Into The Fire

Episode 1

Why do I have so many complaints? Why am I always complaining? Is it because people wrong me? Or is it my coping mechanism? Whatever it is; I am not happy about it.

I am graduating today. I am entering an entirely new life. As much as I am excited about it; I am scared too. I guess....

Someone enters the room in which Drea is lying on her bed talking to herself.

"You are up already?" asks Elaine.

"Yeah mom." replies Drea.

"Big day, huh?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean?" Elaine sits beside her, "What's up?"

"I don't know. I feel like I am too happy. Do I deserve to be this much happy?"

"Of course you do honey. You deserve all good things, do you hear me?" Elaine wanted to say more but a sudden thud coming from downstairs interrupts her.

"What is it?" Drea sits up.

"Let me check." Elaine stands up and leaves the room.

"Peter! What just happened?" Drea could hear her mom going downstairs and her voice fading away.

Suddenly that fading voice becomes a shriek; a scream.

"PETER! PETER! PETER!"

"Mom! What's wrong?" Drea shouts from her room but she could only hear sobs of her mother in return.

She leaves her bed and move walk towards the door with a fragile gait. She leaves her room and moves towards the staircase. It's sunny outside but she can not see a thing. Too much light makes you blind; Drea was just realising that. She slowly come downstairs with a hope in her eyes. A hope that it hasn't happened what she is thinking must have. As she steps forward, she could hear her mom cry more clearly. She could see a fallen ladder, a broken bulb and a lifeless man, placed on the floor side by side.

It was her dad; lying lifeless on the floor. His eyes wide open but his heartbeat wide shut. She was standing there, 10 feet apart from her crying mother and dead dad. She froze. She tried to take a step closer but she couldn't. She knew it was too late but still she called an ambulance.

A few hours ago, it was the best day of my life but now it was a wreck. A ruin. A desert.

She is in her room back on her bed. Seems like she decided not to attend her graduation and instead confining herself here. The house is quiet. She can hear herself breathing. Earlier this day, Peter's body was taken away to get ready for his last rites and the house of three now has only two people living inside. Both of them damaged to some levels.

So it was God's way of telling me that I really don't deserve all of this happiness. Why does it always has to be me? Why nothing goes right? Why?

She herself interrupts with her self-talking and leaves her bed. It's almost midnight and the visions of his father lying lifeless on the floor haunts her even more. She hasn't cried a single tear yet. It's like everything inside her has frozen since the moment she saw her father's cold corpse.

She is now in the living room. She goes to the kitchen from there and get herself a glass of water. She starts drinking it and as soon as she is done she hears something. Someone sobbing. It's Elaine she knows, who else can it be. She places the glass on the shelf and walk towards Elaine's bedroom.

"Mom?" Drea slowly opens the door.

Elaine is sitting on her bed, hugging her knees and head tucked inside her legs.

"Why are you crying mom?" Drea says it while standing at the door and Elaine raises her head to look at her on at such ridiculous question.

"Why are you crying?" Drea asks again.

Elaine still doesn't say anything but a tear trickles down her left cheek.

"Did you not want this? You wanted him dead, don't you?" Expression on Elaine's face changes from grief to surprise when she hear this from her daughter.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Elaine can not fathom.

"I know you hated him. I know wished he was dead. The why are you crying?" Drea is still standing at the door.

"Get out of my sight. GET OUT!" Elaine shouts her lungs out.

Drea remains unaffected by Elaine's outburst and closes the door and walks towards the staircase.

I know she is my mom. The person who died was my dad and I am sad that he is no more. But I know mom hated hum and seeing her crying for him like that, is just..... hypocrite.