Misery Looms

Chapter 18 - Half Truths

Roy opened the front door. A dark hallway, as a ribbon of light was absent from the bottom of the office door, greeted him in silence. 

Strange. Roy thought as eyes lingered on where the light should have been.

He wanted to talk to Edward, ask again if the memorize had returned, even though Roy had a feeling that they hadn't, but he wanted to ask once more before writing the leadoff completely. However, Roy wanted to ask if he had seen the mystery girl or heard anything about it. Roy walked over to the office door and the feeling of uneasiness picked up.

It was strange that no light was coming from the office as every night Edward had been in there, reading the books from Roy's collection or the books from the library.

That realization sparked thoughts that couldn't be put away. What if the murderer knew Roy was getting closer to them? What if having the risk of Edward around was too much and they decided that it was time to strike? What if that was the reason why Edward wasn't in the office?

Dread made a home within Roy's mind as well as the memoirs of that day. Roy tried to push the thoughts away, tried to bring forth other possibilities like maybe Edward was simply within his room.

However, Roy felt the need to double-check that the office was empty. Roy's hand was brought to the doorknob, cool brass met gloved hands. The knob was turned and the door slowly creaked open. The room was empty.

Stay calm. Roy thought and reminded himself that the kid could simply be upstairs and was getting worked up over nothing.

Roy closed the door and walked down the hallway. Each footstep snapped the silence, the sound ricocheted off the walls. The panic, the fear, it was still there. Hiding, slithering around his mind. The memories of that rainy day woven in-between the darken room, in-between reality.

The idea of Edward walking the streets at night was panic-inducing, but there wasn't much Roy could do. If there were any rules about not going outside, the kid would just disobey them anyway. Plus, it wasn't like Roy could in force them in any way as Edward could just wait until Roy fell asleep before sneaking out.

Roy switched on the lights to the family room and kitchen. Artificial lights burned vision for a moment before eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room. Eyes darted over to the couch wondering if Edward had simply fallen asleep reading a book, but that wouldn't account for the lights being turned off if that was the case.

The room was empty

Roy took to the stairs. If Edward wasn't within his room then he was either walking through the streets of Central or the murderer finally struck. Roy pushed the thoughts away, there was no use in panicking until he knew for sure that Edward was nowhere to be found.

Roy got to the top of the stairs and stopped. There was a thin strip of light under Edward's door. That's when the fear and the panic slowly disappeared.

This kid was going to be the death of him. Roy thought and walked over to the door.

Roy paused before Knocking. Edward most likely doesn't remember anything leading up to the shooting and as annoying as it was maybe it was for the best, maybe not remembering was what was keeping him alive.

Though other questions needed to be asked like, did Edward know anything about the mystery girl that was said to roam the halls of the hospital at odd hours of the night? However, it wasn't just those questions, Roy still had a feeling that Edward was hiding something, but how far was he willing to dig to find out what it was. What if by digging around it trigger memories and once again Edward found himself with a target on his back.