The dreams began when I went to live with my adoptive parents.
It would always start with a house; a big brown house, simple wood, no porch but a few small steps up to the plain door with those rectangle inlays that all doors have. The house looked a lot like my adoptive parents' house. Maybe it's because of the new house that I dream of this house.
In the dream, I knock on the door twice and someone answers. I never have any control at this part; I knock exactly twice. I've tried to change it, but it's always the same four steps up, same two knocks on the same spot, the same delay before the door opens.
The inside is nothing like my adoptive parents' house. The inside is like nothing I've ever seen before. It's like a mansion, with so many floors, but from the outside it's what, two, three stories? And there are lights, chandeliers and brightness all across the banisters, from the ceilings, it's bright and warm. Not to say there are no shadows, but even the shadows seem welcoming, like they're extending a friendly hand just like the girl who opened the door, this girl standing right in front of me smiling. Wings peek out from behind her back, brownish and natural, just like the autumnal colours of her dress. I take her hand and she leads me into the House. A door opens along the third floor, and a man peers out from behind the railing at me. He waves, then goes back in.
A harried-looking woman rushes down the wide central staircase three steps at a time, and the rest of it begins to blur. She greets me, I think, and introductions are made, but I can't for the life of me recall anything specific. I meet a few other people; there is a woman with the head of a bird, a man who looks a little like a doll or a mannequin, a one-handed man, Death, a singing banshee. They are welcoming, and I wake up with a warm, comforting glow by the end.
It's a nightmare. I wake up fucking angry and damnedly crying. Because my dreams are taunting me. Every night, the same visions, the same feelings, the same damn things that I'll never have.
Fucking House.
It would always start with a house; a big brown house, simple wood, no porch but a few small steps up to the plain door with those rectangle inlays that all doors have. The house looked a lot like my adoptive parents' house. Maybe it's because of the new house that I dream of this house.
In the dream, I knock on the door twice and someone answers. I never have any control at this part; I knock exactly twice. I've tried to change it, but it's always the same four steps up, same two knocks on the same spot, the same delay before the door opens.
The inside is nothing like my adoptive parents' house. The inside is like nothing I've ever seen before. It's like a mansion, with so many floors, but from the outside it's what, two, three stories? And there are lights, chandeliers and brightness all across the banisters, from the ceilings, it's bright and warm. Not to say there are no shadows, but even the shadows seem welcoming, like they're extending a friendly hand just like the girl who opened the door, this girl standing right in front of me smiling. Wings peek out from behind her back, brownish and natural, just like the autumnal colours of her dress. I take her hand and she leads me into the House. A door opens along the third floor, and a man peers out from behind the railing at me. He waves, then goes back in.
A harried-looking woman rushes down the wide central staircase three steps at a time, and the rest of it begins to blur. She greets me, I think, and introductions are made, but I can't for the life of me recall anything specific. I meet a few other people; there is a woman with the head of a bird, a man who looks a little like a doll or a mannequin, a one-handed man, Death, a singing banshee. They are welcoming, and I wake up with a warm, comforting glow by the end.
It's a nightmare. I wake up fucking angry and damnedly crying. Because my dreams are taunting me. Every night, the same visions, the same feelings, the same damn things that I'll never have.
Fucking House.
It's the 3rd of September. Snow is falling
lightly. I can see it out of my window, second floor. I don't know if it's
morning or afternoon; that stretch of in-between time where it doesn't really
matter either way. A girl walks down the street happily; you can tell it’s
happy from the liveliness, from the smile. She’s clutching onto a.. doll? It’s
rare to see a teenager with a doll, let alone one as strangely life-like as
that one, even in proportion. She walks past, leaving two sets of footsteps
behind in the sidewalk even as the snow immediately works to fill up the
blemishes and erase all trace. I recognise her. She is the girl who walks by
this street every day with the doll. I wonder where she brings the doll. It’s
not important.
