Morbid Fantasy

Chapter 3

Tyler's POV

"Who wants soup!!"  mom says enthusiastically. 

"Ooh me!" "I do!"  

I watched from a distance as my mother handed my brother Aidan chicken noodle soup and my 6-year-old self tomato soup. this was before dad left. before the drinking left my once radiant mother an empty shell of her old self. 

I know I'm dreaming, this is a figment of my imagination. but I can't help but wonder if mom will ever recover from her despair. 

suddenly the warmth of the kitchen vanished and a dark room replaced it. all black, with smoke crawling on the floors. I took a step and heard a squelching sound. 

blood.

 I followed the trail, making sure not to step in the gooey red mess. and then I heard it. 

"Tyyyyyyler."  

Oh no. not again.

I quickened my pace, bracing myself for what I was about to see. 

the blood led to someone kneeling over what looked like a body, but I wasn't sure since there were pieces strewn everywhere. 

my heart was pounding away in my chest, sending little fluttering sensations to my fingertips. 

"Tyyyyyler." the figure giggled and stood up straight, revealing a boy not much younger than me 3 years ago, holding a knife marked with red. 

his grin was malicious, and his ginger hair was scraggly from not going to the hairdresser for a while. mom couldn't take him. she was too out of it. 

but otherwise, he looked the same, nothing was out of place except that his whole body was drenched in blood. 

"Tyyyyyler. come play with mee."  he took a jerky step toward me, and I jolted back. tears crept down my cheeks looking at what this boy had become. 

"b-but, you're supposed to be dead." I stuttered. I still remember the day I found him, 10 stab wounds in his stomach, spewing blood. I remember screaming, and crying for mom to fix this, to help him. but she just stood there weeping, holding herself, keeping herself from falling apart. 

oh, Aidan. you were only 12...

 Aidan tilted his head to the side like he couldn't process my words. like he couldn't listen to me. 

"Aidan?" his eyes were crazed and unfocused, his soft boyish face grinning viciously at the thing behind him. 

I glanced at where he was gesturing to and gasped. holding my hand to my mouth.

"You're the one who said I did it, who said I would do such a thing to myself," he laughed. "well, I guess you were right."  he stood there cackling as I saw the familiar pieces, the arm, the shoe. and then the face. the twisted face. 

it was Aidan's. 

the same expression as the one we found him in. that look of utter terror and fear, has haunted my nightmares for 3 years. 

I collapsed with my face in my hands weeping silently for my baby brother to come back. 

...

I woke up gasping, with salty tears dripping onto my shirt. 

I tried to blink the darkness away, thinking it was just residue from the nightmare, but then I registered the cloth scraping my face and the ropes binding my hands and feet to a chair.

 I tugged at the ropes cutting at my wrists. they wouldn't budge. tried feet too, no dice. the blindfold was tied securely around my head, uncomfortably sitting on my now drying face. 

I was shaking so hard that I was concerned the chair might start chattering on the cement floor. 

goddamit. they took my shoes. 

ignoring my racehorse heart, I wiggled my hands in the motions Mrs. Capullo taught us to do if our hands were tied behind our backs, or in front of us. 

Twist, turn, pull. twist, turn, pull.  and I repeated this 5 more times before the ropes finally loosened enough that I could tug my hands through without having to dislocate my thumb. 

I ripped the blindfold off and gazed in shock at my surroundings. 

what the fuck.

I am literally in a field of daisies.