Absinthe

A troubled teen meets his demise with a visitor from the past.

Day 6

Elias was very sure that the amount of what he consumed was lethal. He hadn’t slept in 52 hours because the paranoia was keeping him awake. Now at one in the morning, he found himself reaching for the small, orange container that held what he wanted the most. Grabbing said container proved to be a massive struggle to him. Though it was sitting directly next to him on the nesting table beside his piss-ridden bed, the container was running away from him. Sweat trickled down his lip as the reach for it proved to be too much of a daunting task.

He gave up, his arm falling heavily onto the beaten down mattress below him. In that moment of relaxation, everything seemed fine. He sobered up and was about to go on with his daily life. Right? That's how it was going to be after this huge mess was over.

The more he asked himself questions, the more his heart-rate rose. The white noise in his ears became more prominent. The moon-lit tile of his dorm room became an overwhelmingly bright shade of ivory. Elias shut his eyes tightly as he felt the pressure in his brain intensify. He opened his mouth to yell, but his tongue was too dry and his lips stuck to his teeth. His right hand found it’s way to his left elbow, scratching to try and find some sort of sanity he had left in him.

As he opened his eyes, the overwhelmingly bright shade of ivory swept his whole entire room. All of the material objects ceased to exist. His panic had left his body. The only thing he could see was white. Trying to make sense of what was happening, Elias tried to run. However, he gave up when he realized he was going to be running forever. He laid there. No feeling consumed his body whatsoever. The only sense he had in his body was neutrality. By far, this was the best high he had ever had.

Elias heard a rustle very near to him. He sat up and stared straight ahead-which resulted in him being fear stricken. Someone -or something- had materialized right in front of him! It was a child’s pencil drawing against the background of white; a charcoal outlining of a human being. It’s “hair” stood straight up and it had dots for eyes. All of its limbs were bubbly and fat. In the silence, it walked right towards Elias.

Panic. Elias was panicking. The drawing had no change of expression as it nonchalantly moved to meet him for his demise. He tried to scream again; no such luck. Crawling away did nothing to help him either. The drawing neared. His breaths became labored. A Pink Pearl eraser was materialized right into the drawing’s hand. Still, no change of expression. Elias’ mind was pleading for the mercy of the God he once believed in. The drawing lifted the eraser to Elias’ face and started to move back and forth. Everything that was prominent in his memory was being wiped away with the pace the drawing took as he erased him. His brain was slowly melting with every push. Soon enough, his life vanished into thin shavings on the ground.

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She had been sifting through old notes he wrote her. It had been a week since Elias died and somehow the pain still remained as fresh as the day she found out she’d never see her son again. Her friends had told her to get out of the house and to get her mind off of him, but she just couldn’t.

Athene spent endless hours sobbing her regret into her pillow. She regretted not protecting him longer. She regretted divorcing her husband all of those years ago. She regretted sending Elias off to college. But now, it was too late and she couldn’t change anything about what happened to her son. Her eyes became permanently worn down by all of the tears she cried and her brain became permanently scared for her wellbeing to follow. The only thing she could do to find any form of comfort was to look at things he had drawn her as a child.

She came across old Thanksgiving placemats he would make her in elementary school. They were plastered with brown construction paper and faux feathers for the wings of a turkey. Everything still said “I love you, Mommy” on it and it broke her damned heart. The valentine’s day projects were the worse though, especially because the teachers had the students everything they loved about their mothers.

I love my mommy because she is smart, pretty, and takes care of me when we are alone in the house a lot.

Athene couldn’t help but think that all of those things were not true about her. The guilt was going to be placed on her shoulders for as long as she should live. Digging deeper into the bin that she kept all of her son’s old projects in, she found one that stuck out to her the most.

The drawing was on white construction paper and had been done with a pencil. It was an outline of a man. His “hair” stood straight up and it had dots for eyes. All of it’s limbs were bubbly and fat. His expression; nonchalant. On the bottom right hand corner were the words “daddy leaving”. Athene did not remember Elias drawing this when he was younger. Her split from her husband was not very hard for her, considering all of the revolting things he had done to her son. Shrugging, she placed the drawing back into the bin. She grabbed the lid and secured the bin, putting it back onto the dusty, wooden shelf in her basement. Athene stared at it for a moment, thinking about how her son had once touched those projects, and then proceeded upstairs.

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Author's Note

I wrote this based off of the prompt "Start your story with a character and end with another".

Reviews

[Shannon]

Powerful, every mother's worst nightmare, I can tell you. We'll written. I have some tiny ideas, if you are interested.