chapter 37

Chapter 37

Ronin had turned towards his house, begining to walk in a slow manner up the curb as his feet crunched in the frozen snow, his eyes greeting the screaming cop cars, the singing ambulance, and the figures that crept around them.

For it was the same scene he returned to each day, walking around them as he made his way to the door a firm face as his teeth gritted behind a fake composure. Gripping the door he let himself back inside, looking among the house his composure began to crumble when his mother stood from the couch, her stature emerging from the smoke she filled his home with, he'd frozen. His face falling into disgust as he examined what he had lived with for so long, jolting his knee from a lock his eyes darted to the door apon the top of the stairs, the door he'd locked long ago. Over his mother's voice he walked past the party in the kitchen, his demons welcoming him home again, offering him a dish of his past, cooked on high and seasoned with guilt they offered. Each time he would eat it, afraid of starving, for if he had ever wanted to leave wouldn't he need to be strong enough to do so, wouldn't he need to eat it to..survive. this question was the same each time, only this time he walked past, he gripped the railing shaking as he tried to climb the staircase.

His mother's voice got louder, frantic as he imtcued towards the door, as if she knew what I was doing.

"Ronin arnt you gonna at least say hello-

Don't want to talk to me?"

She followed behind him, holding the cigarette between her finger that hung low at her side.

Ronin began to move faster up the stairs, his expression wide like his pupil's as her hand had grabbed his shirt, her nails scratching at the lining.

"Ronin please, we don't need to go back up there, come sit, we can talk about this" she has almost begun to pled as she said so, her voice rasp as if stuck in the back of her throat as she pulled him back with each word.

Ronin slowly crumbled to the ground, how could he have thought to change the uncomfortable. He was comfortable here, I was comfortable here Ronin, don't you think so?

For to be comfortable with such a thing would certainly drive someone insane, it was never quiet here, it was never safe. The uncomfortable has claimed him, a manipulation of his mind, a promise it would help.

A promise.

He pulled his head up to look at her, to stair into her deceitful eyes, her ghostly expression and painted on trust that she would paint over the day after, that was how it worked, it was how it worked for so long.

It was the realization that came from these things, this wasn't his mother, it was what she had become. But not the mom she was, not the soul that left years ago, she was gone.

His eyes grew narrow and his face wide as he pushed himself from the stairs, pulling her dirty hands off of him, he crawled frantically up the steps, slamming into the door that lay at the top, he hit it with his fist, he dug his fingers underneath. He pushed and pulled soaking the wood as his face bled with tears over the cheek he lay on the door, his hands trembling as they slid down in a scratch. He threw it open, flying into the room that almost circled around him with everything he locked inside.

His own smoke has filled this room, shadows stood and stared, every corner cluttered with what he never said, and all the things he wish never did began to narrate themselves in a rising song that got louder with the speed of the rotation his room seemed to have, his eyes bounced off the walls he covered up, layered and reinforced with every lie that made him feel safe. Faster and faster it spun, louder and louder it got.

Until he had pounded the wall with his fists, tearing the frames from the walls with a whimpering grunt he tore the wallpaper down, to listen as it ripped, as it peeled off the layer he'd made.

Stomping on it once torn from the wall he fell backwards onto the desk he stacked his regrets apon, each one climbed higher as he threw his arms threw them, watching as they spread across the room, falling over the floor he skidded from as he pushed the desk over, until breaking into the floor beneath it. His breath raced as fast as the noise around him, he fell to the floor leaning on his lone mattress the only thing still grounded he wept on, spitting from his mouth that overfilled, his nose that leaked and his mind that had begun to break with him.

Sliding from the mattress his head hit the floor the run beneath him shifting as he held himself into a tight ball, over the counter he threw, behind the desk he'd flipped and the pictures that broke around him.

Ronin's heart began to cut out of his chest; it broke through his ribs, tore through his flesh, and knocked on the layer of skin that kept it in. Collapsing to the floor, he stretched his mouth open with his fingers as he couldn't breathe; it was blocked by what he couldn't say, as if those words had clogged inside the small throat they already had to pass through.

He rolled frantically, gagging under the weight that kept him there, chained him to the floor. His mind raced through apologies, promises, and anything he could offer to live another day, for soon he began to question what he was fighting for, and with a slow blink, his eyes had shut, now confined within himself.

A shadow had sat next to him in the living room, and his parent's distant voices echoed from the kitchen, as he'd remembered.

Turning to the stranger next to him they shared a glance before he began to speak, "Practice is in half an hour, are you sure they gonna take you"

His voice was dark, hidden like his face, "Well yeah she said she would, and if not Dad said he would play with me in the front yard sometime" Ronin's voice held a high tone as if he'd gone back years, a small hopeful grin was in his face as he said so, "didn't dad say that last time" the figure repealed his hope, as ronin's grin soon faded.

