Post #932 in Almost an Allegory, a roleplay on RPG

The couch wasn’t particularly uncomfortable – well, it had been at first, but David had gotten used to it. He overheard the conversation between Sable and his mother. Of course, comprehension never dawned on him: he was young, and with youth came an impenetrable barrier between the real world and the imaginary one that built itself in his mind and freed itself through his eyes and ears and mouth. “Lay down, Creepy,” David chided, and his fist thumped the pillow beside him. “I don’t bite.” He grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.

Sable grunted and complied. David felt somewhat claustrophobic. He scooted as far away as the couch fold-out allowed to give his guest as much space as possible. Then, when he had situated himself and deemed it as comfortable as was possible, he said, “I used to have a brother and a father.” There was only a very distant semblance of sorrow hidden in his voice. He tried not to think about them. Kenneth, his older brother, had died a year or so before, but he had been made a true martyr. David’s father Stuart had been a drunk and a psychopath. He had regularly abused the three of them, and then wasted what little extra money they did have on beer and drugs.

One day, in one of his inebriated tantrums, he had punched Edna so hard she hadn’t gotten up. He had laughed, the pig-headed swine, and it was clear he wanted to rape her. Kenneth had landed a blow to his face, but Stuart had been older and more powerful even in his graceless fury. Kenneth had been brutalized and stabbed, and with the last of his strength, he had retrieved the family’s gun from their bedroom. He had missed, however. Stuart, sobered into a mirthless insanity, removed the gun from his son’s clutches and shot him. David still remembered watching from the hallway, seeing that blood pool under Kenneth’s body, watching his brother’s fading eyes locate him and his broken lips whisper a wordless goodbye. Then, he had been gone, and Stuart had proclaimed, “Lost my mind? No, I left it all over the wall!”

Bang.

And that he had. David voiced this to Sable, to Creepy. He remembered the flashing lights of the ambulance and Edna’s shriek and the men in uniforms who had come. He remembered the rainy day and the black umbrellas and the gray field and the tears and the holes and the casket and the solemn ‘goodbyes.’ He remembered it well. It had been the last time he’d ever cried, that day in the rain, and no one had seen it, but no one had assumed it was just the raindrops landing on his face as he stared up into the sky and the invisible dusting of stars that hung there.

And he voiced that to Sable, too. And then he sat there, quite cozy in his little spot there, and he slowly drifted off to sleep. He dreamt about the cold stares of those around him, and how he returned those stares with his inquisitive emerald eyes that held within them the hidden knowledge of something so distant, and he dreamt about the devil, and he dreamt about Dante, too, locked in the devil’s fiery embrace. From the hallway, Edna watched with those vigilant, intelligent eyes of her own. She had a certain natural distrust that made itself known to anyone who had ever met her.

She heard David’s soft snoring. He was a good boy. A bit disillusioned by recent events in his life, sure, but he was still a good boy... That monster she had called a husband had wrought so much of his hatred into tangible being; a single crystal tear slid down her cheek. She bit her lip, and began to ponder over the situation of their unexpected visitor. She couldn’t cast Sable out, she knew, for to do so would be too cruel, and he had, after all, said so righteously and so correctly: nobody should have to suffer. Unfortunately, the world and all its people had different plans. She looked at the clock in her bedroom. 1:07. She sighed, took her pain medication and her stress/relief pills, and slipped under the covers.

Within moments, the world had faded to black.

Snippet #932

located in Life, a part of Almost an Allegory, one of the many universes on RPG.

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