Torn between Dreams and Reality

Chapter 25

My legs felt stiff like gravity was pulling them down. It wasn't because of exhaustion for sure I had too much of an adrenaline rush to be tired. But it felt hard.

I huffed as I stood in front of the basement door. It had been locked up for so many years that I might have even forgotten what this door ever led to. It was still the same as before that it surprised me. Over the years, most of the house doors had their paint worn out or their hinges all rusted but not this one. It was just as I remembered it.

Plucking up the courage I had in me, I took a step closer.

And another.

And another until I could finally reach the doorknob.

I took a deep breath in and grabbed the knob only to be pushed back by a gush of wind. My feet still touched the ground but couldn't keep me from hitting the wall behind me. My mind cried with confusion, not finding an answer to what had happened, but I had some newfound stubbornness in me that didn't want to wait and ponder.

I just wanted the answers.

Pushing myself off the wall, trying to stop the unwanted forces from pushing me back again, I put a firm step ahead. Shutting my eyes tight, I defied the resistance and struggled harder until I grabbed the knob. The whirling stopped all of a sudden when I opened the door.

I sighed and slacked against the frame of the door to relax my uneven heartbeat.

I looked inside, playing with the switch to turn on the lights. It was all covered with years of dust and forgotten memories.

My head swirled as images of two men kept glimpsing in front of my eyes as if the scenes were on time-lapse. I saw them work, talk, argue, read, write, analyze and scrutinize, moving from the desk to the shelf and constantly moving.

Now, the desk was laid down and the shelf was half empty. Stacks and stacks of boxes were scattered everywhere, some on top of each other, some fallen. My only task was to find the one that was linked to what I heard.

I took in a deep breath and a step forward. The staircase creaked under my weight and then started to turn into ashes in front of me, slowly disappearing. I jumped back, only in time for it all to vanish looking down at the piles of sand that had formed on the ground underneath.

With the little audacity I had in me, I crouched, holding onto the panels as I hung mid-air, slowly letting go to land with a thud.

For all I knew, something was trying to stop me, and it made everything feel worse. I saw myself land in the psycho-ward, saw myself almost jump off my house, saw some unnatural force stopping me from getting here and my stairs disintegrate in front of me. It scared me that everything felt real; that everything was real. And I didn't understand why it was happening. I was a box away from getting the answers to my questions but that adrenaline rush in me was fading too quickly as my logical side started to take hold again.

Box after box, I searched for the so-called books that my father had kept in the attic. I cried with frustration when none of them turned out to be the one I was looking for even though I knew that it was there. I just knew, that feeling of something off was there.

Suddenly, the light went off and I scanned my surroundings again until my eyes landed on the little window from where suspended light seeped through, showcasing the dust particles around me.

That was when I noticed a small carton that sat there. I got up from where I sat and stretched up to grab it, brining it down. I tore it open as my eyes started filling up with tears when I didn't feel like crying. They were blurring my vision as I went through the pages, making it hard to read.

It wasn't real, I told myself. These weren't my tears.

I couldn't read the small handwriting that covered pages and diaries but it was the last file that caught my attention.

One that belonged to a hospital. Ignoring the tears that wouldn't stop flowing, I opened it and read as much as I could. I recognized my father's name, something in me realizing that I hadn't even remembered until now. I flipped through until I reached the diagnostics and gasped.

Paralyses.

I couldn't understand as I climbed up the panels with some effort after putting the box up. I had seen my father do normal work, he had walked out of the front door the last time I saw him. There wasn't any sign of him being paralyzed.

"LEO!" I shouted as hard as I could. "LEO! WHERE ARE YOU!?"

My voice only echoed throughout the house as I collapsed, my head hitting the floor with a thud.