It snows, but I’m not cold. The window is shut and no wind blows in here but a charnel wind. I can hear my adoptive parents downstairs, but I just pull the blanket around myself even tighter. My ‘mother’ decided to homeschool me. I guess that’s one thing I can be grateful for. They said I was autistic. Or was it.. no, I’m not sure, I don’t remember. They said my brain was, what was that word, dysfunctional. That I’m not well, mentally.
It’s kind of true. I don’t claim I’m perfectly well. I’m not. It’s just that I’m not crazy.
Aren’t you?
I hear it again, I see it again. But it’s not real. They told me it’s just a figment of my imagination. Somehow, I don’t think people usually have problems with figments of their imagination.
“Go away, disappear, vanish, you don’t exist,” I growl, cupping my ears with my hands and closing my eyes, but I know that won’t chase it away. I’m just quiet, but then they said I was dysfunctional because.. sometimes, the demon- or a figment-of-my-imagination-that-really-looks-like-a-fucking-demon makes me say things that I don’t mean. Back in my previous school, the principal was having a talk with me and then he said that if I couldn’t control myself, I would be expelled. The demon made me flip him the middle finger and scream, “Well, then expel me already, you fucking swine!”
I got expelled.
I don’t want to talk to people. Any opportunity to talk with anyone is another opportunity for the damned thing to make me say something I don’t mean.
But you do mean it. I’m only helping you express it.
I made up my mind a while back to shut the demon out. Maybe if I pretend it doesn’t exist, it’ll stop existing. Not that anyone believes me that it exists. They tell me it doesn’t exist. I wish.
Sometimes the demon stops talking after a while. Other times, now for example, it just laughs.
There’s a notepad on the bedside table. I pick it up, flip to the end and start to write. They suggested writing to get thoughts out but then maybe they just want to see what goes on in my head. Not that they’d believe me.
The demon is talking again, I write, and it claims that it’s only helping me express what I really feel, but the fact is KILL YOURSELF JOHN YOU DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE SLIT YOUR THROAT DIE DIE DIE-
It snows, but I’m not cold. The window is shut and no wind blows in here but a charnel wind. I can hear my adoptive parents downstairs, but I just pull the blanket around myself even tighter. My ‘mother’ decided to homeschool me. I guess that’s one thing I can be grateful for. They said I was autistic. Or was it.. no, I’m not sure, I don’t remember. They said my brain was, what was that word, dysfunctional. That I’m not well, mentally.
It’s kind of true. I don’t claim I’m perfectly well. I’m not. It’s just that I’m not crazy.
Aren’t you?
I hear it again, I see it again. But it’s not real. They told me it’s just a figment of my imagination. Somehow, I don’t think people usually have problems with figments of their imagination.
“Go away, disappear, vanish, you don’t exist,” I growl, cupping my ears with my hands and closing my eyes, but I know that won’t chase it away. I’m just quiet, but then they said I was dysfunctional because.. sometimes, the demon- or a figment-of-my-imagination-that-really-looks-like-a-fucking-demon makes me say things that I don’t mean. Back in my previous school, the principal was having a talk with me and then he said that if I couldn’t control myself, I would be expelled. The demon made me flip him the middle finger and scream, “Well, then expel me already, you fucking swine!”
I got expelled.
I don’t want to talk to people. Any opportunity to talk with anyone is another opportunity for the damned thing to make me say something I don’t mean.
But you do mean it. I’m only helping you express it.
I made up my mind a while back to shut the demon out. Maybe if I pretend it doesn’t exist, it’ll stop existing. Not that anyone believes me that it exists. They tell me it doesn’t exist. I wish.
Sometimes the demon stops talking after a while. Other times, now for example, it just laughs.
There’s a notepad on the bedside table. I pick it up, flip to the end and start to write. They suggested writing to get thoughts out but then maybe they just want to see what goes on in my head. Not that they’d believe me.
The demon is talking again, I write, and it claims that it’s only helping me express what I really feel, but the fact is KILL YOURSELF JOHN YOU DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE SLIT YOUR THROAT DIE DIE DIE-
Fuck. It took over.
