Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Mar 1, 2017 16:44:56 GMT -5
Homecoming
A soft glow permeated the darkness while deft hands sorted rapidly through layers of folded clothing. Not locating their quarry, they moved on to the next drawer of the old wooden dresser sliding it open slowly and silently so as not to arouse the interest of any other residents.
Cari cursed softly to himself as his search once more proved fruitless. He wrestled with his brain, feverishly trying to recall where he had left that key so many years ago when he had left home. It was surreal being back in his old room, a place he'd spent so much of his youth attempting to escape. He remembered sneaking out in the evenings while his parents slept to join up with his friends roaming the streets of the city causing mischief until the early hours when he would return home to find the window shut tight behind him. He used to always leave the window open, at least a crack, when he'd go out; but every night while he was gone his younger brother would awaken and close it forcing him to have to pry it open and delaying his return. He had begun to carry a small knife with him when he went out precisely for this purpose.
His brother never told his parents about his antics, though. He never made it easy to avoid being caught either; sometimes going as far as placing items between the window and the bedside to trip him up in the darkness, or even tie bells to the window latch in hopes of causing Cari to accidentally give himself away; but he never told. Cari had always wondered if he and his brother had shared an empathic desire to rid themselves of this home. Regardless of his efforts to get Cari in trouble, it always seemed as if he'd lived vicariously through his older brother; listening for hours to stories of his rampant late night excursions.
Perhaps that’s why it shocked Cari to find his brother at home this night. After so many years it seemed as if he'd have gone. He had not reacted well to Cari's entrance through the window, protesting his presence and even confronting him with hostility. He was quiet now, though, lying on the bed they'd once shared his eyes fixated on the ceiling while his elder rummaged through drawers and closets still afraid of drawing the attention of their mother.
She, too, was at home, and awake. He'd seen her on his approach from the outside through a window, she was pacing nervously back and forth in the front room as if waiting for something. She looked like she hadn't slept in weeks; it wouldn't have surprised him. In the days following their father's death she'd stopped sleeping. Having once been so meticulous about the state of the household, she'd stopped cleaning and stopped caring.
Cari had left home shortly thereafter. Following in his father's footsteps he'd heeded the call for able bodies and joined the city's ramshackle militia. He left a note behind, but his absence the following morning went otherwise unannounced. He found out from others that had joined later that his mother had eventually fallen ill and was overcome with madness. He had felt no desire to return, it would have been pointless.
He continued his search, his eyes skimmed quickly over an old bookshelf filled with dusty books their titles barely legible in the dying light. His gaze fell upon one in particular and he snatched it out from the shelf, diverting his face from the eruption of dust caused by the speed of the movement. He covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve and opened the cover quickly memorizing a set of numbers scrawled on the inside.
"Can't find the key. Guess the combination will have to do." He looked over at his brother lying there, motionless, an angry grimace on his face.
Cari turned away and made for the bedroom door. Opening it, he peered out to see if his mother was between him and his next stop. All clear, he stealthily crept down the hall toward his parents' bedroom. Briefly he caught a glimpse of her, still pacing, as he darted across the doorway leading out into the front room. He pushed the unlatched bedroom door open and ducked inside.
It was darker inside than the other room, though he moved by memory to a portrait hung on the wall. Letting his eyes adjust was like watching a dream come back into focus. The portrait was an image of he and his brother painted at the Darkmoon Faire long ago. He had won a silly hat in a carnival game and his brother had purchased a garishly green silken shirt from an exotic vendor. They had insisted on wearing both for the portrait. Their father had loved it. He said it showed their character, really revealed who they were; happy, smiling, in love with life. Their mother had only smiled without expressing an opinion.
It hung on the wall regardless. For his brother, though, the novelty of their mother's chagrin had never worn out. He continued to wear that shirt on and off for years following that trip to the Faire. He'd worn it long after Cari and misplaced the hat. He'd worn it the day Cari left home. He was wearing this day when Cari had returned.
His nimble fingers hefted the painting off the wall, not allowing the hard wooden frame to clang against the door of the family vault it concealed. Cari took a deep breath and began to dial in the combination, pausing after each tumbler fell into place to breathe once more. The tiny clicking of the dial being turned was like thunder in the silence of the home, and the sudden clang of the lever releasing the latch caused his heart to skip a beat. Cari stalked his way back to the bedroom door, peering out into the hallway to see if anyone had been alerted by the seemingly uproarious racket. Nothing.
Stepping back to the vault he opened the door finally laying eyes upon his goal. A dusty old notebook, it's pages soft with repeated use, it's covers wrinkled and worn with age lay alone in the confines of the safe. Cari had seen this book many times in his father's hands. He knew that inside every page was filled margin to margin, cover to cover, with notes and ideas, formulas and theories. Prior to joining the militia, his father had been a brilliant physician. By some reports the best in the city. This was his father's journal, and the information lying therein could potentially save thousands of lives.
Cari delicately lifted the book from it's resting place and placed it reverently into the satchel he'd carried with him. Then he heard his mother's voice.
"Eli?" She was standing in the doorway calling out for his father.
In the near darkness he could see the lines of her face. Her skin was leathery, worn and tired with age. Her eyes were closed, was she blind now, too?. Wordlessly, Cari backed away from her and allowed her to enter the room, her hands outstretched yearning for something to touch.
"Eli, is that you?"
When the gap between her and the door had widened enough, Cari slipped out of the room and bolted down the hallway back to his own one-time bedroom. He looked behind him once to see his mother following his movement slowly from the room. Her teeth were bared, with one hand she grasped the wall for guidance, with the other she held something sharp which glimmered in the glow barely emanating from behind Cari's own body.
Horror filled Cari's heart as he darted back into the bedroom, toward the window through which he'd entered. He stopped only briefly to retrieve his knife, hastily wiping the blood from the blade on the ridiculous silken green of his brother's shirt. Tears welled in his eyes as he hoisted himself up to the windowsill mumbling a hasty apology.
A loud clank greeted his ears as his feet made contact with the hard metal catwalk of Gnomeregan's residential sector. He pushed the window closed, hard. His legs failed him as he keeled over in a fetal position and wept in the relative safety. A few short minutes later he gathered himself and withdrew a small communication device from his pocket, while the light from his brother's irradiated body finally dimmed and died in the window.
"Cari to Clean Zone." He sniffed and wiped the tears from his eyes, "I've recovered the data. I'm on my way back."
~fin~
