Distorted Affliction

Chapter Five

The roads were slick from the rain, and a fog had set in halfway to our destination. The moon was bright above us as Sin barrelled down the road, his speed much faster than the signs passing suggested. I wasn't sure if Lucas would still be there, and I had lost my phone in the wreckage when I rolled my car, so there would be no way of knowing if he had already left.

"So, let me get this right," I said, tapping my knuckle on the window as I watched the world fly past beyond it. "You're dead, you drink blood, but you can walk in the sunlight?"

Sin let out a small laugh, glancing sideways at me for a moment before regaining composure. I could tell he wanted me to know that he was capable of great darkness, but part of me also felt as though he was capable of great compassion as well. There was no question, he had been alive much longer than I had, and had a dark past he had hinted at momentarily, but didn't feel comfortable enough going into detail about.

While I was trying to piece together who he was to me, it occurred that there must have been something good in him, something deep that I had been allowed to see, for him to be what I would consider a trustworthy person. I might not remember that, but I knew that he had proven himself to me already. I just wished that I could remember.

"Of all of the questions you have, about me, Lucas, Silas, even yourself," Sin started slowly. "That's what you're most curious about? How I walk in daylight? Don't believe all of the stories you read about us. Mouri have been around for thousands of years, we tend to find a way to adapt to the boundaries imposed upon us during creation."

"So explain it to me, then," I pressed, wanting as many answers as he was willing to give. "I have no memory of any of this, and if I knew before, like you suggest that I did, then there must have been a reason I was involved in your world. I want to know why, I want to know everything. My memories are gone, but that doesn't mean I don't have the opportunity to relearn all of it."

A silence fell in the car, and neither of us spoke. I replayed my words in my head, worried that I had offended him. I felt desperate to know everything about the life I couldn't remember. A world where people could be brought back from the dead to walk the earth filled me with so much hope that my son was still alive, regardless of the memories in my head, and that hope made me feel alive again, gave me something worth living for.

"August," Sin spoke finally. "This isn't just my world, or even Lucas's world that you're learning about. There's so much more than just the Mouri out there, more magic than I could ever begin to explain to you. This is your world too, and I hope that you get the opportunity to remember that one day."

"What am I?" The question seemed to catch us both off guard, as I hadn't planned to ask it out loud, but I could feel that he was hinting at something more than he was telling me, and I needed answers.

"I want you to get your answers," he replied, taking a deep breath and shutting himself down once again. His shoulders straightened, and his face hardened, letting me know he was done playing this game with me. I felt angry with him, but I understood, too. This wasn't his place, to answer all of the questions I had about who I was before Lucas made me forget.

I directed him down a side road, through the trees and deeper into the forest. The road didn't seem to be traveled often, and my heart was racing when we made the final turn into what had once been the driveway to mine and Lucas's dream home. That is, before it burnt to the ground.

When the car came to a stop, I opened the passenger door and stepped out, my eyes glued firmly to the pile of rubble still very visible atop the concrete foundation where our home used to be. My feet moved me forward, and flashes of the fire played behind my eyelids when I blinked. This was the place it had all started, and the place it had all ended, at least in my reality.

I had never felt right about the fire, never truly believed that it had all been an accident. Something about the memories didn't sit right with me, and part of me allowed myself to believe that I had lost myself in the post partum and burned it all down myself. I wasn't sure if that was the truth that Lucas was hiding from me, or if the story ran much deeper, but I scanned the rubble as if it would give me the answers I was looking for.

The memories, whether real or fake, flooded my memory of the night I watched it all burn. I had never talked about it, not in therapy, not with Lucas before he left. I had never put words to what had happened, but I had held Silas's remains, I had cried over what was left of his body as my soul was ripped from my ribcage. Even if the memories were fake, the emotions I carried with me, the guilt, the grief, the absolute loss of my will to live, that was very much real to me.

"It feels surreal," I whispered, unsure if I meant for Sin to hear it, or just the ghosts of my past life. Standing there, in the place where my world had ended, left a deep feeling of anguish burning inside of my chest. I wanted to scream, the way I had when the flames were eating away at the home we had built, the life we had planned and created. Instead, I wrapped my arms around myself and sunk to my knees without another word.

I had no idea where Lucas would be, if he was even here. There was nothing but darkness and silence that submerged me, and I welcomed it, hoping it would swallow me whole and take the emptiness inside of me with it. The pain was unparalleled by anything I could ever recall feeling, and it felt so wrong, to have to go on in this life without my child, to never get the opportunity to know him. I felt cheated, and I wanted more than anything to have the opportunity to see a reality where none of it was real, where he was still happy and healthy. 

I felt Sin's presence next to me before I felt his touch on my arm, followed by the sharp inhalation of a breath I recognized too well. He felt what I felt, if only for the moment our skin touched, and something about that comforted me. I spent months trying to make someone understand what I felt like, what the loss had done to me, but there was no way to show anyone, at least until now.

"He isn't here," I whispered with a deep sigh, reaching to wipe away the tears that had spilled over when I hadn't noticed. "I don't know where he is, but he isn't here."

"We'll find him," Sin answered, his voice low, his tone serious. "We'll find both of them, I promise."