Post by Mitch 'The Broken' Heart on Nov 8, 2020 19:09:20 GMT -5
Erosion.
OOC: I was going to include this in my Chaos 102 RP but ran out of space. This all takes place in Detroit, about nine hours before the beginning of 'Symbiosis'.
It’s been five years and some change
And the world is getting so strangeBut this house, it smells just the same
And my mom, my sweet mom…
….she can’t remember my name
-Chocolate Genius, ‘My Mom’
The house was a decaying corpse.
The door was locked but that was alright. Mitch grew up in this place, and he remembered all its little tricks and quirks, like the fact that the window in what used to be his bedroom would always open if you pressed your hands on the pane and jiggled it just so, lifting up as you did. He’d snuck out that way so much as a kid, using the classic ‘pillows under the blanket that vaguely look like a huddled up sleeping person if you’re drugged out of your mind’ trick. Nowadays, he used it for sneaking in.
Mitch frowned as his feet hit the floor. He wore a new pair of boots, something he’d allowed himself to spring for after the soles of his old ones finally decided to start liberating themselves from the leather uppers. The soles were thick and sturdy, but feeling fuck knows how many syringes crunch under his steps was still a disconcerting feeling.
The room was a shambles. The wood panelling was scuffed and stained, the look of the place even grubbier than when he last saw it.
The sun streamed through the windows with the handmade Red Wings curtains that matched the bedspread. The walls were a light oak wood color. A red rug was on the floor beside the small bed. A little boy pushed a toy fire engine across the hardwood, making siren noises. He didn’t have many toys, but that was okay. He made do. That’s what his mom always said, after all. ‘We make do.’ Which meant one toy at Christmas and one toy on his birthday, only eating out on really special occasions, not going to Michigan’s Adventure during summer vacation like the other kids at school, and getting the store brand because it was cheaper.
He could make do, though. It was okay. He had his mom and his mom had him and they made a fantastic team.
This had been Pen’s room after his. What few possessions she’d left behind- not much, some stained clothes and ripped posters- clung to the room like ghosts rising from among the trash. It was no room for any kid now. Just a dump site full of spent highs, wasted money, and broken dreams.
His body was tense. He never knew what to expect when he came here. Usually it was quiet. Sometimes there were other junkies milling around. Once there was a full fledged dope fiend rave going on. A grotesquely pre-aged woman with long white-blonde hair, sunken eyes, and five teeth- the living corpse of a collegiate beauty- had pressed him to the wall and tried to kiss him, only to try and stab him with a needle when he shoved her off. In heated defense, he’d drawn his knife and slashed her across her pockmarked cleavage- shallow, but the blood made her screech and slink off to places unknown like some wounded feral animal.
It seemed still now, though. The place stunk of old blood and urine. The once shabby but neatly kept home was a fucked up house. A glance to the left drew his gaze to the small bathroom- the sink filled with more syringes, a black-bottomed spoon in the caddy where a toothbrush should be. The mirror was cracked silver. Reaching just inside the door, he twisted the tap. Nothing. He wondered how long the water had been turned off.
“...Mom? Alex?”
It was too quiet. He could give a shit if Alex overdosed. Choking on his own puke was almost too good a death for him. But as much as he didn’t want to care, as much as he didn’t want to be here, as much as he wished he could just stop coming--
“...mmmrrrrrph.”
“Mom?”
Mitch jogged down the hall. She was curled up on the threadbare couch, the old tube-screen television on one insipid talk show or another. Rail-thin. Barefoot, despite the obscene amount of trash and sharp refuse that littered the room, legs sheathed in stained denim, one bony shoulder sticking out of the torn t-shirt collar. ‘Motown Records’, said the mostly faded lettering. She bought that shirt when she’d taken him to see the old studio once as a special treat. It had been a great day. It was also the first time he remembered her talking to a man on the corner, coming away with a little white bag of powder that she’d slipped into her pocket.
‘Mom, what was that you got from the man?’
‘...candy.’
“Can I have some?’
‘No, sorry. This is special candy just for grownups.’
He had to stop coming. He always said he would. This was a lost cause. He shouldn’t care anymore. He should just leave now and never come back.
Instead he stepped forward, his calloused hand all but covering her bony shoulder.
“Mmmm, a’work.”
Her voice was syrup thick. The way it sounded reminded him of Zane King’s rat cage wounds, seeping heavy and borderline gelatinous. She looked like a scarecrow, only the faintest traces of the pretty woman he remembered were visible. Her wild tangled mane of hair was the same color as his where it wasn’t a dull dishwater grey. Her eyes were the same glass blue, but gone dull like a mass of hairline cracks had infested them, causing the illusion of frosting.
“...Mom. You gotta stop. Please. You can’t keep up like this.”
“M’fiiiiine. Soon’s Alex gets home i’ll feel l’lot better.”
She giggled. It made Mitch think of the time he accidentally stepped on one of Pen’s dolls. The voicebox had let out a long, tinny, distorted laugh before going dead for good.
“I’m serious. You can leave this fuck. Get clean. You and me… and Pen. We can be a family if you want it.”
“Who’s Pen…?”
Mitch looked away, his eyes screwing tightly shut, teeth savaging the inside of his cheek.
“...nobody you need to know. Forget it. It’s always the same. I don’t know why I come back here. You’re brain’s so fucking fried you don’t know shit.”
“Heeeeey! That’s… s’no way to talk to your mamma, Mikey.”
Mikey.
Mitch’s eyes opened. They were cold. They had the same broken-fog look as hers, just not for the same reasons. His fists clenched so tight that his nails dug cuts in his palms, leaving little red crescent marks.
Without another word, he turned around. He went back through the hallway and left through the open window, not bothering to close it behind him. Through the alley to the street where he’d left his bike, one leg swinging over the side. He revved the engine till it roared like a tormented beast screaming in this derelict neighborhood, and took off like a bullet from a gun, not looking back.
He wouldn’t stop until he all but ran out of gas somewhere near Pittsburgh.