Across Acheron

Session 5

I remembered something.

It came to me in the form of a dream and replayed over and over until the morning light hit my eyes. I saw two small boys out playing in a playground, nearly identical. One of them—the youngest—climbed the ladder leading to a long slide fixed with twists and turns. Pure excitement shone in his blue eyes as he looked down at his brother and called, look at me!

And he did. His brother had a proud look on his face as he watched him go down the slide, trapped in a giggle fit. Things soon went wrong; the boy didn’t land properly and fell into the dirt. He sat silent for only a second before he started to cry, his knees damaged with dirt and blood.

His brother didn’t help him. Instead, he grabbed a fist full of dirt and threw it at his face, yelling, boys don’t cry, stupid.

I wanted to believe that it was another ludicrous dream, like the ones you have that leave you confused as hell when you wake up. But I wasn’t confused; I knew that the dream wasn’t a dream. I knew that my mind was fighting to go back in time, even though I willed for it to stay in the present.

No use remembering things like that, I told myself. Forget it. Forget, forget, forget—

The grandfather clock downstairs blared and shook me out of my skin, eight whole dings filling my ears. To be honest, I didn’t feel too far off from the clock. I knew I was going out of my mind, and the only way to keep me grounded was keeping track of the time.

...or maybe I had already lost it.

Damn.

It took twenty minutes for me to finally get out of bed and go into the bathroom. I brushed my teeth with a heavy heart. Four minutes later, my feet were muted against the old staircase as I went downstairs. No one was in the living room, but the basement door was open.

For two minutes, I stared.

I started hoping that Keenan would show up out of the blue like he usually did and save me from myself. Staring at that door caused me to start thinking things. For me, thinking never led to any good. Thinking led me to stay in that god forsaken house. Thinking led me to believe I would be alright if I jumped out of a moving vehicle.

Thinking led me to believe I would get out again.

“Morning, Jack.”

Keenan didn’t look a thing like Jesus, but when he entered the room I started to believe that he could walk on water. His lips pulled up in an award winning smile as he leaned against the doorway to the kitchen. His skin wasn’t glowing like before, but it felt like I was looking at the star of Bethlehem or something.

I hated it.

Keenan whistled at me, calling me over like a goddamn dog. Don’t go over there, I told myself. I’ll kill you if you go over there. But I was a superlative liar. I trudged on towards the kitchen, following Keenan in like a child in trouble. He stopped beside a stack of pancakes sitting on the countertop, gesturing towards them.

“Eat,” he said. “You look terrible.”

I couldn’t bring myself to do anything; much less swallow food. So instead, I shook my head and muttered, “I don’t like pancakes.”

Keenan stared at me more than he should have.

“The woman is fine, Jack. Just eat and stop worrying about her.”

“Don’t start that conversation,” I barked at him, my voice sharp. Keenan didn’t even blink. His lips were set in a tight line and his eyes were cross, as if he had the right to be angry and I didn’t.