Of Cigarettes and Chocolate
- Chapter One -
- Of Winners and Losers -
The cigarette dangled there, precariously perched between her still bent fingers. It teetered, about to fall. It had burned out a long time ago.
I watched it fall. She was still, and made no movement to catch the falling bud. She made no movement at all.
Usually by now she would be gone, doing what she called 'adult time'. Her usually sharp blue eyes gazed at the ceiling, unblinking, unfocused. Hazy. They always were after she took her shots.
I sat still as a statue in my corner of the room. I didn't dare move an inch. My eyes darted longingly to the Gameboy she'd gotten for me a few days ago, but I still didn't move. She hadn't said where she'd gotten it, and I didn't ask. That's how things worked.
After awhile my eyes started to drop and I found myself nodding off.
When I woke up, she was still sitting there. She still hadn't moved, and her cloudy blue eyes continued to stare at the ceiling. Something felt wrong, and it made me afraid. I sucked in a breath of bravery and dared to stand up.
It hurt, standing from the position I'd been in for who knows how long. I braced myself, expecting her to fly at me or throw something like she usually did when I showed myself.
Nothing. She still didn't move.
I carefully walked over to the chair she was sitting in, stretching my sore muscles on the way over. Getting to the chair wasn't easy, there was all sorts of debris scattered across the room. When I got close enough, I reached out a small, shaking hand and placed it carefully on her shoulder.
Nothing.
I shook her. "Mom?"
Nothing.
"Mom? Mom what's wrong?" Silence.
I shook her again and this time she slumped sideways, sliding off of the chair and land in a small, pitiful heap on the floor. I cringed instinctively and tensed for a strike.
Still nothing.
"Mom, I don't like this game." I whined. She didn't reply. "Mom get up. I don't want to play." Nothing. "Get up!" Her dark red lips stayed closed. "GET UP!" I screamed at her, over and over and over.
Silence.
She liked playing games.
Sometimes, when she had a free day, she'd take me to the huge park near our house and play with me until she got bored. When she got bored, she ran off and hid somewhere. I had to find her.
If I couldn't find her, I'd give up and start crying. Then, as if out of nowhere, she'd appear. She'd always be laughing at me, reveling in her victory. Then she'd get silent and announce that I was a loser.
And the loser always had to take a punishment.
The first few times we played the game in the park, she took it easy on me. She'd hide in easy to find places. Then, the places got harder and harder to find.
I still remember the first time I lost.
I'd looked everywhere I could think of. Around the fountain, in the jungle-gym, over by the swings, towards the benches, everywhere. I couldn't climb the trees, so I searched the leaves with my eyes instead. Still nothing.
I wandered aimlessly on the sidewalks for awhile, not willing to give up. Unfortunately, not giving up was her specialty. She'd never up anything, it didn't matter what it was. She didn't believe in losing.
We'd gotten to the park when the sun was making it's ascent into the sky, and by the time I decided to give up it was beginning to set beyond the hills. I could feel the chill starting to settle in the air.
I was tired, so I sat down on the sidewalk. "I give up!" I screamed into the silence, so she'd know I was done. It worked, because a moment later, she was there, a victorious grin hung on her deep red lips.
"Does the little crybaby give up?" She cooed, pressing her curled hands against her cheeks and making crying sounds. I grit my teeth and nodded, tears welling in my eyes. She threw her head back and laughed like I'd just done the funniest thing she'd ever seen. Her dark scarlet curls bounced about her shoulders, and in the dying sunlight it made her look like she had a halo of flames.
"Don't laugh at me!" I demanded in the way that little kids do.
She stopped mid laugh and it was mildly disturbing. I instantly regretted saying anything as her sharp blue eyes settled on me. A hawk sizing up her prey.
"If you don't want to be made fun of," She purred in a soft voice laced with poison, "then don't lose."
The toe of sneaker flew against my ribs and I crumpled against the sidewalk, pain darting through my small form like little electric shocks. I was yanked upwards by my hair and she was in my face, smiling like some psychopath.
"Losers get punished, sweetie pie."
She was silent on the drive home.
It was utterly dark out when we arrived at the tiny apartment. The apartment only consisted of a kitchen/living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a tiny closet. That's all there was to it.
She took control of the bedroom, and the only living space I had was limited to a corner of the room where piles of old clothes acted like my bed.
One step into the apartment and her hand was grabbing my hair so roughly it made me cry out. She dragged me to the bedroom and then knelt down to look me in the eyes.
"I won't accept losers in my house. Especially not my son." She snarled, all thorns and needles and dangerous. I whimpered, tears welling in my eyes. "Fucking crybaby, always crying. Man the fuck up! No son of mine will cry." A backhand across the face, and the hand in my hair was the only thing that kept me from falling to the floor.
A second later and I was being thrown into the little closet. "I'm sorry mommy I'm sorry!" I wailed, tears falling down my face no matter how hard I tried to stop them. She wrinkled her nose in disgust at me and slammed the door shut.
She came back once, a few minutes later, to throw a bag of crackers on my lap.
"Better make those last, 'cause you're not leaving this closet for awhile."
Then there was darkness.