"W-well I can wai-"

"Oh shut up, you know they don't care, if they did you wouldn't be pushed to a different room every time they came to the same one, don't be stupid Ronin"

The shadow interrupted him as he gripped the armrest twirling his finger inside the burnt cigarette holes.

"Well, y-yeah I guess, but then why do they say they do?" Ronin sat up trying to meet the walking oppion next to him, "Get used to it, they'll lie, they'll walk out when you need them the most, they'll cheat, and hurt you just because they can't do it to themselves, and your not gonna give a fuck, got it?"

His voice had grown stern towards Ronin, whose nails had been chewed between his teeth in a silent attack from what had been said.

"Got it!" The figure grabbed him forcefully, "oh-ok" he managed to say, just then the shadow lunged at him gripping his thin arms they rolled off the couch, "Ronin just like this they'll take you down, and Best you" he enfisized as his fist collided with Ronins flushed cheek, which had soon been soaked with tears he would wipe off instantly still on top of Ronin his voice had only grown stronger, "stop it, your doing it again. Stop crying like a baby, grow up and fix it yourself, there not gonna do it for you" the dark had began to melt into his as those words escaped his mouth, Ronin could only fling his arms as the figure merged with him, pushing a force he couldn't stop, like the shaking of his arms his voice could do no more.

He could only submit..

No.

Like a child he rejected this reality, he couldn't live it again. He was gonna change, he was gonna save the child that gave in, he was gonna. Save the child that gave up, it was when this figure would grab him, push him, past the barriers he thought they had. Ronin knew he lied, he knew he cheated, robbed, manipulated him, for that he couldn't help but find a hatred in the comfort it brang.

Like he quoted from her book, her ugly words that sang his childhood, and very yet crippled him now.

He copied his mother's words, pasting them on the walls of his mind so he would look back at them.

Remember, why don't you tell me what I told you back then, remember when she saw me. remember ronin"

"Why don't you thank me.

I was there every day Ronin, i sat on your bed with you when you got home from school, I talked to you when it had been days seince he did. I tucked you in every night after she left, heck I was the one who gave you those dreams every night.

His voice scraped in a whisper as he stood from the couch meeting his eyes, every word cut through him as he'd see him seep through his skin, staining it up his chest and drenching his mind.

For his heart would pump it higher with the fast pace timing with his horrid voice that continued without his permission.

For he'd bitten his tongue to a bleed before he used it as he'd begun to relive the hell that was pinned on the walls, for it was only an emotion he'd turned off that turned on the emotion he needed.

With a switch of his eyes he kept on the figure, gripping it's black throat with his cheewed nails unable to see the blood he needed to see for he had tackled it to the ground finally placing himself on top of it, and without hesitation he filled with an uncontrollable anger he locked up as he bludgeoned it's distorted head with his fists, before gripping his frayed hair slamming it against the wall with a grunt.

It was then..Ronins eyes widened.

The figure lay motionless on the floor, not a breath from his mouth, not a word from his mind.

His anger had coward and hid on the other side of the room, it was then that his fear broke from the room he locked them in, as his face grew pale, his breathing multiplying like the versions of himself he'd created.

His shaking hands loosen on his neck as he bend down salivating from his wide open mouth, "no..no no" his voice trembled. "Wake up. Wake up, your scaring me.

"What am I gonna do when no one else will talk to me, what am I gonna do when I want to see her again

" please wake up, I can't, I can't live without you"

He barely put to words as he lay upon its breathless chest filling it with his tears.

A warm hand placed itself on his back, instantly filling him evenly with the same feeling. As if every pound was lifted, every chain broken, cut, and burnt, repurposed into something that would pull him up.

His breath had returned as he'd escaped the nightmare he was sucked into; he wanted to turn, he wanted to see what had lifted him from the pit he'd fallen into, but he couldn't move under the presence; he didn't want to.

He closed his eyes slowly, and a deep breath flew out with the words that had lodged in his throat as if he had been cleaned of everything; every word, action, thought, the list could go on as Ronin even narrated it.

And yet every mumble he knew its presence understood, perfectly, as if spelled out in words he could never put together, even the room had lit for apon the darkness there was a blazing light, something he'd never seen, he had been guided out of the darkness by a force her never seen and never could, and yet he would follow that same light wherever it would go he knew it, he wanted to.

For he once was the lost lamb; he'd fallen among his past, gotten trapped with his demons, covered in mud. He'd lain no more, for those arms reached out.

He didn't even have to take it to the kitten from the mud and clean off the stains, the scars, the burns.

For this shepherd had left the 99 to retrieve the one.

Every word he wanted to say hesitated until only one could sound.

"Thank you"