His eyes stares up the darkening ceiling, unseeing and unblinking. The incessant ticking of the clock keeps him company as he watches the color of space above him disappear to a thick black. He lies his back flat on the cold floor, limbs spread and turning numb from lying motionless for hours. His mind is blank and his chest aches with every thud thud thud his weary heart makes.
His name is Matthew Williams and he is tired, so very tired.
Matthew snaps out of his dazed stupor as the sounds of heavy steps march up the stairs, sloppy and uncoordinated. He sucks in a fortifying breath and holds it in as the sounds of padding feet grows closer, until finally a shadow appears on the slit of his doorway. Matthew dimly realizes that the sound of his door creaking open gives him a rush more than any horror film he has ever seen. A silhouetted figure emerges from the door and it's too dark to see his face, but Matthew knows exactly who it is.
It is Arthur Kirkland, and he is heavily intoxicated, like any other night.
Arthur trudges towards the statue-still Matthew on the floor, and kneels beside him, running his hands through the boy's beige colored locks. Matthew notes how the moon that occasionally peaks from the clouds, illuminates Arthur's scarlet tinted face and funny looking smile.
"What're you doing on the floor, my boy?" Arthur slurs. Matthew remains still and does not respond, but he releases the breath he has been holding for so long. He inhales deeply and the smell of alcohol invades his senses. He tries not to gag.
The Englishman seems not to notice the other's distress and swoops the boy up for a hug. Matthew does nothing and stays limp, but when the man starts humming a long forgotten lullaby and rocks him gently, Matthew's stony-faced façade falls apart like a withered flower and reciprocates the gesture with shaky hands. Matthew closes his lavender eyes and takes in the feel the soft fabric under his fingers, the rumbling of his father's humming, and the callous fingers that rakes through the tangled mess of his hair as he tries to tries to go back to the past. He almost misses the whisper that flies over his head.
"I love you, Alfred."
And with that, whatever's left in his hollow chest burns like the bile forming in the back of his throat, and crumbles into ashes to be swept away by an unforgiving draft of wind that seems to ghost over his being, leaving him shivering and faint. Matthew imperceptibly coils his fingers tighter around the material and briefly wonders if he would let out a sob or heave out his dinner, should he open his mouth. He opens his mouth anyway.
"I love you too, Dad."
Arthur Kirkland continues to whisper sweet nothings does not notice the trembling figure in his arms, nor does he notice how the locks his hands have been running through are much longer than it's supposed to be.
Matthew Williams weeps, because he is Matthew Williams and not Alfred F. Jones.
And Alfred F. Jones lies six feet underground, resting peacefully and unaware of what his family has become.