I sat there in the little closet for a long time. I tried to put space between the bites of cracker I took, but they were still gone long before she came back and let me out. I made several attempts to sleep, but the pain in my cramped muscles and in my empty stomach wouldn't let me.
At some point I must've passed out, because the next moment light flooded the closet, temporarily blinding me and making me cry out in pain. When my vision returned, her smiling face was leaning above me.
"Your punishment is over. I hope you learned your lesson." She announced. Everything hurt. My stomach was in knots and there was an intense pain in my legs and shoulders.
"I d-did." I answered, my voice weak.
"Good. There's food and water on the table. Go eat." I bolted for the living area as fast as my fatigued body could manage. I was weak with hunger and my mouth had never felt so dry. I barely made it to the table before I collapsed. I leaned heavily against the table and chugged the entire glass of water in one go, then I tore into the PB&J sandwich that'd been set out for me.
Then she was there, standing on the other side of the table, a dangerous glint in her eyes.
"I don't accept losers. The more you lose, the worse your punishments will get."
She always kept her word.
The last time I'd lost, I was given a bottle of water and two packs of crackers. I was kept in the closet long enough that I'd had to relieve myself in a corner and then I had to deal with the smell for the rest of the time. The thought of it made me want to die rather than go through it again.
I thought she was truly playing another game, and I was not going to lose this one.
A knock at the door drew me out to the kitchen where the door was. Whenever someone knocked, she'd always make me go and answer it, no matter who it was, so I went and answered it out of habit.
A man in a blue suit stood on the other side.
"Hello son, I'm Officer Danford, from the local police department." He greeted. "We got calls that there was a disturbance here. Are your parents home?" He combed a pale hand through dark hair and it made me look down at my own hands. I was paler than him, but the dirt that layered my skin made me look darker.
She'd always tell me we couldn't afford baths. Every night after adult time she'd lock herself away in the bathroom and came out scrubbed clean of dirt and makeup.
"…Mom's playing a game." I decided to tell him, looking away from my hands. The man raised an eyebrow at me.
"What game is she playing, son?" He asked.
"It's a new game. She likes to play games." I told him. "I lose a lot, though, and she doesn't like that. I have to win this game so I don't get another punishment." There was a weird look in the man's green eyes.
"…Where is she?" I pointed towards the bedroom and immediately the officer pushed past me and into the apartment. I could see the appalled look on his face at the condition it was in from where I stood at the door.
He made his way into the bedroom and came back out a few seconds later, saying something into a little box attached to his shirt. When he was done speaking, he shut the bedroom door and came over to me. He knelt down and looked me straight in the eyes.
"She's not playing a game."
"But she loves to play games." I explained.
"Yes, I didn't say that she didn't." He started. "But what she's doing right now isn't a game. I want you to listen to me carefully, can you do that?"
"…Yes, sir."
"She's not playing a game. Son, your mother has… passed away. She's not here with us. Her body is, but she herself isn't. She's left, and she's never coming back. I'm sorry son."
"No. She can't leave!" I argued and then made a run for the closed bedroom door. The man caught me in his arms and held fast. "Let me go! Let me GO! MOM! MOMMY!"
"I'm sorry."
More men in blue suits came. There were sirens.
An ambulance came. A black bag was brought out. Men carried her from the apartment.
She was never so still.
I remember her face as the black bag swallowed it whole.
Cloudy blue blue eyes, chalk white skin, and curls the color of hellfire.
They couldn't locate any other relatives, so they sent me to an orphanage.
The boys there soon learned about what had happened and taunted me endlessly about it.
"Look, here comes the druggie's little bastard!"
I didn't understand.
I didn't understand their cruelty and I didn't understand why the black bag had swallowed her whole. I didn't understand what a funeral was or what a grave was meant for.
I didn't understand why she would leave and not take me with her.
She was everything I'd ever known.
And without her everything felt wrong.
- Save game?
- No / Yes
- Game saved.
Author's Note
First of all, thanks for reading!
Second of all, this is version 4.5 of a story I did last year called 'I am Mail Jeevas'. You can read what I had so far in version 3 as I haven't taken it down yet. In the original version, 1.0, I never got the ending down so I tried to get it down in every attempt after that but I couldn't get one I liked.
I finally wrote down an ending in 4.0 that I actually liked, so now I'm revising it. The whole story is already written, I just need to rewrite it and chop it up into actual chapters.
Another reason I wanted to rewrite the story is because I wasn't content with how I wrote the characters in the last few ones. In the beginning I originally wrote this as a MelloxMatt fanfic, but now I want it to be more about Matt's past and about their interactions at Wammy's. Romance isn't everything, right?
Also, about Matt's mother, she's actually based on a character I read about in a book I finished last month. The book was about child abuse survivors, and it was a very good read.
Lastly, here's a list of all the songs I listened to that gave me the inspiration and motivation to finally finish this damn thing. Run Boy Run, by Woodkid; Never Alone, Always Alone, by Takida; Primavera, by Ludovico Einaudi; Witchcraft, by Pendulum; and Dark Horses, by Switchfoot.
Thanks again for reading, and extra thanks if you read this note!
-theMasqueradeofHonor