Author's notes: Hi, guys. I just keep crawling back to Angela, don't I? sigh
Okay, this bit of fic was inspired by the scene in the opening sequence, which shows Angela running in a grey house. I just kind of took that and explored it. I guess you could call it a continuation of Squish, but really, it CAN be read on its own. So here ya go. Enjoy!
-Kirie
Memoriae
She had been here before.
Tired of walking, Angela paused to look at the enormous structure before her with her arms crossed, hunched over and shivering from the cold. Her breath came out in short, evanescent puffs of steam that immediately evaporated into the fog. A million different sorts of déjà vu were racing through her brain at a speed that was only just comprehendible.
She had never seen this house before in her life, yet she knew for a fact that when she opened its front gate, it would creak, and that the noise would be just as awful as a cat's dying scream. She also knew that no one lived in this place, it had been this way for many years, and that it would be this way for many years more. Peering up, she looked into its upper story windows, and saw nothing but emptiness and desolation. Yet still, there was something more. There had to be something more, because if there wasn't, she would not be wanting to go inside so badly. Mama? Perhaps she was part of the reason.
Taking a deep breath, Angela reached forward and grabbed hold of the front gate. It felt dingy and coated in filth, chafing her bare hand. She swung it forward, and the high-pitched whine of the hinges made her cringe, even though she had anticipated it. Wiping the flakes of rusted metal off on her pants, she made her way towards the house that loomed like some crouching animal ahead. Already, she was compiling pictures in her head that were far too vivid to be imagination, pictures that had to be memories.
When she opened the front door, a dog would come rushing towards her, yapping eagerly in greeting, vaulting up on its hindquarters to cover her face in slobbery canine kisses. She would ruffle its chocolate-coloured fur affectionately, and it would bound around her as she walked to the kitchen, almost tripping her. However, no loyal pet came to greet her when she entered the house, not even the ghost of one. This confused her so much, she actually stood waiting in the threshold for several minutes before entering the living room, the door shutting behind her with a muffled thud.
As soon as she was enclosed within the house's walls, she was struck by a sudden and claustrophobic realization. No one had breathed here in at least an eternity, not even some lonely specter come to find a place to haunt. There was something so very wrong with this house; even ghosts feared residing in it.
That should have been an immediate sign to turn around and leave, but that déjà vu was striking again, this time much stronger than before, almost more overwhelming than the odour of the many layers of dust. Grey sunlight streaming through the slits of a drawn shade. Some little girl putting her clothes on in a dark bedroom.
I'm going to go upstairs, Angela thought, with increasing trepidation, I'm going to go upstairs and I'm going to open the first door on the left. There's going to be dolls everywhere, teddy bears, a bed with frilly pink covers, and that little girl is going to be looking all over the place for her dress and the old record player is going to be playing Glen Miller…
She saw it so clearly in her head as she climbed the staircase, it was almost like she was really looking at it. There was something strikingly familiar about that little girl, too, and knowing who she was felt like it was just beyond her grasp. Whether or not she was real or just another piece of fantasy like the dog didn't matter. She knew she was there. Angela could almost hear the Glen Miller. Or was she just mistaking the creaking of the staircase for the screaming of trumpets? What was the difference? She had to be there. She just had to be.
She reached the second floor landing. Crossed the hallway. Found the knob. Turned it, opened the door.
And again, she stood in the threshold, completely and utterly baffled.
No little girl scurrying around and looking for her dress. No dolls, no teddy bears, no record player playing Glen Miller. Just a bare and empty shell of a room that could have been a bedroom long ago. There was a window in the wall directly across from the door, a broken shade pulled almost all the way shut with a sliver of grey fog-light shining through. No furniture at all. Several pounds of dust carpeted the wood floor.
Something was shining on the ground.
Angela didn't even stop to think about it, she immediately walked towards the mystery object as if pulled by an invisible string. She fell to her knees before it, and the sound of her body hitting the floor made absolutely no noise whatsoever.
A butcher knife.
It was just sitting there on the floor, the light from the window reflecting dimly off of its blade. The point of it was directed towards her.
With a shaking hand, she reached towards it, and managed a feeble grip on the hilt, lifting it slowly off of the floor, noticing dimly that it had left an impression in the dust, like some weird brand. She tilted it so she was looking at her own confused reflection?
Who would leave a knife lying on the floor in the middle of an empty house? And especially a knife like this one.
Patricide. The word spontaneously drifted into her head, and burrowed itself there like some kind of parasite. Suicide.
What kinds of thoughts were those?
Guilt. The guilt was overwhelming.
"Mama," she whispered. "Mama, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I've been bad, Mama, I'm sorry…"
There was a drop of blood on the blade, right near the tip. Was it there before? She didn't know. She was guilty. Here she was, in some little girl's room, in a house she didn't know, playing with a knife. Why did she have the knife? She wanted her mother.
The record player was playing Glen Miller.
Startled, she looked up.
There was a bed with frilly pink bedclothes, but the bedclothes were rumpled, unmade. There were dolls, but they were broken and thrown carelessly about. And there was a record player playing Glen Miller, but Angela could only barely hear the Glen Miller through the static and the screams. Oh, who was screaming? She cringed and brought her palms to her ears in order to quell the awful noise. These were horrible cries, the shrieks of some banshee murderess.
Guilty. Patricide. Suicide. Guilty. Patricide. Suicide. GUILTY—
The thoughts repeated over and over in her head like some demented mantra, all the while the knife, the blood on the tip of the knife, the-
She opened her eyes. No Glen Miller. No screams. No messy bedroom.
Angela wasted no time. Swallowing the vomit bubbling in her throat, she vaulted to her feet and ran. She didn't stop running until she had left the house and its seven layers of dust and ghosts, the phantom record player.
The answer was just beyond her reach, but she could not-would not-grasp it.
It was easier to run.
END