The Impossible Dream (Mundane Apocalypse)

The Impossible Dream

July 26, 2016

A lawyer said Angelica and Gabriel inherited their dead mom's property, who did not exist as far as they thought. Six months later, on a foggy pre-dawn after driving through the night, they pulled up to a Victorian house which would have been neat and clean except nobody had lived in it for six months. They had aged out of the foster-care system, but before they did, had nothing but good experiences with foster families. Sometimes the other children could be a bother, like anybody, and it was Angelica who stood up for them. Gabriel preferred to ignore problems until they gave up or went away.

"I feel guilty for not visiting her before she died," Angelica said.

"We didn't know she existed," Gabriel said.

The pewter door-knocker was in the shape of a mouth, nose, one open eye, and one winked eye. "Who are you?" it asked in a gravely voice.

Gabriel attempted to unlock the door despite it, but Angelica knocked her messenger bag into it, shrieking, and tripped backwards down the steps, bringing Gabriel with her.

"It's just a robot," Gabriel said. "One of those motion sensor things."

"Those things are evil."

"Come on, YA. It's safe."

"It's so unrealistic!" Angelica brushed off her skirt. "Nobody has black hair and turquoise eyes together."

"We do." He flipped a light switch, but no lights came on. "I'm going to look for the breaker-box."

Angelica picked up the rotary phone's receiver on a table next to the stairs. It still worked. "I think it's just the lights."

A red Persian rug covered the wooden floor, and on the far wall and wall to her right, there was each a doorway. The right one led to the living room and ahead, to the kitchen, where one door Gabriel opened showed the back yard and another door led to the dining room, which also led to the living room. Also, the kitchen had a small pantry.

From the pantry, she opened a door to the basement. Instead of going down, she returned to the hallway and walked upstairs to the second floor. The first door was a bedroom, through which was a bathroom, and down the hall were two more bedrooms and a bathroom. A trap door led to the attic, but she did not explore that because, as she looked down, she saw another door below the trap door.

When she was even with it, it had disappeared, leaving behind a stained glass lamp, bust of Mozart, and a clock sat on the single-drawer table. She opened it to find the table pulling towards her. It brought a section of the wall along like a hidden door. Before, there had been no seams or anything that normally indicates a hidden door, and Angelica closed it to check.

The knocker knocked randomly and quickly, so she answered. Gabriel and the door-knocker argued.

"Let go of my conk," the door-knocker said, more nasally than normal, and heating red-hot.

Angelica jiggled the doorknob.

"OW!"

"Gabriel?"

"He closed up the keyhole and sealed all the doors."

"Awesome! Magic!" She strained at the warm lock, almost too hot to hold.

"Not awesome, Angelica. There's a wolf out here and I don't want it to notice me."

"Okay, come on, door-knocker! This isn't funny!" Angelica smacked the door at about door-knocker height.

"Ow."

She dug through her messenger bag for her pepper spray. "Aha!"

"YEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!"