The Innocent Life of Valerie Vale

House of Death

House of Death

Aria walked home alone in a state of deadened perplexity. She could still taste Valerie’s lips on her own as the sensation lingered on in tender satisfaction. She was cold now. The soles of her feet ached and she longed for bed.

Valerie had left Aria without a moment’s hesitation or a simple explanation. She left her stunned and abandoned, unsure what to do or how to respond. At first Aria considered following Valerie, but her legs were weak in a nervous trepidation. Then she called her, but there was no answer. Finally she decided to give up, to go home and sleep long into the night in the hope that the light of the morning and the fresh air of the new day would bring answers.

Aria took the circle line home. The subway was still quiet. It was too early for the suits and not late enough for those who partied on till sunrise. The carriage had rumbled gently along through the dark and meandering tunnel beneath the city and her body shook softly as the movement and vibration rattled her into a placid trance.

Lakewood was a district of South Lanton, a poor but soulful area in need of desperate rejuvenation. It was Aria’s stop. She strolled through the streets and made her way quietly into the suburbs as the solitary moon looked down upon her. The sky was clear now, the stars masked by the red glow of the city light.

Aria recalled the last conversation she shared with Valerie. They met in the playground of a lonely park and sat together on the creaky swings as their feet rested on the broken bark. They sipped on forgotten beer, retrieved from Aria’s cellar and missed by no one. They remembered old times. They laughed and they cried, conscious of the fact that things would never be the same again.

Valerie had been emotional. School had just started back and while Aria had graduated and was preparing to begin her course in fashion and digital media at the University of Lanton, Valerie was being forced to repeat her final year. That meant math and while promises had been made to remove the teacher in question, the one who abused her, the bureaucrats had reinstated him without the slightest stain to his record.           

Valerie had been betrayed in the most intimate way. It was her word against his and it sent her into a downward spiral of emotional distraught. Her grades suffered. She became depressed and scared with every moment of every day a torturous endeavor. Valerie had no one to stand in her corner and in the end she felt as abused by the system as she had been by the man. She wanted a way out and Aria felt her pain.

Lost in thought, Aria suddenly realised that she had been walking the wrong way. Valerie’s house was just around the corner. She was being drawn there by a force that overpowered her… the friendship they shared.

Aria didn’t stop. She continued along, turning around the narrow path and up the sleepy road. Valerie lived there with her mother, a woman whose soul now belonged to the devil in a contract of addiction. Aria detested her but maybe Valerie was already home, maybe she was ok?

Valerie’s house finally came into view and Aria stopped dead, frozen in the horror of what she saw before her. The walls of the exterior were blackened, covered in soot and sulphur. The windows were blasted in and the cold wind invaded the desolate interior through the broken remnants of glass and burnt stone. A fire had raged here and had destroyed it in a fury of flame and burning ash. A blaze had ripped the house apart from the inside and left it bare and barren, raped by the merciless elements.

There was no one home. There would be no one home… ever again.

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