Silhouettes

Chapter 10 - The Truth and the Guilt Hurts

Roxas stared up at the large Entrance Gates that blocked the way up to the Mansion. He stared through the wrought iron bars and saw the large driveway creeping up the hill.

Was he having a dream about his home?

Roxas put his hands up, his fingers wrapping around the cold steel. He couldn’t help but feel that this seemed…off. Something seemed different about it.

He pushed against the Gates and they swung in silently. Roxas walked up the drive, the sounds of his feet crunching up the gravel.

Everything else around him was dead silent. The trees were stiff and silent, there were no breeze or chitter of animals. A stark contrast of grey surrounded him, shadows flickering around him.

Roxas walked up the driveway; he looked around at the scenery around him. He realized there were lines and lines of trees lining the drive. There were stones lined up the dirt drive and there were recent signs of horse activity, hoof-prints sunk into the soft earth.

Roxas paused at the end of the drive where it elongated and rounded off in a circle. He recognized that as the current day carport.

However, the House was…not his House.

He recognized his House in the midst of it. The very center of the building, but what got him was that there were two wings joining onto the main building. An East and West Wind, lined with tiny windows added with iron bars decorating the eerie building.

When was this? What…Year was this?

Roxas jumped violently when through the silence, he heard a loud, piercing scream of pain echo throughout the area.

Through one of the tiny barred windows, Roxas saw a shadow appear before two arms thrust through the bars and he saw a face appear. Two dark eyes stared blankly at him before his voice screamed out again “HELP ME!”

Roxas skittered back several steps, feeling the fright hammer through his chest. This dream was quickly turning into a nightmare. He had to wake up.

The crazed face of the man suddenly disappeared, but his voice screamed out again “HE’S GOING TO KILL ME!”

Was this the Twilight Hill Psychiatric Hospital?

Roxas felt a shiver run up his spine; he looked around the grey foliage before he pinched the flesh on his arm.

Nothing happened.

He had the urge just to turn around and walk back down that driveway. However, he found his feet unwilling to do what he wanted to. He began to walk towards the building, the fear and the uncertainty building steadily in his chest. His bare feet scuffed against the gravel as his mind fought with his body.

The front garden was completely bare; flowers had long lived and died. The garden bed full of dirt.

The Fountain was covered in algae, small growths growing off the angel on the top. The water had been choked with weeds and the water had been slowed to a slow trickle. The terrace was void, the Gazebo no-where in sight.

Roxas walked up the front stairs and through the front doors, wrought with bars as well, other than that, they hadn’t changed. He didn’t open it; he simply drifted through the wood of the door and looked around the cavernous entrance hall.

A large Reception Area greeted him. A curved horseshoe shaped desk sat in the middle.

Two women were writing papers, talking and muttering to each other.