Hidden (Ficlet)
Oct. 1st, 2006 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abetterlieIt's the same dream, over and over again. He's a child in a department store. All the smells, all the colours, everything is new, he just has to look, and suddenly, Mom and Dada and the baby, little Mere, they're all gone. So Connor tries to find them again, but it's no good, there are just walls and walls of boxes and funny smelling fruits and endless masses of strange people. Some of them almost look like those cartoons he watches on tv on Saturday morning, except Connor is big enough to figure out those don't exist. Well, not outside of Disneyland.
He's not too sure about the Blob, though. Mom and Dad and baby Mere could have been eaten by it. Maybe the Blob does exist. He can see it, quite clearly, and the screams that fill the air as he thinks of it are loud enough to bring Mom rushing towards him, and Dad sweeping him up into his arms, safe and sound. And he's happy, so incredibly happy that he found them, or they found him.
But not in the dream. In the dream, he's the wrong child altogether. He's a child who never was in a department store, except that is where he finds himself, tied with something which should be improvised leather strings but somehow is the fishing gear Lawrence Riley will present him with on his tenth birthday. And the wrongness doesn't end there. This altogether wrong child does not scream. He gets rid of the ties, and he remains silent; in fact, everyone else is silent, too. All the many people in the department store, but you don't hear anyone talking. Instead, you hear a woman singing "We're going to the zoo" and playing the piano, and somehow, at a larger distance, the sound of beasts. The child which should not, can not be Connor Riley starts making his way through the store, silent, and there is something in his hand which is altogether wrong as well. A knife made of bones.
There is a huge mountain build of diet coke cans, a pyramid, and it should just smell of tin and metal, sugar and chemicals, but that's not what he smells. No, not at all. So he pushes the cans aside, and there they are, hidden, buried under all the diet coke: Mom, Dad and little Mere. They're cowering, which brings them nearly to his eye level, and he can see the widened pupils, the tiny drops of sweat, can smell them, too. Dad doesn't open his arms, and neither does Mom, and they have no intention of standing up. Instead, they try to rebuild the pyramid again, putting it between them and himself. Baby Mere wimpers.
"Why are you hiding?" Connor asks, and tries to change everything to what he knows it should be, the happy, happy ending, but he's the wrong child, and the knife of bones is still in his hand. He looks down on it, wishing it to go away, and that is when he notices the blood, which is wrong, because he always cleans his weapons. He's been taught to, hasn't he?
"We're hiding from you, Connor," his father says, and the wounds on his chest are wrong as well, as is the blood pouring out of a cut of Mom's throat and Mere's hands. "We're hiding from you."
He's not too sure about the Blob, though. Mom and Dad and baby Mere could have been eaten by it. Maybe the Blob does exist. He can see it, quite clearly, and the screams that fill the air as he thinks of it are loud enough to bring Mom rushing towards him, and Dad sweeping him up into his arms, safe and sound. And he's happy, so incredibly happy that he found them, or they found him.
But not in the dream. In the dream, he's the wrong child altogether. He's a child who never was in a department store, except that is where he finds himself, tied with something which should be improvised leather strings but somehow is the fishing gear Lawrence Riley will present him with on his tenth birthday. And the wrongness doesn't end there. This altogether wrong child does not scream. He gets rid of the ties, and he remains silent; in fact, everyone else is silent, too. All the many people in the department store, but you don't hear anyone talking. Instead, you hear a woman singing "We're going to the zoo" and playing the piano, and somehow, at a larger distance, the sound of beasts. The child which should not, can not be Connor Riley starts making his way through the store, silent, and there is something in his hand which is altogether wrong as well. A knife made of bones.
There is a huge mountain build of diet coke cans, a pyramid, and it should just smell of tin and metal, sugar and chemicals, but that's not what he smells. No, not at all. So he pushes the cans aside, and there they are, hidden, buried under all the diet coke: Mom, Dad and little Mere. They're cowering, which brings them nearly to his eye level, and he can see the widened pupils, the tiny drops of sweat, can smell them, too. Dad doesn't open his arms, and neither does Mom, and they have no intention of standing up. Instead, they try to rebuild the pyramid again, putting it between them and himself. Baby Mere wimpers.
"Why are you hiding?" Connor asks, and tries to change everything to what he knows it should be, the happy, happy ending, but he's the wrong child, and the knife of bones is still in his hand. He looks down on it, wishing it to go away, and that is when he notices the blood, which is wrong, because he always cleans his weapons. He's been taught to, hasn't he?
"We're hiding from you, Connor," his father says, and the wounds on his chest are wrong as well, as is the blood pouring out of a cut of Mom's throat and Mere's hands. "We're hiding from you."
