.
He remembered the night before, he heard weeping coming from his mom's room. He could always hear her after she and his dad had fought. She would sit on the edge of her half-made bed and clutch her wedding photo close to her chest and sob silently until she fell asleep. The first time he had seen her was a few months before his dad had gotten fired. When his drinking began to get out of hand. He remembered hearing shouting from downstairs, followed by the airy bang of the front door slamming shut.
Then the defeated footsteps creaked slowly down the hallway and he heard the soft gentle close of his mom's bedroom door. He thought back to him sneaking to her door and cracking it open slightly to see her sitting there, sobbing silently. He didn't say anything as he stood there helplessly watching his mother weep. He quietly closed the door and snuck back into bed. After that, it began to happen more frequently. He knew most nights his mom would cry herself to sleep.
Each time he thought of saying something. He thought of rushing down the stairs and telling his dad everything on his mind and spewing the hateful words he conjured up in his emotionally fragmented mind. In the end, he knew there was nothing hateful or rude that he could say that his befuddled father would even remember.
As he pushed open his bedroom door, he knew there was nothing to see. Old memories of a happier time he no longer remembered. A room riddled with pictures of people he didn't recognize and a wall plastered with posters he kept to keep the room from looking as empty as it felt. He stepped into the center of his old domicile, looking around the wall and realizing he wasn't the person he pretended to be. His anxiousness and fear turned to anger and frustration.
He spiraled, flinging his computer into the wall leaving a large hole in the plaster. He ripped the lying posters from his otherwise boring wall and crumpled them into balls or ripped them into pieces. He grabbed his framed photos off of his desk and shattered them against the empty walls. Glass, plaster, and torn pieces of paper were now spread all over his floor. He pressed his head against the wall and slammed his fist into it as hard as he could, more times than he could count. One wall was riddled with holes and his hand was covered with gashes and bruises as he slid down to the floor and dropped his head in his lap.
He didn't weep or scream, he sat there staring at the carpet still angry not recognizing the person he had become. He glanced up from his lap and stared at the small silver picture frame that sat shattered beside him. He reached out his mutilated hand and grabbed it. When he turned it over the tattered photo inside was a photo of his family together. The last family photo they had ever taken. It was of all of them standing on the beach sunburned and exhausted, faking smiles for a timed photo that his dad had barely made it in the frame for.
He curled his lip as his hand shook gripping the corner of the photo. He folded it up neatly and placed it in his back pocket. He stood from the floor and started toward his door. Before he closed his door he looked back at the chaotic mess that he had created. That's who I am. He thought. He grabbed his door knob and locked it from the inside before closing it, forever.
He turned toward his mom's room. The door sat, closed as usual, and stared him down. He stood for a moment the anxious and uneasy feelings returning almost simultaneously. He stared at the door, feeling like it was getting bigger and rising above his head. He gulped and took a deep breath before controlling his fear and grabbing the handle firmly. He held it for a moment, thinking to himself I can turn back now, I don't have to go in.
His arm grew heavy and began to pull the handle down. The latch clicked loudly and the door opened smoothly. As it opened, the large black and grey bedspread came into view. The entertainment center grew larger and the smell of his mother's awful perfume gassed the hallway. He pushed the door the rest of the way and looked around. The walls were covered in family photos. The window was slightly covered by a thin white curtain and the closet door was open revealing the scattered pile of clothes on the floor within.
Miles couldn't think much before he saw the shoes, attached to someone's legs, laying on the floor at the foot of the bed. His heart sank as he thought the worst. He looked around frantically eventually darting his eyes to the ceiling. Above the shoes, it was covered with the dry substance he could only assume was splattered blood mixed in with thick black chunks. He felt the acid in his near-empty stomach rise into his throat.
He swallowed roughly before deciding to approach what he knew was a body. As he inched closer the legs grew more visible, then the torso until he saw the body. A husk laying on the floor, missing its head but parts of its neck remained. Resting in one hand, the pump action shotgun they kept locked in the gun safe in the garage, and in the other the bright pink bottle of his mom's perfume.