New Beginnings
Prologue
Lisa walked through the streets of Evergreen Terrace, her eyes closed as she drank in the peaceful surroundings. With her father at work and her having the luxury of being on holiday, Springfield could be relaxing down. Peaceful even. At least, until Nelson would show up, or Bart would put chewing gum into her hair, resulting in a fight between the two Simpsons siblings.
For now, however...
She looked to the sky, catching a glimpse of the sun as she shielded her eyes with one hand. Today was beautiful. There weren't many such days. There were even less of them since that day she had come home from school, three years ago. She sighed, a more sombre expression overtaking her face for just a while.
Before dissipating, giving way to a smile as she saw a few birds chirp in song.
'What's past is prologue, as Shakespeare had once said,' she reminded herself, shaking her head. She watched the birds twitter, chattering with one another, occasionally attacking one another in dive-bombing fashion, before letting go of their arguments and settling down in the trees and shrubbery that lined the gardens of her street.
The teenager stopped, only to observe them for a bit longer, the characteristical patterns of their feathers, their shape and listened to the sounds they made. Her eyes fell on a house finch, before trailing to the American robin that was busy quarrelling with it over a worm. A song sparrow settled down not so far away, observing them with a much calmer air, before returning to the duties it felt obliged to perform for its feathers, preening and cleaning each little fibre of its being with pride. Her eyes trailed from there, back to her destination, which now awaited her.
Falling back into step, she made a turn, just a few blocks off, entering the surprisingly neatly kept front garden, entering the front door. For a moment, she had to stop, pausing to switch the hands in which she was holding the two plastic bags filled with groceries, before opening the door to step inside, where she lay the bags on the floor. She shut the door behind her, sighing in relief as she looked for a clock.
6:30 PM.
Bart ought to have been home by now. Probably messing around with Millhouse, knowing her older brother.
She wouldn't interrupt them then, she decided. Far too busy probably playing games and the likes to do anything productive even if she asked. She ought not to bother. Slipping her hands into the plastic bags, she took out the day's shopping, placing it at the allocated shelves. They always had their specific placings. Her mother always placed them by order, always so neat and tidy. She had done her best to create a homely environment.
Lisa respected that, having been brought up better than Bart. At least, in her head.
"Lis?" a small voice asked.
Tensing a little, Lisa left the box of cereals on the counter. Turning her head, she looked towards the third member of the newest generation of Simpsons. Margaret, also known as Maggie, Simpson. She smiled a little at her younger sister.
Yet, she wasn't the only smart cookie under the roof. Her ten-year-old sister saw right through her.
"He left it to you again?" Maggie asked her.
She only nodded. That didn't mean she judged Bart. He was a male, with his own problems, in his own world. As annoyed as Lisa was to have to do every chore on the list by herself again, she wasn't about to pester Bart about it. Or her father.
"Want me to help?" the younger girl offered, beginning to take out the shopping.
"I- just remember where the milk goes, and-"
Maggie giggled. "I know, Lis. Remember? I've done this before," she reminded her, trying to hide her amusement. Lisa fretted over things far too much. As for Maggie, she knew her way around the house just as much as Lisa did. Besides, she was ten. She knew which slot to put the milk in, how the cans were arranged in the pantry and the snack system. But she also knew so much more than that.
"I'm probably getting on your nerves right now," Lisa mumbled, as she tidied away the tinned tomatoes and peas.
"Nah, Bart's done worse," Maggie brushed it away.
"Well, I'm not going to argue with you on that," the older sister agreed. Having finished unpacking, she bundled up the bags together, placing them in the cabinet where the rest of the bags were kept. Shutting it, she leaned against the wood, looking back to her sister. "Did you get any homework?"
Maggie nodded. "Uhuh. A few unfinished maths sums. Y'know, the usual."
The usual. She wondered if her younger sister would even bother doing it before tomorrow. Lisa even wondered if perhaps she was saying this only because, in reality, she hadn't cared for doing the work at school. Her sister was a fast thinker, undeniably smart. Maybe not Lisa smart, but it was a little too suspicious of her to have leftover mathematical exercises to do every day. She'd likely complete them on the bus, knowing her.
To Maggie Simpson, the school was a playground, not a building created for study. She didn't require the help of teachers or her peers.
"So, kids, how's school been?" Homer asked over dinner, eating from his bowl of noodles. He would have preferred a steak, a bucket of chicken legs or wings, but that wasn't an option.
"Meh... Milhouse managed to eat a slug," Bart commented with a shrug, digging into his own bowl of chow mein flavoured noodles.
Lisa and Maggie both rolled their eyes at this. Males. Homer just laughed, almost snorting the noodles up his nose in the process. He had then decided to stop eating for a moment, for the sake of not choking on his food - from which Marge would have warned him about many times before - before continuing to laugh at Bart's antics and the description of his not very educational school day.
"Mrs Melbourne decided to throw her shoes from out of the window when Nelson convinced her there was a spider in one of then," Bart continued. He snickered at that himself.
"Doesn't beat what happened at the power plant!" Homer challenged him, raising his voice in a gleeful manner.
Bart seemed to raise an eyebrow but remained rather nonchalant about it. Wouldn't be the first time Homer had done something to get on his boss' nerves. Lisa and Maggie knew this two and only shrugged, paying more attention to the dinner than the conversation.