I clench my fist; the pen almost snaps in two. I let out a frustrated breath and slam my hand against the bed. Run a hand through my hair. Flipping through the notebook, it’s pretty obvious that I have no control at all over the demon. Every damn time. The thing takes over whenever it can, as often as it can, it just comes over and when it takes over, I lose all sense of self, everything is just heat and red and-
My head hurts.
I pop a couple of pills. The doctor prescribed them, but.. the demon never goes away. Maybe there’s just something hideously fucked up with my body that it doesn’t work. I don’t know. The frost on the outside of my window melts and runs down. Slimy, dirty, disgusting. Outside, the snow has already covered the girl’s footsteps.
There’s a soft knock on my door. ‘Mother’.
“Sweetheart, it’s time for your lessons. Come on out.”
I don’t trust myself to say anything. With great effort, I scribble out, I’m coming TO KILL YOU, and then I tear away the last three words, and slip the note out under the door. I can’t stand this.
My adoptive mother is a sweet woman. Truly. I just wish she’d chosen a better son to adopt. One less screwed up. One less possessed.
“There you are, John. Are you okay?”
I struggle to smile, but I only manage to grimace, and I nod rigidly. My body is not my own.
“Come on, dear.”
I hold her hand like a lifeline, then I relax my grip very slowly, very intentionally. Fuck if I’m going to let the demon crush her hand. We sit at the table, long and rectangular. The classic Oblong.
“Let’s start off with some Maths, shall we?”
I wish I could smile like she did. With a shaking hand, I rest the tip of the pen on paper. This time, I’ll control it. I’ll not let it go.
I swallow and do my best to focus on the question. Calculus. Slowly, carefully, stroke by intentional stroke. My handwriting is awful, but that’s to be expected when you’re making every stroke like a caveman carving on stone.
I’ve done it! I managed to do a question! A grin forms on my face, and I say, “I- I can control it! I can do nothing but die, you piece of shit! Fuck you and your Maths!”
In frustrated horror, I grab my hair and pull. My adoptive mother is reaching over to hold me concernedly but I’m so goddamned ashamed, I stutter and pull away, “I didn’t mean it! T-That wasn’t me!”
I run away back to my room and slam the door shut. The demon curls about me, cackling maniacally as I scream wordlessly into my pillow. I don’t want my adoptive parents to hear me. I don’t want this. I can’t stand this.
There’s an acrid smell of burning plastic.
Is it November already? Every day is an eternity, and counting the days fills me with agony. How long more before I die? But I’ll never kill myself. That’s what the demon wants.
I fling the knife away before the demon can set it down across my wrist. It clatters noisily to the floor, landing by the bruised wall where the demon made me hammer my head against. You’re not going to fucking kill me.
There’s the girl again, walking down the street. It almost looks as though the doll is walking by her side, like it’s walking under its own power. She walks past every day. Maybe I should go say hi to her someday. No.
I need to do something, anything, just something to get this restlessness out. I head downstairs, open the front door, step out onto the snow. The driveway’s filled with the whiteness, and I grab a shovel. May as well do something productive. I owe my adoptive parents that much.
Mindless minutes while away as I heave snow, but then I blink at the slushy sensation around my bare feet. The snow’s melting about my feet. I didn’t even realise I’d stepped out barefooted. Wisps of vapour curl up from the puddle and I crouch to test the water with my finger. It’s warm. The hell?
This is getting too strange. I drop the sizzling spade- sizzling spade? It’s practically glowing cherry-hot, but it feels comfortably warm to me. I drop it hastily by the porch where the snow crackles and melts about it, and I back off into the house.
“What the fuck is going on?” I jab an accusing finger at the demon, and it simply smiles slyly.
The demon looks human and devilish at the same time. Its skin is a furious red, like fire encased into a wispy half-solid form. Its eyes are vermillion, and they stare at me with such intensity that I have to look away. It curls about me like a ghostly snake, and I shake it off, push it aside. I catch the word, “Pact.”
If this demon truly exists, then my soul will be damned forever if I make a pact with it. I flip it the bird and it glares at me. It wants to kill me.
