Mesmerized | ✓

22

The whole town was basically on lockdown. There was no official obligation to stay at home but people were strongly advised against going out. The schools were closed down, people that didn't have to physically go to work to do their job also stayed at home. The rest that was forced to leave their homes would frantically watch their surroundings, look over their shoulders, wary of everything that could mean potential harm.

It all left the Murphy family plus Yuli stuck with each other at home. Karen was making big efforts for them to reconnect (or maybe connect for the first time) so one night she organized a game night to get their minds off of the current situation. So they set up in the living room and decided to play ludo. Carl wasn't all that convinced that it was a good idea and Robin also didn't seem like she was in the mood for family fun, especially as Yuli was always somewhere lurking in the corner and messing with her head.

But they all obediently sat down on a blanket on the floor, even less in the mood to fight. Robert tried to talk himself out of playing and leave his spot for Yuli instead but as they boy had no idea how to play, he decided to just watch the family for the time being. So looking like he was dead inside Bob joined in.

The game was calm and uneventful for some time until Robin killed one of her mother's pieces just before she was about to make it to the home column. Carl could see the fire in the woman's eyes and it would be comical if he didn't already know where it was going to lead. "You must have rolled two, not three." The woman said through gritted teeth. "You made a mistake."

"No, I didn't." Robin said with a roll of her eyes proceeding to roll again. Carl nudged her with his elbow and gave her a look trying to tell her silently that she knew better than to argue with her. Well, maybe she had forgotten.

"Oh, so you're saying that I'm blind?" Karen said grabbing the die before it stopped rolling. "I saw two." The family all sighed almost in unison at the matriarch's antics while Yuli watched the whole thing with interest mixed with amusement.

They tried to continue playing but it didn't take long until Karen accused them all of cheating and tossed the pieces all over the room. After that she stormed out of the room murmuring curse words under her breath. The rest of the family all looked at one another with knowing looks on their faces. This kind of behavior brought some flashbacks from Carl's past that he wished he was already done with.

He tried to ignore them all but the picture of Karen standing over him their backyard in the middle of the night and telling him to keep practicing even though he was already well past the point of total exhaustion. Carl wouldn't even ask her to stop and leave him alone anymore. There was no point to it. Either his sister or his father would usually find them like that. Robin hadn't understood much of it back then so she would of course assume that if it was her mother training Carl like that, then it was alright.

More often it was Bob that found them, Karen yelling at Carl and him not able to hold back his tears. The man would carefully, yet still firmly, grab his wife and guide her back into the house. Tired from all the yelling she would drink a cup of soothing tea, take some sleeping pills and go to bed, even if it was already 2 A.M. Meanwhile, Carl would be left to his own devices. Half passed-out he would drag himself to his bedroom and no matter how sweaty and disgusting he was, he would just fall face-flat onto his bed. Often the next day he would opt out of school and instead try to regenerate before Karen freaked out on him again.

"Has she taken her pills today?" Carl asked doing his best to pull himself out of his memories. Instead, he tried to focus on a different kind of pain. On the pain of not being able to be with Yuli the way he wanted to. But as he thought of that the two kinds of pains only seemed to combine and enhance each other so that there was nothing left for him to but to leave the three people in the living room and return to his own bedroom.