Eventide
Chapter XXIV
Everything is weird. I lived in this room before I moved in with Soul and Wes, but, this room just feels so cold. It has more decorations and things Soul's room ever had, but this room misses the love I felt inside of his.
My room is exactly the way I left it that day. My father hadn't walked inside in search for alcohol or money. The place was very dusty so I doubt he had even stepped over my threshold.
Yesterday I left through the window. I couldn't let Hiro know about my plans to return home. So instead I put the pillows underneath the blanket and shaped them into a human form. It must have tricked him since I hadn't gotten any crazy texts from him or anything. The one that had been spamming me was Soul. He kept sending me texts like "I love you" and "Please don't leave me" and "I love you, not Kim and I won't ever love her again." My phone was ringing constantly all until the sun started to set. The texts and phone calls stopped, but he send me one last text. "This isn't over. I'm not giving up on us. I love you with all my heart and I'm determined we will be together. I'm not going to let Kim come between us. Don't give up on me. I'm going to find a solution even if that is the last thing I will do."
Everything feels like it is spinning out of control. My father had greeted me with open arms when I returned home and he thought I had been at school the whole day. The house was cleaner than it had ever been and there were no alcohol bottles to be seen. He talked about mother like she had never been gone and everything was just fine between us. It confused me so much since he seemed to have forgotten mother's death and everything or he put up a great act and pushed the memories away. Or, did my father actually go mad?
I don't know, but one thing I do know is this wasn't how I wanted to live my life. I want a certain white haired man with sharp teeth in my life. I don't want to live this normal life.
When morning came, I got dressed in my usual skirt and a black t-shirt. I went downstairs to be greeted by my father inside of the kitchen.
"Good morning buttercup!" He says happily as he fries some bacon and eggs. "Today is a big day."
"What are we going to do?" I say as I awkwardly take a seat by the table.
"We are finally going to move to a new city. Your mother should be back any second now with the new car." He says as he places the bacon and eggs on a plate, bringing it over to the table. "Eat up. It will be a long drive before we are at our new home." He kisses my head and I flinch.
He hadn't kissed my head in years. It was years since I got the opportunity to taste his delicious breakfast and just randomly in one day, I get to eat his breakfast and receive his affection. I don't like this at all even though I had been craving this for years.
The front door clicks open and then closes, following by "I'm home." My mother enters the kitchen and smiles wide. "Hey, are you excited for this new change?" She says and my father kisses her cheek and wraps his arm around her waist. This is creeping me out. She is supposed to be dead and my father is supposed to be drinking till he passes out, not kissing and looking like a happy family. What even happened? Was my mother's passing fake and all these years had been hallucinations? It must be, come one, only someone who reads just as many books as me would imagine my father turning into an alcoholic and my mother being dead.
"Yeah, I am." I say, I must muster some excitement or else my mother and father will be so worried about me.
"Great!" my mother says and kisses my father on the lips. "You two finish up your breakfast. I will get your things from your room and then we will leave." She says and strolls upstairs to my room without a care in the world.
My father returns to the stove and starts to make another round of bacon and eggs for himself. I watch my father cook as I eat his delicious food that doesn't even taste as delicious as it once did. Either it is me who has changed or it was the food that had turned worse.
Another knock on the door sounds.
"Maka, can you be an angel and open the door?" My father says, not taking his eyes off the eggs that are frying in the pan.
"Okay." This is how a real family is like, an ordinary one with no problem of invisible monsters that want to feed on people's souls. A family with ordinary problems and ordinary jobs. Maybe I don't fit into this picture anymore. Not after being a Meister and being my father's caretaker, but had that really happened? The memories of the Kishins and the gang and… Soul. It all seems to fade away. It grows harder to remember them.
You are only dreaming. It was all just a dream.
Is there really a man out there with pointy teeth? There can't be, I mean, albinos exists, but this one was tanned and had sharp pointy teeth. No human being can have that kind of features naturally.
Soul and the monsters I had created in my mind must have all been a dream. There is no way those things can even exist. A boy with blue hair that always claims to be a god, that can't be real either. He must have had a screw loose or something, but he couldn't have existed since he was with that albino boy.
No one of them actually existed, it was all a dream.
I get up from my chair and head toward the front door.
It must all have been a dream. Those people don't exist.
The door creaks open and I smile toward the person standing outside of the door. "Hey."
A man with blond hair and eyes bluer than the ocean stands outside of our door. He has a plethora of rings in his ears and he wears army boots. He looks like a tough guy you would want to stay away, but deep down you know Hiro is nice.
Hiro? Why did that name pop up?
"Can I help you?"
"You thought you could fool me with those pillows." The man says, giving me a glare. "Why the heck would you want to return here?"
Why does this guy talk to me like he knows me? What pillows? Why would I try to trick him? I don't even know him.
"Excuse me, but I think you have got the wrong person. I don't know what you are talking about."
Good girl, now send him away.
"Bullshit, don't play stupid with me. You know who I am. Now come on, Tsubaki wants to run one last check on your head." This guy says and grabs my wrist. "Now come on, Tsubaki is really worried about you and if we aren't there soon Soul will throw a fit and I don't feel like being his personal punching bag."
