Detour from Survival

Detour From Survival

The door is somehow still attached. It swings open and closed easily in the wind, the hinges aren’t bent or broken. The sky is slowly inking its way into night and the usual fear rides it’s rollercoaster up into my chest from the pit in my stomach. I swallow. Entering a building means I will be closed in with fewer chances for escape if I am attacked. But staying outside means I’m more visible. It’s always a toss up, one I’ve had to weigh time and time again, but this time I have a good reason to go inside.

The door swings open again and I slip inside. The power grid in the city went out ages ago but I came prepared. The boy scout slogan runs through my head, unbidden, but it has come in handy since The Beginning. I sigh and then nearly cough as air thick with mildew and dust clogs my throat and nose. I must keep quiet, instinctively runs through my head and I throw my mittened hand to my mouth, stifling any noise. My other hand silently glides into my coat pocket and grabs my flashlight, pulls it out and switches it on.

Is it weird that it's almost exactly as I remember it? Even with the cobwebs and dust covering everything, even with practically every piece of furniture being overturned and pictures shattered on the ground, I look through nostalgia glasses. My mother is in the kitchen, the smell of grilled cheese fills my nose instead of mold. I see my brothers laughing and shouting at their video game, fingers expertly working the controllers in their hands. My father says he's ‘just resting his eyes’ and I can almost hear the small snore that escapes his sleeping lips. I push away the urge to sigh again, or maybe it's the urge to cry or scream or laugh or smile. I can't remember the last time I smiled. Probably before The Beginning. Lately it's been fear and numbness that controls me.

Nothing moves in the living room so I tiptoe further in, my footsteps swirling dust and rustling loose papers on the ground. I walk silently past the kitchen and into the back hallway. Two doors are broken, one is completely downed, splinters littering the floor in a large arc. Only one is intact at the very end. My parents' room. I slowly walk down the hallway, the walls pressing in, my breath growing shallow.

I can almost hear the arguments they thought they hid from us, the yelling, the name calling, it all blurred together, each shouting over the other as we would sit and listen. Sometimes my oldest brother would cover my ears, but he was only 13 at the time and didn't fully understand what to do. Sometimes he would make us watch tv. It didn't matter what played, we would hardly focus on it anyway, just something in the background so we could pretend we were somewhere else and the yelling was something else. I shiver despite my layers of sweatshirts and jackets.

When the memories stop, I realize I am also stopped and my parents' door is within arms reach. I need to stay vigilant, They could be anywhere. I roughly remind myself. I turn around. The door on my left is the one that had been smashed in. I try to catch the reins of my imagination before it takes me away on another guilt covered nostalgia ride. If only I had been here to save them. Distantly I feel a tear mark a track down my cheek. I don't have time for this, They could be anywhere, I have to keep moving and guilt is merely a distraction from the now, a detour away from survival. I must detach and keep moving forward. Forward. But memories of my brothers play out in my head anyway.

True to his birth succession, my youngest brother acted and was treated like the baby of the family. He got his own room while my two other brothers had to share one and I had my own. He always ended up in their room anyway, bothering them, asking them if he could play too and would inevitably either push them out or they would push him out. The memory almost makes me smile. Almost. I don't think I remember how to anymore. I don't think I could if I wanted to.

But another memory, constantly nagging, one that must be ragged from the many times I've brought it out and raked it through my mind, bubbles up to my consciousness. Suddenly I have eyes only for my room, the last one on the right. Suddenly nothing else matters. Suddenly I must get there as fast as possible, safety be damned. Suddenly I'm in front of my old door. I don't remember walking. I don't know if I was quiet enough but it doesn't matter. Suddenly I'm next to my old bed. The clutter that clogs my room is all my old things: ripped clothes, broken furniture, torn posters, but I have no feelings for anything that's here. Except one thing.

My bed is mostly intact. The mattress is a little ripped where a struggle with one of Them must have happened but my pillow is still at the head of the bed. My chest tightens, it's hard to breathe. Is it still there?

