Guarded Hearts and Broken Wings || S.R.

18 - Cracks and Keys

The sky was crying softly that evening. Tears running down the windows coated the apartment with scattered beams of the setting sun. A mist was settling between the building, searching down alleys for something it could never grasp. Everything was drenched in burning orange and melancholy grey.

On this afternoon where the apartment was occupied by only the pattering of the sky tumbling to earth, Amelia found herself limping to the bathroom on her own. Relieving herself was an incredible hassle and when she eventually found herself huffing back into the hallway, she paused. Suddenly, the hallway was purgatory between her room and the living room. One was a comfortable void of jarring nothingness that she had spent countless hours in. The other sent a shiver down her spine with a mere thought. Yet, her eyes were fixed on it. 

She had avoided that room where canvases lay scattered. She was scared to find the ghost of a dead woman in there. She saw her in dreams. Hollow caves for eyes. Bloody claws for nails. A mound of moving spiders for hair. Sometimes she lurched in the corners with an unwavering eye. Other times she clawed at canvases both colorful and blank, destroying the old and creating her own gory scenes of empty, dead eyes. The worst ones were when she leaped from the paintings, wailing in an unintelligible clamor of words, but Amelia knew what those words were. They were the voices of Mark, Jose, and her mother as one, echoing her failures. The woman would claw at her own empty, soulless face as she wailed then lunged for Amelia's chest. Amelia would then wake with a jolt and no memory of the dreams, but she was filled to the brim with a soul-sucking dread of the living room and the memories it might force into her mind.

That was the fear that sat in her chest as she looked down the hallway. Of course, it was ghastly but a turn back to her bed meant nothingness and loneliness would consume her again. To be soaked in horro or numbness?

The floor creaked as her crutch moved forward. She was desperate to feel something, anything. She limped. Her heart pounded. Her breath hitched. The threshold was just there. She crossed into the room and stood staring. And... nothing changed. Her breath did not appear before her as an icy wind overtook her. No phantom came screaming out of a painting or corner.

Her heart slowed. Her breathing evened. She was left just as before. Nothing. No memories surfaced. No familiar itch to pick up a brush welled in her chest. Just nothing. A fat, useless, hunk of nothing. She moved further into the room and stared around at the work she had poured herself into for as long as she could remain. Still, there remained to be no motion of her heart. She leaned on her crutch in the middle of the room and her eyes welled with tears.

Unexpectedly, there was a jingle of keys behind her and a voice that pushed open the door. She ducked her head to avoid its gaze. "Hey Mel! Guess what I brought toda — oh!" Spencer's voice went from a yell to a surprised hush as he realized that Mel was, in fact, not in bed as she always was. He went to place his bag on the counter and set his umbrella against the wall. "Mel? Are you feeling better?"

When she gave no response, he walked slowly to her side and peered at her face. "Hey, what's wrong?" He whispered when he saw the rain running down her cheeks.

Her face twisted at the question as if a response would be too painful. Instead, she motioned to her paintings with her hand that was forced to inactivity with a solid cast. The movement made her wobble, so Spencer reached out to steady her with a hand on either shoulder. "How about we sit down?" He suggested. She complied and followed his guiding hands to the loveseat. His hands slid away from her rigid shoulders as they sunk into the cushions together.

Mel released a heavy breath that sank to the floor in front of them. Her throat contracted as she searched for words, and Spencer waited patiently.

"I don't—" She started, but she choked on the words. "I can't—" She gasped. Her shoulders began to shake, and she pulled her useless hand into her chest. At a loss for words that may comfort her, Spencer reached an arm around her shoulder. Much to his chagrin, rather than turn into his chest, she choked for a breath and shrugged him off with a panicked shiver down her spine.