91st of Searing, 121 Age of Steel
How I long for the autumn
The sun keeps burning me
Every stone in this city keeps reminding me, oh
Can you protect me from what I want?
The lover I let in who left me so lost
The sun keeps burning me
Every stone in this city keeps reminding me, oh
Can you protect me from what I want?
The lover I let in who left me so lost
Florian had woken up early on his mother's birthday. Though he was going to join her for dinner, and while he'd already bought her a necklace, he had more gifts. Smaller things, like flowers from both him and Eitan, candies, books from Eitan, and a berry pie. It was special, after all, and he wanted to spare no expense. She deserved these things, and he was just happy he could finally, actually give them to her. Florian did not make much money, granted, but he had more than he expected, more than he thought he ever would. He had enough to buy presents and food. He had enough to take the train, if he needed to, or a cab. He had enough for a bouquet of flowers bigger than any she had on her table before. He did not make much money, but for one day, he made enough.
He took a bath and even took pains to wrangle his unmanageable hair. He wore his nicest shirt and he even went so far as to clean the smudges from his boots. Even if they weren't going anywhere, and he was going to take them off at the door, he wanted to look presentable. It was her birthday, after all.
They rarely celebrated it, but he knew the day. Celebration was always saved for the first of the season, when he was born, and she was rarely able to save up enough to do anything special for herself. Florian had been determined to change that, even if by his own hand. And he was happy to. She had provided for him for years, and he one day wanted to be able to provide for her.
He bought everything close-by. The flowers were not as nice as one could buy from a place like Willowby Street, but he'd no desire to return if he didn't have to. The pie may not have been as sweet, but it was fresh and a treat nonetheless. His hands were almost full with the flowers and the two boxes, one of pie and one of candies, but he managed to carry them to her apartment without dropping a thing. It was evening, and people were out, about, drinking. He avoided any direct confrontation, and he was all the merrier for it.
He knocked on the door. There was no answer.
He knocked again. There was no answer.
Florian figured that she was busy — her hands full while cooking, or she was in the bathroom. Maybe she had fallen asleep. None of that mattered, because he had a key. Just in case, he tried the door first. It was unlocked; he wasn't totally surprised, but she usually locked it once the sun began to set. With a bit of shuffling, he made it through the door and directly into the kitchen.
The smell hit him before he even noticed the half-finished meal preparation. But it wasn't the smell of food, it was the smell of death. A wretched smell that he'd come across before, but inside her apartment, it was worse. The thought crossed his mind before he dared travel further into the rooms, but — that couldn't have been it.
It was her birthday.
Florian called out for her a few times. First it was 'mama', but then it was 'Ava', and then he walked towards the hallway, his eyes black with fear. There was no way. It was her birthday. It was her birthday. He barely had to reach the hallway before the smell was unbearable. He had barely seen the first pool of blood on the floor when he threw up. But it was her birthday. She was 55. She had lived for so long on her own, survived for so long while she raised him. It was her birthday. Didn't she get a break on her birthday?
Despite his better judgement, his knowledge of what he was to face, Florian pressed on. His eyes watered, but he didn't cry, because none of this was real. It was impossible.
He followed the blood to her bedroom, his boots still on. It was rude to walk inside her house with his boots still on, and he knew he should've taken them off, but now they kept the blood off of his feet. The door was closed, and he opened it. Florian had never so regretted a decision like this. She kneeled before her bed, her hands pressed together in a pose he did not find familiar. A step closer lead to the sickening sound and vision of her organs beneath his feet. This was wrong. Those did not belong on the ground, and he was almost overcome with the urge to put them back. There was so much blood and her necklace, her beautiful necklace was shoved into her mouth. Her eyes were gone, replaced by her horns. Her beautiful eyes, whose colors almost matched his own. The horns that grew from her temples and so closely matched his own now displaced.
He threw up again. He couldn't help it. He couldn't stay here. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to do. Would he go to the cops? Would they care about her? Did it matter? It wasn't real.
He didn't even hear himself scream. He didn't recognize his hands that tore the necklace away from her mutilated mouth. He didn't recognize the body before him. The dark skin, the white hair, the stiff form. It looked like her, but it wasn't her, because it was her birthday.
The necklace, bloody, was shoved into his pocket. He didn't recognize the feet that sprinted out of the apartment, into the night, into the dark. He didn't recognize himself. It wasn't possible. It wasn't real. He would wake up in the morning and she would be there, and chastise him for missing her birthday. And he would tell her of his nightmare, and she would soothe him, because it wasn't real.
Florian had stopped screaming, when he reached the cool night air, when he escaped the smell. Of course it was a nightmare. The fact brought him comfort, and he began his walk home. It had been very kind of Eitan to buy her more books for her small library. More books that he would be able to read. And so many flowers, that now littered the floor of her kitchen. It was okay, because it was a nightmare, and they would be in a vase of water when he woke up. So many flowers. He was okay, because it was her birthday, and who would murder a woman on her birthday?
Florian stopped running. He walked home, and no one bothered him, because a nightmare was just another dream, and he had other things to worry about. And when he woke up, it would be morning, and his mother would wake up too. She would stand up and push all of her guts back into herself and prepare dinner for the two of them. Florian would have cooked dinner for her if he were a better cook, but he wasn't, and that was okay. He would help where he could, by cutting up the vegetables and the meat and she would do the rest, the hard parts. It wasn't that he didn't want to know how to cook, but he had never taken the time to learn. Now that he'd had this nightmare, of course, he wondered if he would let her teach him. He needed to gain some weight, anyway, and learning to cook would help with that. It would be a fun thing to do on her birthday.
He stumbled into his apartment. Blood was on his boots, but it had dried and been rubbed off on cobblestones and dirt, and it didn't track into his apartment. He took them off with haste, and didn't even bother to change. With any luck, he would wake up as soon as his head hit the pillow. He'd be back in the real world, and not this nightmare reality where innocent Lysanrin women were murdered with no motive. Florian locked the door behind him and, in shock more than anything, folded himself into bed.
