A Home Lost

Montie lived in Italy before the fog rolled in. He had a normal childhood before the fog and then he had to learn to live without human contact. The day the fog rolled in he was on his way back from his daily classes. He struck lucky that he managed to get off before his town was consumed by the fog. He sat watching the cloud wrapping buildings one by one till it wrapped his very home. He felt the world as he knew it disappearing as the hours ticked by.

"Montie!" His mom called from the next room.

"Yes mom! I'm coming!" Montie called while he ran to the other room.

When he entered the other room his mother was laying in the middle of a field of broken glass. She held her hand out while blood seeped from a cut on her leg. He walked over and helped her to a nearby arm chair. Without saying a word he ran for a medical kit after sitting her down.

"Montie where did you go?" He could hear his mothers voice straining from the pain as he reentered the room medical kit in tow.

"I'm right here mother!" Montie called as he knelt infront of her opening the kit.

"Oh, Thank you Montie. I am sorry for yelling so much." His mothers face became soft as her cut was cleaned and bandaged.

"It's okay mom. Today is a weird day and you are a bit older so your hearing is going." Montie gave his mom a soft smile.

"Well, thank you for taking care of me in my age. I know it is stressful for you son." That sentence made her age all the more noticable to him as shadows casted across her face highlighted her wrinkles.

He couldn't standing knowing how old his mom was. It made him remember that she could leave him at anytime now. With this fog that rolled in he wonders if he can still get her meds when it gets close to the time she will need them. The only thing he had was hope that things can clear up soon before she needed the medication. If she didn't get it then her dimentia could end up getting worse. He didn't want to witness another one of her episodes.

He sat with her through dinner, put her to bed, and finally took himself up to his room. When he got into his room he felt a sense of darkness moving in on his mind. The pressure of everything was closing in on him, and the idea of being stuck in the room with his mother was destroying him inside. When he removed his shirt cuts lined the inside of his arms from wrist to elbow. Each one of them marked a memory in his mind. To him it was memories he had been collecting since he was twelve.

"I'm sorry mom, but I am not fit to care for you. Even if you can't take care of yourself. You are right and you do cause me stress. I will take care of you, but only out of obligation. Doing it out of love went out of the window long ago." Montie repeated this to himself as he marked another memory on his arm.

-------------------------------------- Midnight ----------------------------------------------------------

"Montie!" His mother's voice cut through the night like a knife.

He pulled himself out of bed remembering to cover his arms before exiting his room. His mom continued to scream from the darkness. Each one of her cries attacked his brain as it fell deeper into darkness. He groaned to himself as he slowly made his way down the hallway and steps. The closer he got to her room the worse his mind felt. It began to get fuzzier as the torrent of screams echoed in his head. His body went into auto-pilot as he continued to walk the silent halls of their home.

"Everything went downhill after dad died." Montie whispered to himself as he came short of his mother's bedroom door.

"Montie!" Her cry was muffled by the bedroom door that sat heavy and silent between them.

She began to call his name one more time as he cut her short by throwing the door open. He found her whimpering as she lay sprawled out in the middle of her floor in nothing but a bath robe. She pulled away as he tried to help her to her feet.

"Who are you? I called for my son!" She cried out in a questioning tone as she looked at Montie with wild eyes.

"Shhh, mom it's me. It's Montie. I'm just not the Montie you remember. I grew up, remember?" He was trying his best to calm her down and it was working, just slowly.

"Montie? That's you?" She asked as her eyes slowly began returning to the way they had been.

"Yes, it's me Montie." He said as his words started to bounce on laughter.

"Oh, thank god." She cheered as she put herself in his arms wheeping.

Everyone of her episodes scared him more and more. He quickly got her into bed and headed back himself. The darkness followed his every step with another chain being used to weigh him down. When he returned to his room and shut the door, he collapsed to the floor. The pain and emotion came falling out of his in a torrent of anger. Within the span of ten minutes he added six holes to his collection.

"Fuck." He kept his voice as low as he could through gritted teeth.

Sleep avoided him for the rest of the night like a fish avoiding the fisherman. He tried to close his eyes, but they seemed to dig their way out each time he closed them. Nothing could be done to find sleep in his mind. So he bathed in the silence that surrounded him. The only sound was the beat of his heart as his mind raced with the color of red, the same red as the fog that now swam around their home.