Soul? Tsubaki? What? I don't understand anything. What is going on? I'm so confused.
He is a sick man. He doesn't know what he is talking about.
"Let me go!" I grip my wrist from his and massage my sore wrist. "I don't have a clue what you are talking about. If you don't leave my property I'm going to call the police."
The man freezes and he just stares at me with those blue orbs of his. He doesn't make a move toward me or a move to leave me alone. What is his deal? His eyes shimmer and his eyes stay set on me. "Now I see." He mutters and his hand sparks. My eyes widen and I can't believe what I'm seeing, it looks like electricity is coursing over his hand. He reaches for me and I yelp loudly.
"Get away from me!" My bump takes a blow from falling to the floor and I back away from him.
"Maka, calm down, I'm not going to h―"
"Get away from my daughter!" My father roars as he walks toward the man who I think his name is Hiro for some reason. It just pops up in my head.
The man holds his hand up in surrender but the energy stays on his hand. "I'm not here to hurt anyone. I just want to talk to Maka. It will only take a minute."
"Like hell you aren't!" My father sneers loudly and get in front of me. "You have a Taser on you! Leave immediately or else I'm going to call the cops." Taser? Is that a Taser gun he uses? Last time I checked, Tasers weren't like a glove over a hand, it is like a gun.
His eyes go to his right hand where the sparks are before they go back to my father. "You can see this? Are you a Meister as well? Maka, you never said your father was a Meister."
Meister? Why does that word ring bells in my mind? Meister, Meister, Meister, I know I have heard that word somewhere, but where exactly? It must have been a kid's book my parents read to me or something.
"Maka, do you know him?" My father turns toward me.
I shake my head. "No, I haven't seen him before."
"What is going on?" My mother walks down the stairs and as soon as she sets her eyes on the man, something seems to spark between them. My mother's eyebrows narrows and a large frown spread on her face.
The man looks utterly shocked and he takes a step backwards. "You?!" He utters loudly while he points his finger at my mother. "It was you all along?"
"I thought I took care of you, but obviously I must have gone soft on you." My mother says and takes a step toward the guy. "This time, I won't mess up."
The guy quickly fish up a dagger from his boot and with a powerful wipe, it grows into a long sword. Why the heck is he wearing a sword in his boot?! It is a felony to wear concealed weapons!
The sky turns dark like someone sucks the light out of the sky and the moon raises and shines bright in the sky.
I almost scream out in horror when I see my mother smirking wide. Her skin turns to green scales that shine like armor and her eyes turn to a vivid shade of red. I have seen that kind of red before, but I don't remember where. Claws sprouts from her palms and her teeth grow into sharp fangs, I have seen those kinds of fangs on someone before. A large and thick tail grows out from her behind and she roars loudly. Is that really my mother? She turned into that thing!
"Little Meister boy, you won't be able to kill me." The monster who also happen to be my mother growls out.
"I won't let you take Maka." The man sneers as he grips the sword in his hands.
"What is going on?!" I exclaim and no one pay me any attention except my father.
"Come here." My father helps me up from the floor and hooks his arm with me. "We will leave your mother to do her business. She obviously has something unfinished with him."
"He has a sword and mama turned into a monster! They will seriously hurt each other! They can't do that!" I holler and now I'm fighting in my father's grip. "We can call the police and have them arrest him! They can't fight each other like this!"
Relax, there is nothing to fear.
No, this is just wrong!
The guy leaps toward the large metal Lizard, Scrap Metal, he swings his large sword at my mother and she blocks it with her claws.
"No!" I exclaim and elbow my father in the rib. I run up to my mother without a care in the world what could happen to me. "Stop!" I yell and I grab a hold of my mother's palm, even though she is looking like this, she is my mother who I love dearly. She is the only one who has always stood by my side throughout all the years.
"Get out of the way Maka!" The guys scream as his sword is still connected with my mother's claws. "Run! Call Soul! Tell him we need backup!"
Soul. Who is he? I have no clue what the guy is talking about. Am I even supposed to know what he is talking about?
My mother roars loudly and I grow shocked when my mother pushes the man away and instead of going after him, she takes me. She grips me hard and I struggle in her hand. "What are you doing?" My ribs are under an unbearable pressure and it feels like they are going to break in any given moment. "You are hurting me!" My vision grows darker for every second that passes since I can barely breathe.
"Let her go!" The guy screams and everything slows down. He leaps toward my mother. She doesn't even bother with his sword, it doesn't even make a dent in her armor scales. She shoves her claws into the guy's stomach. The guy looks surprise as his sword clatter against the floor of the hall. He coughs up blood and my mother's claws twist in his stomach.
"Nighty nighty little Meister." My mother snickers as she pulls out her claws from the guy. "Now you won't be bothering us anymore."
Go to sleep. This never happened.
My eyes grow heavier and heavier and my body grows limp in her grip. My father joins beside my mother and they walk out of the house. When did it grow dark outside? The sun was out when I woke up this morning.
The house suddenly lit up and the flames reach for the sky. Everything turns dark and I find myself falling asleep in my mother's hand.