I Know My Purpose

Ben wakes up in a place unknown to him and finds an abandoned house. As he explores the house, he finds a connection between himself and the family that used to live there years ago.

Ben awakens from his sleep, and is shocked to find himself lying on some hay in what seemed to be a horse stable. He stands himself up and scans around at the new environment. His mind feels blank.      

“How did I end up here? I don’t even know this place,” he says to himself, “I couldn’t have just slept walked to a place I’ve never been to…”

            I have always been known for sleep walking, but just around the house, never outside.

            Ben looks out into the woods in front of the open stable. Cascades of rain beat upon the wooden roof of the horse stable and dripping off the edge.

            It sounds peaceful out here, but I don’t think I want to stay for long. Argh, my leg is so itchy.

            When Ben leans over to scratch his nuisance of a leg, he notices mosquito bites and nicks all over his leg, and sees that he is in his bare dirt stained, scratched up feet.

            He shakes his head. How far out did I go to get so many bites and cuts?

            Ben relieves his itchiness and decides to explore the place so he will know why he slept walked here. Ben looks around in the stables, seeing termites infesting and burrowing in some of the wood, splinters protruding out of every bit of lumber, spider webs hanging from the ceiling, and what caught his attention were the horse bones.

            How old is this place? His skin crawled seeing the bones, the hollowed eyes of the long skull looking back at him. He turned his head away. He had no clue why he felt pity for just a pile of long dead horse bones. If he was able to study how old bones were, he could know how old these long forgotten stables     were.

Ben looks out into the woods again, noticing that what once may have been a beautiful open area for the horses to roam is now overgrown with grass, weeds, and trees. Sadness envelops him. He continued onward around the stables to find there is a house, which looks like it is sturdy even after all the weathering, plants, and moss covering the whole house. Most of the windows were broken or not even transparent.

            In order to know why I’m here, I will take a look inside. I can’t just skip it, I’m curious anyway.

            He always had arachnophobia, but he didn’t care this time. This time it’s different.

            Ben heads around front and climbs up the porch stairs and tries turning the old rusted knob, but it wouldn’t give in. He then tries a new method. He takes the bottom of his bare right foot and tries to kick the door down, but there is one thing he forgot. The splinters.

            As soon as his foot was planted on the batch of splinters at his fullest strength, he screams louder than he ever has before. “Ow! Son of a”-

 He trips down the porch stairs and went rolling through sodden soil with heavy rain beating on him. He stops after rolling a few more times and was slowly sliding on his back through the mud. Ben felt it all covering his cheeks and drenching his hair.

            “Today just isn’t my day…”

            He lifts himself up half way with one arm then slips into the mud again.

            “I swear, if a fall one more time!” he screams out loud causing his throat to be a little sore afterwards. Well at least third time is the charm.

            Ben gets up and walks over to the door, careful not to trip. He reaches for the knob and expecting another struggle, but it then opens with ease. He sighs, shakes his head and stomps into the dim hallway. Of course, there is no electricity, so the light switch on the side of the wall didn’t work. It was at least bright enough for him to walk through the house. There was a set of stairs to the right a few feet away from the front door. Ben walks up the soaked rug which smells like crap and earth mixed.  At the top of the stairs is a hallway forming a T, so Ben chose the right hallway. Heading to the door down the hall, he gets the shivers, or what he liked to call the “heebie jeebies”.  He then has a déjà vu, except this is one he has never had before. It felt almost like he has been in this hallway, in this house. It felt like he has lived here.

            Ben shook his head. I have never been here what am I thinking?

            Ben starts for the door again. He walks past the broken window to the left with the rain dripping rapidly onto the dirt stained rug. The only sound is the whining of the wind outside. He arrives to the door, noticing it is already barely ajar. As soon as he set his hand on the knob, another déjà vu occurred.

            I open the door and see an ill man lying in bed. I see hands brandishing a blood stained kitchen knife, my hands holding a knife. I walk up to the man slowly, breathing heavily. The man raises his hands in front of his face, his head turns away. There was no sound but his lips were moving, it looked like they formed the word why. My hand rise up and ready to strike the knife into the man’s chest but then…

            I snap out of the waking dream. That was not déjà vu, it felt like I was actually there! That couldn’t be me! But it felt like…like a flash back, like as if those murdering hands were mine. It can’t be! I would never harm someone like that! I would never kill a helpless man!

            Ben throws his hands to his head fiercely and starts pulling his hair.

            “No…” he muttered. “No, no! NO! It can’t be me! It can’t! What does it have to do with me!?”

             He slams his back against the wall and slumps to the floor, still gripping his hair muttering, “It’s not me, it’s not me…”

            After about five minutes, Ben emerges into reality again. He looks into the reflection of a piece of the broken window, bags under his eyes, a haggard face, watery, red eyes staring back at him. He breathes in deeply then slowly breathes out.

            “Ok, ok just get a grip…”

            Ben stands back up and gets moving. He would never be able to erase that flash back from his mind.

