Day 362 (Pt 3): The Voice

Blyke was alone in his room, playing on his Nintendo Switch. He was in the middle of a boss battle with Monstro when he heard the door across the hall creak open and gently close. He thought nothing of it at the time, but once he defeated the boss, his curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he decided to check it out.

He paused the game and set it down, careful not to accidentally reset his run, and opened his door. With a small peek, he was able to see Alice down the stairs, watching something. Blyke would rather not have to deal with his sister, especially since he got on her nerves all the time.

Remembering what his father mentioned last night, Blyke was more intrigued if it was in Alice's room: "C'mon, Blyke should be here too for what I'm about to show you guys. I'll be right back."

Blyke opened the door slowly, hoping that Alice wouldn't notice. He looked around and saw a photograph with two Post-it notes. He walked over to Alice's dresser and decided to pick up the yellow piece of paper, mainly because Blyke had noticed red markings near the bottom. Blyke was barely able to make out what it had read, due to Maria's messy handwriting: "Hey, Alice! Just wanted to give you a heads up whenever you woke up. Or, I guess, it's not really a heads up, I think? I'm confusing myself.-"

Blyke whispered to himself, "Like that's hard to do." He continued to read: "Anyways, we decided to not look at the photo until you woke up. So, you know, we could see it together. Because, and please remember this, Alice, we are always (and I mean ALWAYS) in this together. Don't EVER forget that, okay? Signed, Maria." He fake-hurled when he read that. He noticed that another few words were quickly scribbled in with crayon: "And John too!"

After searching for less than a second on the surface of the dresser, Blyke found and picked a slightly-used crayon. He examined the crayon yet knew there'd be nothing interesting on the crayon. He noted that the crayon was sky blue and shoved the crayon into his pocket. "It could be useful in a later situation, I guess," he murmured to himself.

He put down the note and picked up the first one. The first note, blue and still sticky, read: "Hey, you guys! Before I could come back and show you the picture, you were all asleep, and it didn't feel right to deprive you of your sleep, primarily because it was so late. Anyways, come downstairs once you wake up, okay? We need to talk." Blyke didn't like the way he felt after reading the last sentence. He got eerie suspicions and immediately felt paranoid.

However, there was one last thing in Alice's room that made Blyke curious: the picture. Blyke put the note back down and looked at the photograph. For an unknown reason, Blyke was reluctant to see the contents of the photo. He thought back to last night and previous days to find any clues as to what the picture could be. After a few seconds had passed, he had given up trying: he couldn't come up with a single idea of what it could be. All he knew was that this photograph contains vital information that his father wanted him, Alice, Maria, and John to know.

Blyke's arm had moved on its own: the overwhelming curiosity had overpowered his sense of fear of what he could find. He stared into the picture to see a lovely woman in a daisy white dress. Putting two and two together, Blyke assumed that the lady was wearing a wedding dress. The woman in the photo had rosy red lips and a smile that signified true happiness. Blyke inferred that the picture must've been taken on the day of her wedding. However, he had been staring at her smile: something about her smile reminded him of something, or more accurately, someone.

Blyke was never one to worry about his birth mother; he didn't really care for what he thought to be trivial matters. There was nothing he could do about it, and he didn't even know her, so there was no point in caring. But the picture had changed him. The photograph had awakened something deep inside him, a lock, and this picture was the key!

Suddenly, he felt remorse for his mother. For all he knew, she was dead. So then, why? Why had he felt the strong need to run into and cry in his mother's arms? He inspected the picture in greater detail to find why these emotions had come out of nowhere. "Her smile," Blyke muttered in a daze. The smile had given him all he needed to know about her: her compassionate heart, her caring nature, her sympathetic capabilities. The smile made him miss her.

Tears began to erupt from his eyes and dash towards the carpeted floor. Now he understood why Alice and his father were crying last night. They missed her, and now, so did he. He cried out, with eight years of pain released at once, "MOMMY!!!"

"Blyke?! Are you okay?! What happened?!" Alice had raced up the stairs and entered the room to see Blyke, in his pajamas - blue with teddy bears where polka dots would be -, on his knees, and crying for his mother, longing for her. She noticed the photo in Blyke's hands, luckily dry. Alice walked over to Blyke and hugged him. "It's okay," she whispered into his ears. "Everything is going to be okay. I promise."

Those last two words rang in Blyke's head repeatedly. Slowly, the voice saying those words changed. To Blyke, the voice sounded like a distant yet somewhat familiar memory. He couldn't place his finger on it, but he knew that he'd heard this voice before. The words then began to change along with the voice. No longer did the voice say, "I promise." The voice had now said, "I will be back soon, I promise."