House of Lincoln

19

I'm outside on the steps. I'm watching the cars pass by and I'm enjoying the sun. Just when I wish for a glass of ice water, I find one next to me. Stella sits next to me. I'm delighted and somehow feel no fear or concern. All I experience is the joy of her presence, and I accept it. I don't worry about anything. I just live with it happily. She's looking at the sun, and when I turn to look at her, she looks right back and winks. I offer my ice water to her, and she takes only a sip. She giggles, then says: "Lincoln. I need you to stay calm. I'm going to say something, but I can't let you freak out." Her odd superficial smile remains the same despite the tone of her words. "Do you promise not to wake up?" Those words rattle me a bit, but she tries to keep talking to distract me from delving into my thoughts any further.

"I'm still trapped. I don't know where I am, but I can talk to you so I must be close by. This house has a heart, Lincoln. The house is alive."

I take another sip of water. Then I start drinking more. "I know the heart. I've seen it." She looks at me with that smile still. She must be trying to comfort me so that I don't go crazy. Surprisingly, it's working. "How do I find you, Stella?" She cuts me off. "You've seen the heart?" I nod. "Then cut it. Burn it, if you have to. Do whatever you can to get rid of it. I'll meet you there." We are silent for a minute. We both are looking at the sun, which seems to pulse irregularly. Blood starts to run down from it, and Stella looks at me. She starts to melt away. I start panicking and wake up.

The mirror. The heart is in the mirror. I've done this before. I can figure it out. I run into the bathroom and wind back my arm, throwing a punch as hard as I can. My hand does not pass through to another side, and instead, I pull back four bloody fingers and a broken thumb. I don't even notice the pain at first, nor the bleeding. All that burdens me is the dirty wallpaper that glows behind the broken glass. There is no other side to it, just a boring off-colored wall. I don't stop there, though. I'm angry, and I'm frustrated, and I'm sad, and I'm dissatisfied. And I start punching again, and again, and again, and again. My thumb cracks, my fingers pop, my skin tears, my wrist shatters, the wall weakens, the wood splinters, and the rest of the mirror falls. My stomach turns, yet I keep punching.

The hole I've created in the wall widens until I can see the other side. It's so far away. I stop punching and begin ripping pieces of wood and chunks of wall out to toss behind me. The tunnel is long, but I keep digging. Like a mole uses its claws, I get a remarkable rhythm going where my hands move circularly, coming down on a piece to rip, then following through downward behind me to toss. Losing track of time, I may have been doing it for thirty minutes straight, before I finally reach the opening. I push as hard as I can, and the barrier loosens with a creak, then gives way to my strength and collapses. I fall through and onto the carpet of a hallway. Down that hallway, I find Lily's room. I turn the knob reversely. The crib is there in the center of the room. The veins around me look the same as before, but now they are blackening and wilting. They're afraid of me. They know what I'm about to do.

I glare inside at the heart. I start laughing. And laughing. And laughing. I bend down, gently picking up the deformity, and raising it above me, allowing it to drip down whatever black ooze it generously pours down. I can't hold back my primal desire; it pushes me too far. I squeeze the heart I now held in my hands. It starts to pump and push and pound harder and faster. It screams desperately for someone to save it. There's nobody to save it. It makes no friends. It only creates enemies. So, it screams in vain to no one. When its flesh can resist no more, it pops.

I crawled back through the tunnel, a mass of gushing meat in my hand to bring back as a trophy, but it faded before I got back. I crawl into bed—and for the first time in a year, I sleep.

The house—the dragon—has been slayed.
This is the end I've been waiting for.

This is the end... isn't it?