Mirage (ON HOLD for revision)

Chapter 2: Fallen Monster

Compared to previous one, the last train station’s personnel office seemed much colder despite the same yellowed paint and bare tables with the guard openly glaring at him. Cedric intended to chase after Matt, purposefully taking the farthest gate from the approaching guard. Unfortunately, his ticket was facing the wrong way and he was caught.

“First, you fell of the platform, now your friend’s jumping gates! What’s wrong with you two?” the guard asked, crossing his arms over his chest all macho-like after his forty-five-second conversation with a guard from the station Cedric and Matt boarded.

“Sorry, it’s our first day in Uni so I guess it’s the jitters. We were running late,” Cedric replied, hoping laughing it off would work.

“Even so! That doesn’t justify jumping over the gate!”

Cedric took a deep calming breath, giving himself a mental pat on the back as he cursed the stupid ticket. He listened to adult wisdom for nearly an hour, quite sure that he was also made to shoulder Matt’s share of it. To make sure Cedric doesn’t ‘accidentally fall of the stairs’, as the guard put it, he was escorted by a plain-clothed guard who just came in for the start of his shift.

“You guys are doing some amazing shit, huh? Nice to be so young, isn’t it?”

There was nothing much to do but nod noncommittally since the alternative is give him one square on the face for being one of those unconsciously demeaning adults.

“Well then, take care now. Say hi to your friend for me. He must be one hell of a runner.”

“I guess he wasn’t hiding tattoos under those long-sleeves, huh, that idiot,” Cedric muttered as he slumped on a bench by the main gate when he finally got to school. Not that he had much hope of seeing Matt brazenly waltzing in or out of the campus after the stunt he just pulled.

He spent a considerable amount of time being spaced out, wondering how best to deal with what just happened. The scars are obviously something Matt had no intention of showing anyone to the point of not even showing Cedric.

Not that it was any of my business, Cedric thought wryly as he looked around the shadows of barren trees creeping towards him as minutes and hours lost essence, we were never friends anyway.

“Excuse me, but we’re closing the gates now,” a guard said as he walked up to Cedric.

Cedric apologized and waited outside until the gates were closed. Things looked eerily different in the dark. For instance, the crowded street seemed less like it leads to the university as brothels and bars opened up one by one.

Looking around, all the things he learned during his years of messing around with other boys in the class proved mere wishful thinking, fantasies in the face of protruding bellies, juggling thighs and sagging breasts. Sober, it would have been enough to make a true believer throw up. Cedric distractedly promised himself he’d stick to 2D women hiding under his bed as he debated whether to drop by Matt’s or not. By the time he reached the station, he has already decided he had enough drama for one day, which was stupid.

“You’re late!”

Cedric let the door fall silently behind him and flashed his best smile at the princess of the house, his older sister Shirley.

“I’m home!” Cedric replied, making an effort to make his grin as big as possible.

“Just because you’re off to university, don’t forget that you have responsibilities around here,” Shirley reprimanded Cedric. “He’s waiting for you.”

“Right, I’ll hop right in,” Cedric replied, sidestepping past the seething Shirley to the room at the back, next to the restroom, the smile on his face sinking into his skin the moment Shirley’s bedroom door upstairs closed. He stared at the door knob for a minute’s eternity before wrapping the cold metal in his hands and opening the door.

The room gave off a smell so different from the smell he knew growing up. What used to tickle his nose with dust and molds now reeked of disinfectant and a hint of air freshener, not that it helped mask the unmistakable scent of urine, feces and stale food.  He stood by the doorway, letting the odor rid him of the essence of the world outside. Inside the room was a different reality, and the Cedric who walks around in day light, the Cedric who was saved would not be able to stand it.

Satisfied that he has removed all expectations, rid himself of any emotion, Cedric took a step inside, his eyes taking a detour around the familiar walls before settling on the wreck of a man slouched on a single sofa. What used to be white, starched pajamas now looked like it was mistaken for a mop the last time the floodway overflowed and flooded the neighborhood. No matter how hard Cedric tried to wash it, the stains refused to leave.

“What are you pissing your pants for? Cowardly bastard.”

That was when Cedric finally raised his eyes to look at the father who used to be the monsters lurking in the shadows of the creaking house, and the folds of Cedric’s dreams when he surrenders to sleep at night. But that monster was nowhere to be found.

He stepped out and opened the door of the rest room without a word. He opened the faucet and let the water run, filling the tub. A glimpse of himself in mirrors always compels him to stare at his reflection. The monster he expected to see in the other room is always there, staring back at him. Genetics did a number on him, giving him more of the face of the father who half-killed him every day when he was young the more time passes by.

Cedric didn’t even bother hanging around his classmates on the day of his graduation, ran straight for the nearest salon and dyed his hair. Disappointment overwhelmed him when the dye hardly had any effect at all. Even now, looking at his reflection in the mirror, he saw too much of his old man.

The sound of overflowing water brought him back. He turned the faucet off, removed his jacket and threw it on a chair outside before returning to the other room. 

“You sure took your time, didn’t you, little devil?”

The smirk on his father's face, the same degrading and murderous smile that has always haunted him when the beatings first started, no matter how wrinkled it has become, still tugged at Cedric's heartstrings, begging for death.