It flicks its thumb against its index finger, pantomiming a lighter. I narrow my eyes as I see imaginary flames. I see fire in my mind’s eye, I see all-consuming red and orange engulfing the wood and spreading across the floor, I see the hungry fingers of flame licking the ceiling and everything is charred black, everything crashes down and-
My adoptive mother is calling my name, shaking me. I blink, rub my eyes; I’m lying on the floor. She puts a concerned hand to my forehead, then flinches away instantly.
“John, you’ve got a terrible fever!”
But it’s not just fever. Something’s wrong here. It’s doing something to me. I can feel it.
I clench my fist; the pen almost snaps in two. I let out a frustrated breath and slam my hand against the bed. Run a hand through my hair. Flipping through the notebook, it’s pretty obvious that I have no control at all over the demon. Every damn time. The thing takes over whenever it can, as often as it can, it just comes over and when it takes over, I lose all sense of self, everything is just heat and red and-
My head hurts.
I pop a couple of pills. The doctor prescribed them, but.. the demon never goes away. Maybe there’s just something hideously fucked up with my body that it doesn’t work. I don’t know. The frost on the outside of my window melts and runs down. Slimy, dirty, disgusting. Outside, the snow has already covered the girl’s footsteps.
There’s a soft knock on my door. ‘Mother’.
“Sweetheart, it’s time for your lessons. Come on out.”
I don’t trust myself to say anything. With great effort, I scribble out, I’m coming TO KILL YOU, and then I tear away the last three words, and slip the note out under the door. I can’t stand this.
My adoptive mother is a sweet woman. Truly. I just wish she’d chosen a better son to adopt. One less screwed up. One less possessed.
“There you are, John. Are you okay?”
I struggle to smile, but I only manage to grimace, and I nod rigidly. My body is not my own.
“Come on, dear.”
I hold her hand like a lifeline, then I relax my grip very slowly, very intentionally. Fuck if I’m going to let the demon crush her hand. We sit at the table, long and rectangular. The classic Oblong.
“Let’s start off with some Maths, shall we?”
I wish I could smile like she did. With a shaking hand, I rest the tip of the pen on paper. This time, I’ll control it. I’ll not let it go.
I swallow and do my best to focus on the question. Calculus. Slowly, carefully, stroke by intentional stroke. My handwriting is awful, but that’s to be expected when you’re making every stroke like a caveman carving on stone.
I’ve done it! I managed to do a question! A grin forms on my face, and I say, “I- I can control it! I can do nothing but die, you piece of shit! Fuck you and your Maths!”
In frustrated horror, I grab my hair and pull. My adoptive mother is reaching over to hold me concernedly but I’m so goddamned ashamed, I stutter and pull away, “I didn’t mean it! T-That wasn’t me!”
I run away back to my room and slam the door shut. The demon curls about me, cackling maniacally as I scream wordlessly into my pillow. I don’t want my adoptive parents to hear me. I don’t want this. I can’t stand this.
There’s an acrid smell of burning plastic.
Is it November already? Every day is an eternity, and counting the days fills me with agony. How long more before I die? But I’ll never kill myself. That’s what the demon wants.
I fling the knife away before the demon can set it down across my wrist. It clatters noisily to the floor, landing by the bruised wall where the demon made me hammer my head against. You’re not going to fucking kill me.
There’s the girl again, walking down the street. It almost looks as though the doll is walking by her side, like it’s walking under its own power. She walks past every day. Maybe I should go say hi to her someday. No.
I need to do something, anything, just something to get this restlessness out. I head downstairs, open the front door, step out onto the snow. The driveway’s filled with the whiteness, and I grab a shovel. May as well do something productive. I owe my adoptive parents that much.
Mindless minutes while away as I heave snow, but then I blink at the slushy sensation around my bare feet. The snow’s melting about my feet. I didn’t even realise I’d stepped out barefooted. Wisps of vapour curl up from the puddle and I crouch to test the water with my finger. It’s warm. The hell?
This is getting too strange. I drop the sizzling spade- sizzling spade? It’s practically glowing cherry-hot, but it feels comfortably warm to me. I drop it hastily by the porch where the snow crackles and melts about it, and I back off into the house.
