The Metaphorical Key Book III - United We Stand

Chapter I

*simultaneously whips and nae-naes*  DEPRESSION 

In an old house by the sea, there lived a young man of seventeen. The people of his quaint little town said that he had stories to tell -- if you knew how to ask.

Rising from his creaking mattress, the young man walked sluggishly toward the calendar at the other end of his room and checked off another date - he was three months away from his eighteenth birthday, and was counting down the days until it.

It was a habit he'd kept since he was young. Younger, he reminded himself, his mum's words ringing clear in his ears. You're young yet, you've just grown up faster than most.

He chewed his bottom lip. He didn't feel young. There was a melancholy in his bones and a sadness in his heart usually reserved for grizzled war vets and residents of the old folks' home who never got any visitors.

He made his way down the stairs and dragged himself into the kitchen setting up the instant coffee machine and shutting his eyes as his thoughts drowned out the mechanical humming and clicking.of the machine.
Coffee tastes like dirt, he thought, glancing at the ticking clock in the kitchen, squinting his eyes to better read the time. Why do I drink it?

It's five in the morning, he remarked to himself. I fell asleep at two in the morning last night.

He rubbed his temple and curled his hand around the coffee cup, pulling it away before it was finished filling up, leaving the hot coffee to spill over the countertop - they'd lost the attachable drain collector thing-a-ma-jig ages ago.

He cursed and jolted away, setting the cup on the kitchen table before grabbing a fistful of paper towels and mopping the mess off the countertop and cleaning up where it'd spilled on the floor.

That's why, he thought, tapping his fingers against his thighs and rocking back and forth, trying to snap himself to awareness. Because I get three hours of sleep and everything I touch blows up.

Spilling coffee on a countertop was hardly a disaster, but still.

The stairs creaked and he glanced to his left, spotting on of his siblings hopping down the stairs two at a time.

He put down his coffee and lifted one arm in a feeble imitation of a wave.
"Careful."

She grinned at him with her familiar gap-toothed smile and sprung over to him with bounding steps.

He ruffled her blonde curls and in response, she stuck her tongue out at him.
"Rude," she complained. She spotted his cup and wrinkled her nose. "What are you drinking? It smells weird."
"Coffee."
"Oh!" Her eyes popped open. "Could I have a sip?"

He passed the cup to her. "Careful, it's hot."

She tilted it back and took a single sip, shoving it back at her older brother with a grimace.
"It's disgusting! How do you like it?"

He laughed and took another sip. "I don't."
"Then why do you drink it?"
He shrugged. "Dunno."

She shook her head and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "You make zero sense."

With that, the pint-sized nine-year-old bounded into the living room and sat down in front of the small, boxy television.

He heard the click of the television being turned on and the tinkling theme song of her favourite show.

"Mum okay with you being up this early?" He asked, walking to the sink and washing out the cup.

"What Mum doesn't know won't hurt her," she giggled, projecting her voice into the kitchen in the same way her brother was. "She gets up at nine in the morning, she doesn't need to know I was up early."

He laughed, setting the cup in the strainer. "When did you get so cheeky?"

"Dunno," she said, shrugging.

"I have to get going," he said, setting a bowl of cereal beside his sister and planting a quick kiss on top of her head.

"Aww, why?" She complained.
"Sorry," he said, shrugging on his denim jacket and flicking sunglasses up to protect his eyes from the mid-June sun. "I have some errands to run."

"With the sunglasses," his sister said, giggling. "You look like you're about to rob a bank."
He gasped. "How'd you catch onto me? I swear I'm not robbing a bank, I'm just running a few errands for Mr. Wilton." With that, he flicked his sunglasses up, winked at his sister, and swung the door open.

Her laughter was a nice way to start the morning, he figured, and all thoughts of spilt coffee and sleepless nights vanished from his mind.

Mr. Wilton had three errands to do that day. People in the town often had the teenager run the more heavy-duty errands for them, as he was well-built for his age by virtue of spending a sizeable portion of his free time at the gym or exercising at his home.

The final errand of the day was picking up Mr. Wilton's order of three textbooks for his children. They were heavy.

Walking the textbooks the two blocks to Mr. Wilton's door, he shifted the weight of what felt more like bricks than books, and knocked on the door.
Mr Wilton opened it.
"Ah!" He chirped. "Ivan! Right on time, as always. Could you bring those in and set them down on the dining room table?"

Ivan nodded and stepped inside, nodding a thank you when Mr. Wilton held the door open for him.

He slipped the books out of his arms onto the table.
"What do you need 'em for?" He asked as Mr. Wilton pulled his payment for the work out of his wallet and counted the bills.

"My daughters read about the world before The Shift," he said, shaking his head. "They thought school sounded cool, interesting, fun." He laughed. "Can you imagine?"

Ivan shrugged and Mr. Wilton cleared his throat.
"Right. Sorry, I keep forgetting you're only seventeen. You were just a babe when it began, yes?"

Ivan nodded curtly.
"You're mature for your age, kiddo," Mr. Wilton said, forking the money over.

Thanks, it's the trauma, was what popped into Ivan's head, but instead he smiled and simply thanked him before stepping outside the house.

He was starting to get sick of hearing that.

For dinner that night, Ivan had some akara - not much - but enough to stave off hunger. Immediately after finishing, he quietly excused himself from the table and headed down into the basement to get the laundry of one of his sisters out. Putting it back in the basket, he went up to the second floor, opened the door to the room she shared with another one of his siblings and started pulling the laundry out, folding it, and putting it away. After finishing, he grabbed the laundry basket at the other side of the room, picked up the clothes that'd been left on the floor, and carried that laundry back down to the basement.

Is was mind-numbingly boring but it gave Ivan some sense of routine, something to do as the day crawled by.

Even when everybody else went to sleep, Ivan hopped up onto the couch, threw a blanket over his legs, turned on the television, and watched the door.

For the past two years (and eight months - he'd counted) Ivan had watched the door. He broke the pattern very rarely - yesterday had been a cheat day, heading upstairs instead of passing out on the couch waiting for a knock at the door that would never come.

The clock ticked twice, and when both hands were at twelve, there was a knock at the door.

Ivan flung the blanket off and smacked the remote, missing the off button. He didn't care, his heart slammed against his rib cage and he ran for the door, ripping the door open so fast the doorknob smacked into the wall and the door started to swing close again. Ivan managed to grab the knob and yank it back, hyperventilating.

The knock he'd been waiting for - more accurately, the person he'd been waiting for - had come to him.

"We're reforming The Ravens," Rico said.

Ivan AIDEN. His name was AIDEN and he didn't give two shits who knew, didn't respond and simply threw his arms around his friend, standing there in the doorway for several moments, fearing that if he let go, Rico wouldn't be there anymore.

When he finally pulled back, laughing in disbelief as tears of joy flowed down his face, Rico was still there.

Four words. That was it, four simple words that melted away the lie that was Ivan Grey and replaced it with the truth.

Aiden Parrish was back.