The Kiss of Vanity Blessed Me With A Spiritual Murder [Frerard]

My Thoughts Belong In The Gutter

Maybe it's the vibrancy of the colors that told Gerard something was wrong.
Perhaps the mundaneness just seemed too gleamy, the silence too revealing- the fact that there were so many things untold, secluded- it all seemed like a giant spider web he caught himself in while the predator was on another hunt.

Gerard doesn't have a good feeling about this.

His idea of a great life has nothing to do with creepy little towns the world had forgotten a long time ago. He isn't sure what his ideal would be, though, but he'd gladly settle for ratty New York suburbs, even something incredibly sunny- Arizona, maybe- if it meant that he wouldn't have to rot off the best years of his life in a shitty little place like the one his mother picked out for them.

It's not really a matter of teenage rebellion, not anymore. He just feels incredibly wrong about this.

The back seat of the old Chevy is much more comfortable when Gerard isn't feeling jittery. His earphones are blasting music he'd usually find some salvation in, but Jarvis Cocker's vocal chords aren't helping this situation at all. He feels so hopeless he might as well bang his head against the car window. Being cut off of any form of actual, living civilization probably wouldn't be as tragic if the landscape wasn't giving him the creeps. He's read way too many ghost stories to know oddly normal things are the most dangerous ones, and his knowledge of classic horror flicks only confirms that fact further.

The worst part of it all is that the town is filled with abandoned shit- so many shacks, buildings nobody wants to go in, and stuff like old warehouses wherever your eyes might linger for long enough to notice. It's nothing surprising, not really, since the place used to be a part of a large industrial district back in the sixties. That period is over now, and all that's left is basically a shell of a small, once pretty town.
But still, it heavily reeks of the notion that it's also the perfect place to get brutally murdered in.

Although, Gerard can find a strange comfort in the fact the entire town is so fucking...beautiful. It emits that vibe only Silent Hill can give you, but there's so much more to hold on to. There's this patch of air surrounding the place, as if it's dusk the entire time and all Gerard can think of is the way the forest looks like a bloody scrape of skin littered with rust.

It smells like tension here, he concludes, letting the soles of his shoes touch the ground of this place for the first time. The wind is warm, but the sky is clear and Gerard instinctively wraps his hoodie tighter around himself. He doesn't like the wind; it always feels like it's invading his privacy.

The house sheltering him away from the orange sunset is cream-colored, with a brown, hipped roof that makes it feel like it belongs somewhere in the mountains rather than a shitty little town in the middle of nowhere. Its windows are large, with wooden sills, the front door smaller than he's used to- but it doesn't really make a difference, it's not like Gerard is tall enough to worry about that.

All in all, it looks like a home; Gerard's just not sure if it's the right one for him.

His mother's hair matches the color of the burnt umber that is the hallway, and her hand is flailing around dramatically as she's ordering him which box to put where. She started looking fifteen years younger as soon as they'd passed the 'Welcome to Redwood' road sign, and that's probably the only thing keeping him from losing his mind at the moment.

"Gerard," she calls, "you're spacing out again."

Gerard blinks a few times, his eyes focusing on her face. "Sorry."

Her eyebrow is up for a few more seconds, dark and defined, the sharp edge carving into her skin. But then she grabs the box out of Gerard's hands and puts it onto the ground, placing her hand on Gerard's back and gently stroking the unhealthy curve of his spine. Her face turns softer, the tiny wrinkles smoothing out and showing nothing but sympathy now. "I know this is hard for you. But it's for the better- and the sooner you accept that, the better our life here will be."