Journey Through Hell

Chapter 1 - Mother

"In a child's eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe."

Quote:  N.K.  Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms 

I woke up with a start as I observed my surroundings in this strange and unfamiliar land. I was in a desert-like place and there was no one nearby except for a single house standing isolated in a desolated wasteland. The sun was unusually dull and partially lit up in the sky. I examined the skies further and I realized that there were no stars or the moon but an oddly shaped oval that resembled an eye. There was a house in front of me and it had a foreboding atmosphere. It was a 2-storey house crumbling to its foundation. The house was painted with mild-dark green, orange and a mix of brownish red. The house looked as old as the sky above me. The garden was dark and rotten with dead plants and without any signs of little critters around the area. I reluctantly walked towards the house as I felt my heart growing heavier and heavier in every step I took.

Where am I? What am I doing here? What is this place? Why can't I remember? The questions kept circling in my head without any plausible reasons or answers that can help me understand what I needed to do next.

"Hello?" I cried out and only the deafening silence in the desert answered me.

"HELLO!!!" I screamed louder and then the door of the house opened as an invitation.

"Well....now what?" I mumbled to myself.

I entered the house and I was not expecting it to be warmer and the interior décor to be livelier from the inside. Somehow, I knew that I was walking into a memory from my past as my mind recognized certain items in the house. There were family pictures on the wall, the golden intricately designed lamps on the table and the glass mini sculptures that were on each shelf. Each of the mini glass sculptures were either dolphins, birds or fishes that symbolized a frozen desire to flee or fly away. I knew that the pictures were of my family members but the details were too obscure for me to recognize their faces or when the photos were taken. It seems rather strange that I was unable to recall any more details about them.

There were white frames around the corridor in an arabesque pattern and yet I noticed there was something hidden underneath the frames at the center of the corridor at the far side of my vision. It appeared to be some kind of a single portrait of a person who was wearing a formal attire but I cannot see the person's face since the arabesque white frames kept it hidden like a well-guarded secret kept close to a person's heart.

I also felt that I was being watched by unknown voyeurs but I shook that feeling off as I didn't pay any attention to that. I needed to focus in exploring the confines of this singular and mysterious house. There was a brightly lit corridor straight ahead with two doors on the left and one door on the right. There was a light switch nearby where I was standing. I turned on the lights and a bright orange illuminated the house to give it life. The scintillating orange hue light revealed a podium, which was between the two rooms. I stepped closer to check that there was a heavy text book on the podium but I could not see what it was as the details were fuzzy and obscure.

I turned left and I opened one door closest to me as it creaked in complaint. There was simple furniture inside as I moved to the center of the room slowly and cautiously. The room was painted light green and the lamp was mysteriously on as if someone was still here. The bed was standard single size and it had a plain blue comforter that was perfectly tucked in around the corners and the sides. There was a student-sized desk with a pale white color next to the bed. There was a mobile sturdy black chair that was slowly spinning round and round near the desk. There were several items on the desk such as one sharp pencil, two broken smaller pencils, a ruler, notebooks and a Psychology book that was titled 'Treating anxiety and depression'. There was a large closed cupboard on the far side of the wall. There was a simple rug on the floor, it had lines, and patterns crisscrossing repeatedly. I always felt some obscure level of comfort when I looked at the rug because I believed that life can be predictable from time to time. There was a large, borderless and lively poster on the wall of a man with sunglasses, he was holding two guns in each hand and shooting upwards in the air.