"Lenny and Carl started a food fight. Someone must've hit Burn with one of the stale pies, 'cause he ended up in hospital," Homer explained.
"So... basically you got a day off?"
"Yup, my boy, that's right! And I'm taking you all fishing!" Homer exclaimed, smiling from ear to ear.
"Yeah... there's a bit of a problem with that, dad," Maggie chipped in. Homer turned to his daughter, seeming confused. "We've got school tomorrow, remember? Mondays to Fridays...?"
"D'oh," Homer scowled, glaring at his bowl. Playing with his food, he thought about it, frowning. "What about after school, kids?"
They all looked to one another. It wasn't that fishing was necessarily a bad things...
It could even be fun at times...
Except...
How to put it into a nice way?
"Homer, remember that time when you electrocuted half the lake?" Bart decided to speak out on their behalf. Lisa and Maggie sighed in relief, as he did. Homer looked at his son.
"And?"
"Yeah, we kinda' can't fish at that lake..."
"Doesn't mean we can't try another lake, boy," Homer persisted.
"And you might want to remember that time when you tipped over the entire boat when we were fishing in Canada," Bart reminded him. The Simpsons history of fishing, albeit a humorous one, was neither successful nor particularly dignifying. You came to realise such a fact after your father almost wound up sleeping in the fishes having got himself drunk at the water's surface, tipping over an entire boat, along with the family. They were already judged by that one Canadian family and a gaggle of Canadian geese. No need to add more tallies, not whilst Bart was still the boy who cared about his image.
"Oh, yeah..." Homer noted, falling silent.
"Though, if you want, we can go flying kites at the weekend," Bart suggested. There was no way that could ever go wrong...
As the whole family agreed to that plan, they returned to dinner. Except for Lisa, who was already finished and began clearing the table and dishes, with Maggie joining in. This was followed up by the teenager studying in her bedroom, occasionally interrupted by Bart who would ask her constantly about his maths questions. As the night dragged on and darkness took over the sky, the Simpsons house slowly descended into silence. The lights switched off, with Lisa only reluctantly turning her lights off too, curling up on her bed.
She looked up at the ceiling.
Part of her still awaited her mother, waiting for her to appear in the doorway with a "goodnight" trip from her mouth and a reassuring smile. She still wished to be tucked in and hugged.
Yet the hug would never come.
She would never hear her mother's words again.
Her eyes watered with tears as she looked up at the ceiling, pulling the duvet closer. Even the sixteen-year-old girl still needed her mother. Yet her mother was not here. She closed her eyes, the tears spilling down her cheeks as she lay down on her back. She shifted. She sniffed back the tears. Wiping her eyes with the sleeves of her blue night-gown.
She hated to admit it, but without her mother, she was scared. Scared of the dark. The monsters that lurked in the corners of her bedroom, even now. Human ones, the vivid memories that would escape from the back of her mind at night, attacking her vision, as they reminded her of that night. That night three years ago.
She sulked a little, still restless as the clock in her bedroom ticked away.
Still unable to sleep as she felt the chill coming from her opened bedroom window. She would close it too, but part of her was too cold and frightened to get out of bed, too frozen when she came to remember the past once more.
Sixteen. And yet she behaved like she was six at times.
Pitch could hardly breathe anymore, as he ran through the streets of Evergreen Terrace. He could hear the faintest sounds of hooves hammering against the stone. They were out to get him. Out for his blood, his Soul, his body. He would pay for his failures.
Just not now...
Please, not now...
He could feel the crippling pain spread through his body, rendering him closer to exhaustion with every step. Yet he couldn't stop there, not unless he'd like to be taken back to that hellish place. There was no way anyone would want to live there. It had taken him years to escape that place, too many for him to care. And when he'd finally gotten out, he found himself in an entirely different world altogether, chased by the demons of his past whilst trying to find a means of escape through this labyrinth.
The world didn't seem quite as modern. At the same time though, he was sure that at least eight years have passed since his imprisonment, his less than graceful fall. He'd been humiliated, dragged beneath the earth, to be tormented by not only his own creations.
His head ached too now, a pounding in his skull growing more intense and afflicting by the second. It didn't help that his vision was betraying him - that normally near-perfect night vision that made him so superior to human beings. Now he could only see the blurred outlines of things and even then he wondered if what he saw was real, true.
When he'd heard the snorts of his demonic creations, he dashed into the first garden he could find, hoping to seek shelter. He ran through the garden, around to the back of the house. Grateful, he caught sight of a wooden structure in a tree. The last resort; a place of shelter. Thank darkness for tree houses. Scrambling up the ladder, he tried to reach the hiding place in time, clumsily trying to ascend it. He found himself losing footing on the odd occasion, challenged by his deteriorating state and his worsening sight, the dizziness and ache in his head not helping with his cause. Yet, when he finally made it up there, slumping against the cold, hard, wooden floor of the tree house, he finally felt safer.
Assured of his security up here, at this height, he finally gave into his needs. Falling on his back, he fell unconscious immediately afterwards, giving up the battle.
He knew the nightmares would be back. Though until then...
Until then, he was safe.
