Eileen was growing impatient and anxious, unsure of what to do next. She stood in the hallway, looking into the dark, unlit living room. The little boy slept soundly on the sofa with his back facing her. The orange light coming from the hallway bathroom behind her just shined enough on him to tell her he was fast asleep, sucking his thumb and cuddling the plush, gray pillows. Rain pattered against thick glass windows, as it did ever so rarely. She loved the boy, she truly did. She knew she was the mother he had longed for and he was the little boy she had always dreamed of. Yet none of this was right-- her prolonged existence after her murder at the hands of the child's older self was a dull, absurd existence akin to what nightmares are made of.
Yet where exactly would she go if she tried to run? She had tried escaping, but every door, every single window, every fire escape was sealed shut. Wandering the halls of her once-welcoming apartment complex was now a dangerous feat, with creatures formed of rotting flesh prowling the corridors. While they feared and scattered when their creator was near, she knew from previous escape attempts that the demons were more than willing to attack and attempt to feast on her body. The thought made her shudder sickly, but the idea of death was becoming the most clear and foolproof escape plan left. If it wasn't at the claws of the twisted monsters, it would be by her own hand.
She left the light on in the bathroom-- the boy hated being left in the dark-- and begun to make her way toward the front door. Eileen took one last quiet glance at the boy as she silently opened it. Sound asleep, and probably never going to see her again. Inside, she felt both desperate for release from this confined hell, yet sick with herself. The only option she was left with disgusted her to the core.
As she stepped out into the hall, closing the door as quietly as she could behind her, she was pleased to see that there were no demons wandering about. Save for the bloody corpse of a dog-like creature on the ground, riddled with bullet holes, she was alone. In her hand was her only means of defense-- a large kitchen knife she had taken from her own apartment earlier in the day and hid in a book until Walter left. Holding it, she reasoned that it was for self defense... but then again...
What good would it be? There was another reason that her mind wasn't willing to mention just yet.
The air was hot and damp, and the walls seemed to breathe as if the red, flesh-like material covering them were working lungs. The smell of old garbage from the far end of the corridor was nauseating. Making her way to the stairwell, she could hear the faintest echo of a dog-demon's cry. Was he somewhere nearby? Her heart began to beat faster in anxiety as she clutched the knife's grip tightly. "Maybe... just maybe I can end this nightmare if..."
She peered over the railing of the stairs cautiously and then quickly pulled back into the shadows when she saw Walter on the lobby floor. He roughly tugged the axe from a demon's body, then brought it down once more, blood splashing onto his skin and clothes. It was an absolute mess of dismembered limbs and torn flesh, and Eileen felt sickened at the sight. She looked around for some other way... he was far too close for comfort, and she could hear him rambling to himself below. She knew he only mumbled to himself like that when he was upset... and when he was upset, she hated being around him the very most.
With a quick breath, she began to step down the stairs, seeking the one unlocked door on the second floor. She knew that if she kept close to the wall, he couldn't see her. As she made her way lower and lower, Eileen could just barely begin to make out what his shivering voice was saying.
"...hate you... sick... so fucking sick... fucking disgusting..." Were among his curses as he angrily continued to drive the axe into the monster's body. She realized that he was crying as he spoke, "...mom... s... ...fault.."
It was in her nature to want to help people. But she also knew it was that very nature that landed her in this place. She was done extending her sympathy to him, and she was done living on the edge of what questionable sanity remained in him. The times like this, where he angrily destroyed everything in sight while babbling tearful curses and words of hatred were what showed he was beyond her help, and she hated it. Nothing she could do or say had ever been able to bring him back from the deepest lows of his unstable emotions.
She was already close enough to the second floor door that she could touch the knob with the tip of her fingers. Eileen knew she was going to have to be pretty damn quiet if she was going to make it out of there unnoticed. She froze when she realized the swinging of the axe and the crushing of bones had suddenly ended. His incoherent ramblings became low chuckles as he stood tall, leaning his head back and looking up at the ceiling.
Above the lobby hung a demon restrained by a flesh body bag that simply remained suspended at the center of the stairwell. The blood-red metal cone where the figure's face should have been was indeed unnerving. However, it didn't exactly make her feel threatened either. Like every other monster, she wondered what it was. Yet something was different... significant about this creation. She wasn't about to digress and try to figure it out, however.
On the lobby floor, Walter was still laughing a low, quiet cackle as he looked up at the suspended form.
"I would have been happier if you just killed me..." She heard him quietly chuckle, and then with abrupt change, he was tearfully whispering, "...why didn't you just kill me?"
Eileen looked at the door handle, and prayed in her mind that she wouldn't be heard. Turning, turning, turning, oh so agonizingly slow, she worked her hardest not to make a sound.
"You can kill me, can't you?" He said, suddenly just inches beside her.
Eileen screamed loudly, bolting away and huddling against the corner of the door and wall. He stood over her menacingly, with a mix of blood and tears running down his face and the sickest grin she could ever imagine. He still held that bloody axe in one shivering hand where his grip was so tight that his knuckles were pale and white. Eileen was cornered, with the door to her right and a metal fence that blocked her path to the left. In front of her was a disgruntled madman with a blood-and-rust covered axe.
"Can't you?" He asked pleadingly and taking a step closer.