            I can already guess what I will find in this room…

            Ben shuffles over towards the door and just barely pushes it open. The way slowly creaks loudly along. The things he guessed to find were correct: there was a white mattress bed, about queen sized, with a faint streak of a red stain in the middle of it, a plant left to etiolate over the years positioned on an end table back in the corner of the room, and a painting of Cain and Abel hangs above the bed.

            I recognize this room some how… if I killed the ill man, then where are his bones?

Ben opens the closet to the far right of the room; just a bunch of old clothes that has collected dust. A rusty toolbox sits on the gray floor, but there was nothing of use in it. Ben goes back down the stairs to the first floor, and some how perfectly knew the way to the basement. All he had to do was just walk down the hall, turn right past the stairs into some old kitchen and there it was.

Isn’t that a strange coincidence, you just happened to know where the basement was Ben. Face it, you used to live here, you had another life under this very roof, and you will turn out just like that murderer in your so-called dream! Ben gets impatient with his conscience. “Shut up! Shut up!” Then the other side of Ben shut up, and silence fell back into place.

Ben approaches to the wooden door, specks of white paint scattered around. He opens the basement door and reveals a wall of darkness below. His stomach knots up.

Aw hell I’m not going down there, not without some source of light.

Ben runs up the stairs and heads to the toolbox.

Ha! There was in fact something useful in this toolbox after all.

Ben grabs the flashlight and rushes back down to the first floor. He tests the flashlight out and…wala! Luckily, there were batteries that surprisingly still worked in the thing. Ben cautiously walks down the stairs, trying not to make the same mistake twice by stepping on another splinter. He reaches the basement floor and lets out a gasp from the cold stone.

I get past my first obstacle, the stairs. Now what awaits me around the corner?

Something that you are not prepared for, his conscience hisses, this will be the test of your wits!

Ben shines his light ahead in the darkness and finds most of the secrets he needed answered: two skeletons lie on top of each other facing the ceiling, smiling.

“Ah!” Ben jolts his hands into the air, flinging the flashlight over his shoulder. He then hears a crack and pitch black swallows the room. Ben is paralyzed in place. He wants to run but he can’t.

Several skittering noises go back and forth at the end of the room. Ben tries to feel around for the railing on the stairs, but in the process feels wet fur and sharp claws run across his foot.

Ben screams and blindly clambers for the stairs. He quickly plants his foot on the first step but trips and keen pain shoots up his right arm as he fell onto the stairs. Ben screams out in pain. He quickly recovers from hesitation and sprints up the stairs, impervious to the stinging of the splinters poking into his feet.    

Ben rushes through the door way and slams the door shut. He scans his right arm and finds a hole dug deep into his skin, most likely from a nail. I can’t believe I actually found skeletons and I know one of those were of the ill man, but the second skeleton, was that his wife?

Ben looks around in the kitchen and sees one of the slots empty in the knife holder sitting upon the counter. That slot was reserved for the killer.

Ben begins to slip from reality into…

…The backyard. A woman is holding a basket full of clothes, hanging them on the clothes wire by safety clips. The wind rustles the clothes, the woman’s skirt being blown side to side. She turns around and looks at me, smiling. The smile soon turned to a frown. She rushes up to me and motions her hands for me to give her something. I look at my hands and see the same murdering kitchen knife I used on the ill man, but no bloodstains are seen anywhere. I lift the knife up, pointing the blade towards her. Fear struck her eyes. I thrust the knife into her stomach. Her mouth gapes, tears roll down her face and cheeks. I then jerk the knife out of her. A stream of blood flows down the front of her shirt. She reaches one of her hands out at me while collapsing face down into the ground.

Ben merges back into reality.

“Nooooo! Why me! That can’t be me!”

I can’t believe it. I’m just born generation through generation just to kill people, for no reason! No purpose!

His conscience interrupts. You’re just a spawn of evil. Your only purpose in life is to kill!

Ben stumbles through the front door into the pouring rain and collapses face down into the runny mud.

d

Ben awakens from his black out and looks around in the darkness confused.

That’s odd…it doesn’t feel like I’m sitting in mud.

Ben places his hand on the surface he is sitting upon and feels something soft, like a mattress.

Wait a minute it feels like my bed! How did I end up here? Was it all a dream?

Ben thought wrong. He sets his hands calmly into his lap and touches something dry and gritty like ketchup stains, except he fears that it is something worse. Mud. Dried on mud. Tears try pushing their way out of his eyes, but he is barely holding them back.

A bright light cracks into his room and burns his eyes. It felt like he hadn’t seen light in ages. The light spread through the room revealing his computer in the left corner of his wall, his closet with the door ajar (junk practically stacked to the ceiling), and his wooden box full of his stashed away things (junk) at the foot of his bed. He then sees his Mom’s face peek through the corner of the door. He noticed that she didn’t see him at first, but he didn’t want her to know he was in here. A hand stretches out to the light switch left of the door and then he whole room was as bright as the light through the door. Ben had to cover his eyes; the light hurt his so much. His Mom walks into the room, mouth gaping, and eyes on the verge of tears. She stood there for what seemed to be forever. It was odd that he didn’t even seem the slightest bit excited to see her.