“What the fuck is going on?” I jab an accusing finger at the demon, and it simply smiles slyly.
The demon looks human and devilish at the same time. Its skin is a furious red, like fire encased into a wispy half-solid form. Its eyes are vermillion, and they stare at me with such intensity that I have to look away. It curls about me like a ghostly snake, and I shake it off, push it aside. I catch the word, “Pact.”
If this demon truly exists, then my soul will be damned forever if I make a pact with it. I flip it the bird and it glares at me. It wants to kill me.
It flicks its thumb against its index finger, pantomiming a lighter. I narrow my eyes as I see imaginary flames. I see fire in my mind’s eye, I see all-consuming red and orange engulfing the wood and spreading across the floor, I see the hungry fingers of flame licking the ceiling and everything is charred black, everything crashes down and-
My adoptive mother is calling my name, shaking me. I blink, rub my eyes; I’m lying on the floor. She puts a concerned hand to my forehead, then flinches away instantly.
“John, you’ve got a terrible fever!”
But it’s not just fever. Something’s wrong here. It’s doing something to me. I can feel it.
I slowly push myself up and stagger back to my room, but
halfway there I choke and gag on a thick liquid in my mouth.
I spit, but it is not spit that comes out, some viscous glowing thing that sizzles a hole through the floor. Stumbling, I run outside and retch, spitting the ruddy magma into the snow. Liquid fire melts away snow, water hisses and crackles, and I fall to my knees, convulsing nauseously, trying to vomit out every last drop of.. of what? This can’t really be lava.
Sure as fuck it is, the demon tells me cheerily.
By the time my adoptive mother runs out and sees me, the lava is gone. All she sees is me kneeling, kowtowing, in a puddle. She doesn’t understand what happened, and she tries to help me back in.
Fuck, I don’t even know myself. I lurch back in and hit the sack. Sleep comes immediately. The smell of smoke fills my nostrils.
It is December and the girl has stopped walking down the street. I no longer see her foot prints vanish, white on white until it all fades away day after day. There is no more doll by her side walking with an improving gait, no more vivacity, no more spring in her step.
I miss her.
How can I miss someone I’ve never met? It’s a stupid thought, and I am a stupid fool for thinking it. But I do, and an ache fills my chest. I wonder where she’s gone. I wonder if she ever noticed the boy looking down at her from a featureless window on a plain house.
The devil has become a lot more sullen. It said ‘pact’ maybe once or twice more after that, but nothing else. Now it just floats around, sulking at the corner of my vision.
I run a hand through my hair and exhale slowly. It’s difficult to think when it’s just.. there. Hovering. Staring. Glaring. Fuck. I wish I could put a bullet through its head.
I’ve been losing time lately. Sometimes I’m writing something on my pad, fighting for control when suddenly I’m sitting on the porch with no clue on how I got there. I found myself walking in the street a couple of times, my footsteps tracing those of the girl’s non-existent boot prints, strolling down as casually as you will, walking to- walking to where? I can never remember how I got there. Just a seamless transition from one in the afternoon to nine at night and eight full hours have just vanished.
I swear, the little red fucker sulking in the corner has something to do with it. If only I could wrangle out an answer-
There it is again! Fuck all, it’s dark out and I shake my head vigorously. It’s night now, black as sin out there but for the street lamps, and why the hell do I have a lighter in my hand?
I step out of the kitchen slowly, but I notice a hissing sound coming from inside. With a cold jolt, I realise what it is: gas!
Moving as quickly as I can in the darkness, I find the valve and shut it off. Good thing I didn’t try to flick on the lighter. Otherwise, the whole house might.. have.. been.. on..
The pain is so intense that I drop to my knees and a low moan escapes my lips involuntarily. The demon stamps its feet angrily and snarls as the migraine worsens. It’s as though someone’s lit a.. a.. a fire in my brain.
Fire!