Eileen quickly took her chances and reached back for the door. She pulled her hand away, however, just in time to see him swing the axe into the door, hard enough to send splinters of wood and chunks of old paint down on her. She screamed in terror, her own hot tears running down her cheeks as she sought some kind of escape.
With one hand still loosely hanging onto the handle of the axe that was now embedded in the door, Walter slowly dropped to his knees before her. He sobbed, choking out in utter pain, "You can kill me..."
Eileen crawled away quickly, until she couldn't move any further. She pulled out her knife, knowing in her mind that it was simply laughable how defenseless she truly was.
"...I... I..." He shuddered, lowering his head, "I hate her... I hate her so much, I want to fucking kill her... and, and you're... you're her. B-But I love her, I love mom... but..."
It wasn't the first time he had broken down like this. In fact, it was all too frequent that in her attempts at escape, she had come across him locked away in the depths of the building, covered in blood and muttering tearful nonsense. Yet this time there was a kind of coherence to his words that only brought her more terror. He hated her, and she was her.
"Walter...?" Eileen breathed.
His hand dropped from the axe handle as he slowly hunched over and wrapped his hands over his arms in the loneliest self-embrace, "I hate everything... I just want everything to go away..."
Walter was shaking, and his long hair obscured his tear-and-blood stained face, "Please kill me... make this all stop..."
"I..." Eileen gripped the knife tightly, questioning whether she really could make everything end by cutting short the life of the hellish world's creator, "I can't..."
"Do it..." He pleaded.
Eileen found that she too was shivering now, caught in both a physical corner and an emotional one as well. What was stopping her from plunging the knife into his neck? At that moment she felt a little tinge of hatred welling inside. A hatred both for her captor and for herself. 'Weakness' came to mind as she gripped the blade's black, plastic handle and moved toward him. It made her so angry, so very hateful with herself to be caught in such helplessness. She always hated being helpless the very most.
"Alright. I'll kill you." Eileen sighed angrily.
He reached out suddenly, still hunched over with his face hidden from her sight. Before she could recoil, his hand tightly held hers, and he pulled the knife against his neck, "Here... do it here..."
Of course he would know, Eileen thought. His hand slipped away, and she was left to finish the job.
One moment... two moments... three, she couldn't.
She couldn't move, she could barely breathe, she could hardly think.
Quickly, Eileen pulled away, breaking down, "I can't do it! I'm sorry..."
"That's alright. You're not my mother anyway." Walter's words were as if he had taken the knife and suddenly thrust it into her own heart. She had to admit that in the last months of confinement, with just he and the little boy, she had grown accustomed to being called, 'Mother' by the two of them. It was strange and twisted she knew, but she was living in a strange and twisted world.
He pulled a gun out from within his jacket, and pressed the tip of the barrel against his temple as he continued to shudder and sob. It was only at that moment that Eileen cried out, "Don't!! Please!!"
"WALTER!!"
But she could only see blood everywhere for just a second before she turned away in terror and disgust. She curled away from him as she heard his body lifelessly hit the floor with a thump. Eileen screamed and covered her eyes. What had he done? She had seen it all... so much blood spraying from the opposite side of his head.
Minutes passed, perhaps hours. Eileen had yet to stop crying and turn to face the body behind her. She gripped the knife tightly, feeling the tip against her neck, just like Walter had shown her before. If the nightmare wasn't ending with it's creator's death, then she knew there was only one final option for escape.
She squeezed her eyes shut, focusing only on the pain, the loneliness, the terror... it stung against her skin, so sharp and cold...
But again, she couldn't do it.
Cursing, she threw the knife over the railing and began to cry in frustration.
"I'm such a fucking coward..." She cursed inside.
If only she could go home, see the sun again, see a blue sky and white clouds... it was most terrifying to think that she was beginning to forget what a warm summer day felt like.
Eileen slowly began to turn toward him. The blood and pieces of flesh scattered on the wall were nauseating to see, and the body of her captor lay on the ground with eyes wide and empty, long strands of dirty blond hair slightly obscuring his face. She moved closer, slowly. "He had the right idea..." she thought, eying the gun in his hands.
"Mom..." His voice came, causing her to jump back and scream.
He didn't move, but his hazel eyes were on her, wide and hollow, "...mom..."
She didn't know how to react, in all honesty. What was she supposed to do? She wasn't ready to try and kill him again. Seeing him blink, seeing him breathe faintly... it brought a sick joy to her that she wanted to crush out of her mind. Perhaps it was the fact that she wasn't alone with a dead body anymore, she reasoned.
"Mom..." He groaned again, moving a hand toward her, tears flowing once more, "M... Mom..."
Eileen moved toward him slowly, bitterly whispering, "I thought I wasn't your mother."
He whimpered and began to frown, as if the urge to break down were threatening once more, repeating breathlessly, "Mom..."
With a sigh, Eileen wiped the tears from her face and sat beside him. She lifted his heavy, limp body by the shoulders and rested his head on her lap. Blood no longer poured from the exit wound, yet his blond hair was stained with coagulated black-red fluid and whatever had once been a part of the wound was quickly scabbing over and healing in an inhuman way. But it didn't repulse her. Not in the slightest.
He reached up to touch her face. His bloody fingers left marks on her chin, her lips, her cheeks. But she didn't recoil. She put her hand over his, and listened to him cry.