A second later I found myself dialling the fire brigade. “F-F –Fire!!...”. Then I uttered some gibberish, which the person on the helpline seemed to have understood because he said help would arrive in about 15 minutes, and I should stay calm.
Then I darted to the bedroom and tried to wrench it open, but my shaking hands were too weak, and the revolt was too sturdy. I started banging the door, only to hear my mother’s screams and my sister’s whimpers as a reply. Eyes filled with water, heat building up, a splitting headache and a gnawing sense of blame began to eat into me. Where was the extra pumping of adrenaline when I needed it? I ran from a distance into the door, and finally it granted me my desire.
The sight in front of me, was not one of horror, nor was it one of fright, it was one of End. Doom had fallen upon me since I had admitted and established myself as proud of my arrogance and expensive desires. But I didn’t deserve this sort of punishment, why should I endure this? The feeling of all this being my fault began to eat into me. Then my eyes fell upon my sister, my ears caught a shriek of quintessential pain. But still, I just stood there staring in through the doorway of doom, feeling angry with the universe.
Somewhere at the back of my mind, I knew this wasn’t the moment to express rage, or stubbornness, but my parsimonious character was on a different trip altogether. Although I could register the incident taking form in front of my eyes, my limbs were locked in place, and I was paralyzed with fear, shock, or worse, denial.
A cloud of blazing fury came straight at me, and I didn’t move. I felt my skin peel, and scream in protest, I felt my eyebrows die, and fall off the ruins of what was left of my face, but I didn’t move. I let the satanic ball of disaster, a close friend of Erebus itself, swallow my mother, my creator, and snatch my motive for living, my sister, only so they wouldn’t have to experience any more pain.
Then, the jolt of guilt over my actions, or lack of them, made my head go all fuzzy. The entire house around me began to spin, and the ever increasing flames, turned into a single haze, and I new that there was nothing left that I could do, or feel. The time had passed, and it was too late. Then I fell back down through the tunnel, only this time probably never to come out of it again. It was all over.
Unfortunately, to my dismay, I woke up. I had only fainted. I was in a hospital bed, and my father was holding my hand. Of course, he didn’t know the whole story; he didn’t know that I was a murderer. I tried to speak, but words were like a dream, disappearing too fast to catch. I was barely able to mouth an apology. Then he said, “ Your mother is safe, but you sister….” And he just shook his head, either in disappointment, or grief, I couldn’t make out. “It’s not your fault, do not blame yourself.”
But how could I not. I had been so absorbed and engulfed by the flames of conflict and confusion in my own mind, that I was cause of the sacrifice, the destruction of the solution to that very conflict. I was the bane of the very existence of my family members. There was no reason for my being alive anymore, there was no point. This is why I came back, to the house, to relive that night again, hopefully in search of an answer, or just for solitude, maybe to wallow in my regret. To change.
