Goodnight

Chapter 5

"Amy's funeral is on the twenty-fourth."

My mother's words were laced with venom, as if I had something to do with Amy's supposed heart attack.

I stared blankly at the table in front of me, my fingertips tracing circles across the smooth surface of the wood. My eyes were burning and heavy, which was possibly why I felt entirely void of emotion. I didn't even care that she died - she would have sent me back anyway. Consider me lucky, right?

"Wow," Lena chuckled in surprise from beside me, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "I can't believe she just croaked like that. In front of Eth, too."

Mother completely ignored Lena, continuing to shift through papers on the counter as if her daughter didn't exist. They never really talked much at all I had noticed, not since our father died - I wasn't sure why, but I also wasn't going to ask. Something must have happened between them and I wanted no part of it.

Lena rolled her eyes at my mother's distasteful attitude and stood up from the chair, putting her hand on my shoulder in sympathy before disappearing into the hallway.

"Well, since you're sitting here in a sweatshirt after I asked you to change ten minutes ago, I'm going to church without you," my mother mumbled under her breath angrily. 

She was so vicious, despite her slim body clad in a modest dress. The sunlight shimmered on her dark curls while simultaneously illuminating the powder blue irises that refused to make contact with mine.

I exhaled heavily in defeat, my chin resting in the crook of my arm as my eyes began to slowly fall shut.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" she spoke again,snapping me back into reality. "You used to be my beautiful baby boy... you were a gift from God. I had hope with you, after your sister turned into a disappointment, and now you are spiraling down an awful path..." she sighed in finality, "I just don't know what to do with you..."

My heart dropped.

I just don't know what to do with you...

I gazed down at the table with wide eyes, my heart racing in my chest as her words sunk into my skin slowly, with a piercing sting. I bit down on my bottom lip roughly, chewing and gnawing on it in attempt to distract myself. 

Salty blood began to flood between my teeth and leak down slowly down my chin. I looked helplessly towards my mother who was staring at me with tight lips and a judgmental stare.

Shaking her head, she stood to rip a piece of paper towel off before wetting it at the sink beside us. Her heels clinked against the tiled ground as she walked over to me, placed her finger beneath my chin, and tilted my head up towards her. 

Her eyes stared into mine.

"I'm sorry, baby," she said softly, her words hot against my skin.

She pressed the paper towel to my bottom lip and brushed my messy hair out of my eyes.

"You look mental. Go to sleep, please," she begged, her eyes lightening and filling with a sympathetic stare. 

She abruptly turned away from me and grabbed her purse off the table, walking out the front door without another word.

I sat at the table for a long time in total silence, staring down at my chewed fingernails and the crimson-soaked paper towel piece that had fallen from my lip and onto my lap. I couldn't even imagine what I looked like - I could feel the heavy bags weighing down the flesh beneath my bloodshot eyes. My hair was matted and long, my jaw was beginning to grow unwanted stubble.

I did look mental... 

Because I was.

And I remembered nothing from the day Amy died of her heart attack; the hour was all a blur. I remembered the crazy man with the ripped up face who haunted me every time my eyelids closed. I remembered being rushed out of the room while people frantically passed by me to see what had happened to Amy.

"Be careful," I heard a low voice speak. 

I swallowed hard, my body beginning to tremble almost instantly. I turned my head slowly towards the end of the hallway, where I had heard the gravelly whisper from.

And I saw him standing at the end of it. 

His rows of teeth were white and baring, his lips ripped completely off. His eyes were white spheres with no shape, and flesh still hung off his face. 

Something was different, though. 

He didn't seem so real anymore. He didn't... scare me, in the same way. Sure, I was fucking terrified, as anybody would be. But I didn't feel genuine fear, which would normally spike from the depths of my chest and settle in my throat, but instead, I just felt worried.

"Please, no," I begged under my breath, not sure how much more I could handle. "Please."

The crazy man began walking towards me at a fast pace down the hallway, groaning through his teeth. I almost stood from the chair and bolted, but I felt a hand holding my shoulder down.

I quickly looked up at a worried Lena, staring down at me with wide eyes and parted lips. Then, with panicked breath and trembling bones, I looked down the hallway to find nothing there.

Lena's hand tightened on my shoulder as I let out a ragged sigh of relief.

"Ethan," she said, her voice raspy with concern and alarm.

"W-what?" I asked shakily. "It- it was nothing-"

"You need to get out of here," Lena said quickly, urgently. "You need to run away right now."

"Wha- Lena- I-" 

She cut me off and gripped my sweatshirt, pulling me up from the chair and leading me to my room. "This isn't good," she kept repeating continuously under her breath.

"Lena, I'm- what's going on-" 

"Stop it, Ethan!" she said, nearly throwing me into my room. I hit the bed and my hands flew out to catch my fall, while I stared at her with wide eyes. She looked so terrified. Her eyes were so wide and her fingers were shaking as she began frantically throwing my clothes into a backpack.

"Lena- please tell me-"

"You need to get out of here!" she yelled out in panic. "You need to, okay? I'll explain on the way."

I watched her as she zipped the backpack up and handed it to me. "We have to go. Come on," she said tightly, her words clipped and her voice faltering.

"You... you're coming?" I asked, taking the backpack and slinging it over my shoulder. 

"You didn't think I'd make you go alone, right?" Lena asked, standing to her feet and grabbing my bony fingers. 

"You can't go. You have school, and a life... Lena-" 

"Enough, Ethan, you don't have much time left." 

My sweaty fingers tightened around the strand of my backpack as we walked to the backdoor. 

Before I stepped through it, I glanced back into the small and dainty house to find the figure of the crazy man sitting at the table I was seated at. Slowly, his head turned me.

He held his shredded hand up, the bone of his index and ring finger showing through the folded skin, and he gave me a small wave.

"Goodnight, sweet boy."

And then, Lena and I were out the door.

_

rushed editing, sorry if its bad