What is wrong with me, I’m out of that dim lit God forsaken house. I just need to pretend to be as happy as I really should be, but not exaggerate it.

“Benjamin! Oh my God, you’re here!”

Ben’s Mom ran to the side of the bed and grasped Ben, tightening her arms around him so hard, he could almost barely breathe. He didn’t even get to pretend to be even more excited than he really was because she just kept jabbering on wondering where he was and if he had gotten hurt.

“We had already called the cops to search for you! I was so worried about you! Why did you run away?”

Whoa! Run away?

“Wait Mom I didn’t run…”

Maybe I should let her believe that I did. She wouldn’t believe me one bit if I tell her that I just somehow slept walked out to some abandoned house that I really didn’t know (at least physically being there before). She would think I was kidnapped and brain damaged during my captivity or something.

Ben noticed that his Mom wasn’t even paying attention that he didn’t finish the mistake he was going to tell her. His Mom finally released the pressure on him and ran out his bedroom door into the hallway, calling or his Dad.

“John! John get over here quick! Ben is home! He is actually here!”

Ben’s father had the same look of shock when he rushed into the room as his Mom did. Ben gets out of bed and stands beside it as his Dad walked up and gave a huge hug.

“Ben where have you been?”

His Dad’s question was actually possible to answer without a million more asked all at once.

“I don’t really know, I was just hiking out in the woods with one of my friends and curiosity urged us forward.”

Ben’s Dad didn’t infuriate about what he had thought his son did, but just kept holding on to Ben like some precious heirloom you can’t let go of. It seems that both his parents didn’t notice the stains

Ben had finally gotten a meal that he hasn’t gotten for hours. His Dad had cooked some taco meat and had some soft shells to go with it. His Mom and Dad were asking questions of how the mud stained his pants, hair, face, and shirt, why he couldn’t find his way back, just about any question a parent would ask their son or daughter if they had gone missing. Ben’s Mom and Dad finally let him go to bed and get the good rest he needed. When he went to sleep, the strangest dream came to him, one of the most vivid.

d

I stood out in the woods in my bare feet and pants standing upon the strangest thing I had ever seen in my life. In the dirt surrounded by all the grass was a symbol or symbols of some unknown language or something. It was glowing aqua blue. There was an outer circle and two inner circles, all having multiple hieroglyphic symbols in between each layer of circle. In the middle was a star. Whispering spread through my ears and into my head nonstop. I could barely understand any of the words said. The wind started to whistle and pick up, leaves traveling in circles around the symbol. An aura of power felt like it had control of me, some kind of force. The trees swayed back and forth, branches colliding with one another, making the chilling sound of bones clacking together softly. Silhouettes were rapidly popping out of the trees surrounding me. One of them was…was the owner of that abandoned house. The ill man. Tears roll down my cheek, collecting the particles of dirt on the way down. Something told me to look down at my hands, and when I did I found puddles of blood in my palms dripping through between my fingers staining into the dirt. The need to puke settled down in the pit of my stomach.  I fell to my knees and listened to what the whispers had to say. All their little secrets. I now know what my true purpose is.

d

Ben snaps out of his nightmare and sits up in bed taking gasping breaths. He is where he was before, his bedroom in nothing but darkness. He leans over to the left side of his bed and pukes out his dinner watching it splatter in different directions from the rug. Ben clutches the blankets and snuggles deep under them, shivering all over.

Why am I so cold?

The walls seem to be closing in gradually and the darkness becoming even darker. Ben’s heart beat becomes louder and louder until that is all he can hear. His breathing slows down but yet becomes louder as well.

“No not me…please don’t…I don’t want…please…”

Reality begins to fade and Ben is swallowed into darkness.

 

d

White light flashes over the crime scene. Two dead bodies of middle aged adults, the female lying face up and the male face down with a strange marking carved into his back: some large circle with two inner circles and in between each lair were strange hieroglyphics and a star in the middle, all red. A CSI team gathers evidence around the home. Two detectives in raincoats stare down at the two bodies.

Detective Kale shakes his head in disgust. He looks at detective Greg saying, “This is about one of the most gruesome crime scenes I’ve ever seen.”

Greg rubs his goatee. “Well through all my years in the justice system, I’ve never seen anything like this either, at least not in person. No evidence of the killer.”

Kale points to the ceiling above. “Well I found a pile of vomit on the second floor sitting by a kid sized bed. If there was a kid here, his body is gone.”

Detective Greg kneels down at the feet of the bodies inspecting the incision in the male’s back. “These cuts look as if it were used by a kitchen knife. See, you can tell by how jagged the marks are.”

“Do you think that if there was a kid here that he could possibly be the one that committed the murder?”

Greg looks up at him with one eye brow raised. “How?”

Kale shrugs. “I’m just picking random scenarios. Once we get the background information on this family and see that they have…had a kid then maybe we could find out if the kid…you know…”

“Had a mental background?”

“Yes.”

Both of the detectives fell silent. Greg stands back up and walks out the door with his hands in his jacket pockets. Greg and Kale knew well enough that the case to be solved is most likely futile.