Before The Beginning, I had run away. My parents argued a lot, yes, but that wasn't why. My brothers and I fought sometimes, yes, but that wasn't why either. Life in a suburb is boring and my best friend had just moved away. Mom wouldn't let me join a club because she thought I wouldn’t be able to do both homework and a club after school and I got mad. Now it seems so trivial but back then, how many years ago? Five? Six? More? It was more important than anything else. I was so caught up in my anger that I left behind my most prized possession. After I put a picture of my family inside, I kept it in it’s tiny wooden box under my pillow so I wouldn't lose it, but now I wish I had worn it.

The front door slams and I freeze, dragged out of my memories. I hold my breath, not daring to move, not daring to breath. When no sounds herald the presence of one of Them, my attention snaps back to the torn bed in front of me. And my goal.

Before my best friend left, she gave me a necklace and now it's all I can think about. Her brown eyes shone with unshed tears, she was trying to be brave, even though we had no idea what bravery even was back then. Her dark hands held mine, her long braids gently swaying in the seemingly perpetual breeze outside my house. She looked away, letting go of my hands and I missed her already. She reached into her pocket, the tiny wooden box clutched in her hands and reverently passed it to mine. I held it so gingerly, afraid it would break even though it was quite sturdy. Slowly, solemnly, I opened it to reveal a silver, heart-shaped locket. My jaw slackened in astonishment. It was so simple, no ornate design, not fancy filigree work, just a plain heart. But I suddenly loved it more than I had loved any object before. I looked at her and she was smiling, tears spilling down her cheeks.

After everyone either left or died, after years of just trying to survive, I know that only what you can carry easily is a must and trinkets are nothing but wastes of space. But even while I watched friends die, this memory of my best friend who I never saw again after that day kept playing and playing in my head. It rocked my consciousness to sleep at night and kept me going even when I held a gun to my own head. Survival had to become my obsession, but this necklace was my own chosen obsession. I had to find it. I am so close.

I jump, a noise startling me out of my reverence and nostalgia. I freeze and listen again, but it’s just the front door slamming shut from the wind, again. Still tense, I turn back to my old bed and, as if in a dream, reach under the pillow.

I don’t feel it at first and start to panic but then there it is. The box is smaller than I remember. I pull it out and hold it gently, turning it around and around. Gingerly I slide the lid back and peer inside.

For the past five years or so I have been working so hard to come back for one thing, and one thing only: this. I learned about my family’s death a while ago, along with my best friend and this is what I have left of both of them. I made new friends and watched them die or leave me along the way. I killed monsters and humans alike for my survival. All so I could make it home again. All so I could hold this in my living hands again.

I must have been too loud. Maybe I had started sobbing and hadn't realized. I smelled Them first, then I heard Them. They are fast, faster than I am. I spin around but it's too late. The gun in my pocket remains untouched. I stumble back a step, my chest tightening harder and faster than I ever thought possible, my breathing becoming a bleak and nearly impossible struggle. I look down, there's something sticking out of my chest. I cough and choke, warm blood spilling out of my mouth. I already know who my murderers are without needing to look up, so instead, I look down at my hand. Everything seems to go in slow motion as I fall to my knees, still clutching the box. My body wrenches to the side as one of Them, towering over me, bites my shoulder. I feel no pain. As I fall I watch as the box slips from my grasp. No! I mouth, and I struggle to pull my mitten off with my teeth. I fumble around until I feel the cool metal of the necklace. Pulling it to my face, I ignore the horrors reflecting in its heart shape as it dangles from my fingers. I lower it as blackness starts to take control of my vision and my body grows weaker and weaker. Numbness takes complete control. I feel only warm tears as they stream down my face and the chain in my hand. I finally have it. The only tangible thing that can connect me to who I once was and the simplicity, happiness, and peace of the past.

Soon, only the necklace exists in my vision, everything else is faded, blacked out. I smile as I close my eyes, savoring the cold metal in my hand and the shape of the heart in my mind.