SBI - His Curse of Binding

26

Wilbur didn't smoke cigarettes that much. The problem began once his mother died and an instinct became apparent to him, as if the light-headed buzz and corruption of his lungs was his destiny. His fresh air, his removal of the weight on his shoulders. Whenever the death inside of his body, the memories and flashes needed a release, this was how.

As Wilbur took another long drag of his cigarette, he sunk deeper into his own pit of denial.

The hot ash burning the sides of his fingers stopped him from sinking too deep, too deep for safe retrieval. Though, that was the question. Did he want to be retrieved? Saved, even?

He drove his younger brother of two lives away. First Tommy Soot, now Tommy Idelle. Just like W. Soot, Wilbur was a fucking monster.

The garden at this hour didn't help the bleakness in his head. He sat on the stone patio, the slamming of the front door from Tommy still a fresh wound.

His hand hovered over the call contact button on his phone screen, the unconscious part of him shouting for the movement. If he was alone for any longer, he would do far worse than smoke a simple addictive.

He winced as another spec of hot ash flared his skin. His finger pressed onto the button by accident.

Wilbur sighed and held the phone to his ear. There was no point in stopping the call.

"What do you want, Wilbur? I'm driving right now." If relief could be a person, it would be Techno. From his voice alone, the shadows ahead of him in the garden dissipated.

"Techno," he faltered into the phone. His throat was wrecked from the shouting match earlier and the many tears that followed.

He could hear the change of Techno's demeanour over the line. "What's wrong?"

There was a silence and the shadows grew.

"I'm almost home right now."

The black in the garden faded to an even darker colour. There was a single torch on a wall, chests surrounded him, mud encased the ceiling. A small, scared boy shook in front of him, his shoulders quivering and face painted with scrapes and blood.

The man—Wilbur—stepped closer to this poor, frail boy. His cackles echoed the broken walls that insulated no heat and instead housed a breeding ground for the cold air and biting winds.

"They're lying to us! Tobias? He's lying to you, man," the person in Wilbur's body hounded onto the boy. As the torchlight flickered, blue eyes and blonde hair shined in the dark. It was Tommy. "He would- he would drop us at the second he realises we're not in the lead anymore—"

"No, no! Stop it!" Tommy shouted. Yet the man wasn't perturbed by the horror in the young boy's eyes. The swarming doubts dulling the blue seemed to push the man on.

This was W. Soot, this was him. Tommy's older brother, the man who would pick up the boy as a baby and bounce on his hip when Tommy took his first steps towards him. Not towards his father, but to him.

Yet now, this W. Soot stared at Tommy as if he were about to be stabbed in the back by his own blood. Paranoia crippled his once caring soul and twisted every attachment he once loved to hold close.

Water drenched him, soaking through his sweater and dousing his skin. The scent of fire was too close for it to be from the torch—

"Wilbur, what the hell?"

Techno placed down the water hose and rubbed at the scorch marks on Wilbur's clothes. He was back in the garden with a burnt hole in his jeans. He must've dropped his cigarette.