Ash-scent and choking smoke, fire-crimson and golden boughs! Wood splinters, walls char; planks shatter and the world is devoured. Beams collapse and the ceiling falls, I scream as my adoptive parents- my other adoptive parents, my other adoptive parents- howl, then their yells are cut off forever by the flaming house that slams down onto them. I scream and I scream, and suddenly I am a little boy again, younger by several winters and crying until my throat is ragged and hoarse with smoke and exertion and pain and fear and guilt.
Guilt.
I run out of the house into the snow bare feet- again, again, it keeps happening again and again- and I can’t see anything through the tears that blur out my vision. I trip, stumble and fall face-first into the powdery white but instead of freezing away my tears, the snow melts away and burns.
Guilt.
Hard cement turns to a thick sludge under my feet as I pound away down the sidewalk, etching permanently the path of the girl who no longer walks here, but only one pair of steps, the doll is missing, as missing as my innocence, because it wasn’t the demon that did it, it was I, I all along.
Adoptive parents. I had another before. Another ‘mother’ and another ‘father’. They are dead now. I killed them. I burned the house down. Knowledge transfixes me like an oncoming train; I killed them, I killed them, I killed them.
I killed them.
There.
The secret’s out, spilling over the ground like treacherous oil, ready to trip you, ready to ignite at the slightest provocation, a latent devourer. I killed them.
No, no! I didn’t kill them! It was not my fault! The devil..
But what is the difference between you and I? We worked together, yes, hand in hand in fire.
What, pray tell, is the difference? It’s just a figment of my imagination-
How dare you?
I.. I don’t know, I-
My legs betray me, stumbled by a rock and I fall again and again and again and time stretches, every single time I’ve fallen, every time I’ve tripped collapses into one unending still-film of reversed-exaltation and I-
-am on the floor, picking myself up. Blood slips down my knee and I cover it with my palm as if to hold the secret back in. I look up and see the-
-House.
If all it took was remembering, it notes slyly, I would have done so earlier. We need not have burned the house.
The House. It looms over me as only a blandly unassuming House can, dominant brown asserting its unique discretion, impossibly atypical as only a catalogue standard can be. How can it be here? How can it be?
All we really ever needed was to get you out of your house and into the House.
How can it-
They walk past me. The girl. The doll. They walk into the House. She peers at me for a moment with curiosity, then enters. My throat catches as I glimpse the inside. It is. It is! But-
The doll shuts the door behind her.
“Wait!” I flounder forward like a desperate drunk. Rapping my fist against the door twice sends a surge of déjà vu through me and my vision takes on an unreal quality.
It is exactly as I dreamt it, and I weep for joy and amazement even as the winged girl looks at me bewilderedly, then extends a tentative hand to comfort me. The devil grins and a ghost bird sings, a man waves from the third floor and a harried woman rushes down.
This is no House.
This is Home.
I spit, but it is not spit that comes out, some viscous glowing thing that sizzles a hole through the floor. Stumbling, I run outside and retch, spitting the ruddy magma into the snow. Liquid fire melts away snow, water hisses and crackles, and I fall to my knees, convulsing nauseously, trying to vomit out every last drop of.. of what? This can’t really be lava.
Sure as fuck it is, the demon tells me cheerily.
By the time my adoptive mother runs out and sees me, the lava is gone. All she sees is me kneeling, kowtowing, in a puddle. She doesn’t understand what happened, and she tries to help me back in.
Fuck, I don’t even know myself. I lurch back in and hit the sack. Sleep comes immediately. The smell of smoke fills my nostrils.
It is December and the girl has stopped walking down the street. I no longer see her foot prints vanish, white on white until it all fades away day after day. There is no more doll by her side walking with an improving gait, no more vivacity, no more spring in her step.
I miss her.
How can I miss someone I’ve never met? It’s a stupid thought, and I am a stupid fool for thinking it. But I do, and an ache fills my chest. I wonder where she’s gone. I wonder if she ever noticed the boy looking down at her from a featureless window on a plain house.
The devil has become a lot more sullen. It said ‘pact’ maybe once or twice more after that, but nothing else. Now it just floats around, sulking at the corner of my vision.
I run a hand through my hair and exhale slowly. It’s difficult to think when it’s just.. there. Hovering. Staring. Glaring. Fuck. I wish I could put a bullet through its head.
