Sepia Revolver

Within its frame, the old photo of his great-grandparents sat, depicting a wholesome scene of a couple: the husband sat upright upon the bed, one leg crossed over the other, which swung off the frame, smiling blissfully; the wife's smile was more subtle, but easily sighted, as she sat upon a stool in her nightgown; this was taken before they had their sixth of eight children, who would move from New England to old England, eventually becoming the grandfather of the man that now had this photo framed upon his wall, in his London house.

The photo belonged to his second cousin once removed, from the small side of the family that remained American---the rest, for the most part, turning to Canada, England, Australia, or, the youngest of the eight being the only to do so, Ireland; with this distant cousin's untimely death, having no children of her own, her husband thought it only right the photograph remain in the family, and spent many long hours tracking down a relative to ship it to.

The man was eventually contacted by this American husband of his late American relative, and accepted the photograph with condolences.

Through many nights, the winds would whistle in ungodly shrieks as they attacked the windows, the rooms roasted in heat as much as they simultaneously froze in heatlessness; his sleep pattern grew chaotic, before whirling out of existence; and when awake became his sole state of mind, the photo changed: the husband and wife were in their seated positions still, but the smiles were gone, replaced with mixed despair and disgust.

'Traitor!' he would hear a woman's voice scream in the night from then on, always directed toward himself; a running throughout the house was heard, a running of four feet, always able to escape sighting. On one night, the man thought he caught an intruder hiding behind the curtains, sitting upon the window seal. He approached with knife in hand, but upon pulling back the curtain, he saw photographs, all the ones he had of all his extended family, and those that were not his great-grandparents' first and third child---the two that had not immigrated away from New England---and their children and their children's children and so forth, were burnt away from the images entirely; all photographs that is, with the exception of the framed image on the wall, that remained where it was, but the two had once again moved. Now, the husband and wife both stood.

All doors and windows had been locked after a thorough search by police, who said they could find out of the ordinary, aside from the partially burnt photographs. Neither shrieking nor screaming disturbed him that night, allowing him to drift off into a peaceful, dreamless slumber.

Shattering and slamming awoke the man, as all windows and doors erupted inward, breaking off from the walls entirely. Two loud bangs erupted shortly afterward, and he felt two great pains in his abdomen; he was bleeding. The photo, he saw as he tried to walk to freedomad a small,black ring, smoking alike a very small chimney; the husband had turned his back, still holding his look of despair and disgust, and the wife held a revolver, presenting little emotion upon her face.

He grabbed the frame with his bloody hands, and took it with him as he navigated the blizzard his house had became, only to hear another loud bang and sharp pain as he reached the top of the stair; now, his leg was bleeding, and he could not support himself. He tumbled to the bottom, breaking many parts of himself, but retained the strength to look at the photograph one last time as his mind drifted away: a wholesome couple, the husband sat upright on the bed, in his pyjamas, one leg crossed over the other that hung freely, with gleeful smile upon his face, while his wife sat upon a stool in her nightgown, with a more subtle, but equally happy, smile upon her face.