I’ve been losing time lately. Sometimes I’m writing something on my pad, fighting for control when suddenly I’m sitting on the porch with no clue on how I got there. I found myself walking in the street a couple of times, my footsteps tracing those of the girl’s non-existent boot prints, strolling down as casually as you will, walking to- walking to where? I can never remember how I got there. Just a seamless transition from one in the afternoon to nine at night and eight full hours have just vanished.
I swear, the little red fucker sulking in the corner has something to do with it. If only I could wrangle out an answer-
There it is again! Fuck all, it’s dark out and I shake my head vigorously. It’s night now, black as sin out there but for the street lamps, and why the hell do I have a lighter in my hand?
I step out of the kitchen slowly, but I notice a hissing sound coming from inside. With a cold jolt, I realise what it is: gas!
Moving as quickly as I can in the darkness, I find the valve and shut it off. Good thing I didn’t try to flick on the lighter. Otherwise, the whole house might.. have.. been.. on..
The pain is so intense that I drop to my knees and a low moan escapes my lips involuntarily. The demon stamps its feet angrily and snarls as the migraine worsens. It’s as though someone’s lit a.. a.. a fire in my brain.
Fire!
Ash-scent and choking smoke, fire-crimson and golden boughs! Wood splinters, walls char; planks shatter and the world is devoured. Beams collapse and the ceiling falls, I scream as my adoptive parents- my other adoptive parents, my other adoptive parents- howl, then their yells are cut off forever by the flaming house that slams down onto them. I scream and I scream, and suddenly I am a little boy again, younger by several winters and crying until my throat is ragged and hoarse with smoke and exertion and pain and fear and guilt.
Guilt.
I run out of the house into the snow bare feet- again, again, it keeps happening again and again- and I can’t see anything through the tears that blur out my vision. I trip, stumble and fall face-first into the powdery white but instead of freezing away my tears, the snow melts away and burns.
Guilt.
Hard cement turns to a thick sludge under my feet as I pound away down the sidewalk, etching permanently the path of the girl who no longer walks here, but only one pair of steps, the doll is missing, as missing as my innocence, because it wasn’t the demon that did it, it was I, I all along.
Adoptive parents. I had another before. Another ‘mother’ and another ‘father’. They are dead now. I killed them. I burned the house down. Knowledge transfixes me like an oncoming train; I killed them, I killed them, I killed them.
I killed them.
There.
The secret’s out, spilling over the ground like treacherous oil, ready to trip you, ready to ignite at the slightest provocation, a latent devourer. I killed them.
No, no! I didn’t kill them! It was not my fault! The devil..
But what is the difference between you and I? We worked together, yes, hand in hand in fire.
What, pray tell, is the difference? It’s just a figment of my imagination-
How dare you?
I.. I don’t know, I-
My legs betray me, stumbled by a rock and I fall again and again and again and time stretches, every single time I’ve fallen, every time I’ve tripped collapses into one unending still-film of reversed-exaltation and I-
-am on the floor, picking myself up. Blood slips down my knee and I cover it with my palm as if to hold the secret back in. I look up and see the-
-House.
If all it took was remembering, it notes slyly, I would have done so earlier. We need not have burned the house.
The House. It looms over me as only a blandly unassuming House can, dominant brown asserting its unique discretion, impossibly atypical as only a catalogue standard can be. How can it be here? How can it be?
All we really ever needed was to get you out of your house and into the House.
How can it-
They walk past me. The girl. The doll. They walk into the House. She peers at me for a moment with curiosity, then enters. My throat catches as I glimpse the inside. It is. It is! But-
The doll shuts the door behind her.
“Wait!” I flounder forward like a desperate drunk. Rapping my fist against the door twice sends a surge of déjà vu through me and my vision takes on an unreal quality.
It is exactly as I dreamt it, and I weep for joy and amazement even as the winged girl looks at me bewilderedly, then extends a tentative hand to comfort me. The devil grins and a ghost bird sings, a man waves from the third floor and a harried woman rushes down.
This is no House.
This is Home.
