𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬

𝐎𝐍𝐄.

𝑨 𝑯𝒂𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒅
____________

Nowhere in the midst of reality lied Krimson City. There had always been a shadow over her, no matter the weather, or the season, or her people. You always thought of that place as cursed, even the green pastures and the streams of warm water flowing down to a clear, blue ocean seemed putrid, murky, unfit to harbor any sane kind of life.

It was a breeding ground for hatred, insanity, death, where even the purest of intentions were tainted into wicked desires.

You often had wondered if the reason you had turned up like you did was nature, nurture, a generational curse or having grown up in this damned place.

Would anything be different if you had lived away from these rotten lands?

The cold morning air stung your face, the traces of a winter gone still affecting those beneath that cloudy, grey sky. You ignored that all familiar pain as the outline of the city came from around the corner; it had fairly changed since the last time you gazed at it, but it was the same place, it felt like the same place.

An ancient need reawoke in you, the urge to turn back, aggressively, off the road and never see that place again, the need to leave. For a second you didn't know why you were driving towards the city you so desperately wanted to leave in your childhood, yet you looked to your past and saw a trail of blood behind you, going deep down and starting when you were just little. You were doomed from the start but your heart sought redemption.

Or maybe just answers.

Your shifted uncomfortably upon seeing the metal sign that reminded those who drove by of the place they were at. You tried to swallow down your nerves, choking you like dark fingers on the back of your throat, decided to pin it on the cold air, but there was still some gnawing feeling on the back of your mind that this uneasiness was stemmed from something deeper, something you didn't dare question and didn't dare speak.

Welcome to Krimson City
Enjoy your stay!

Sure.

Past some off roads that led to fancier houses you turned left and drove on a dirt road for almost a kilometer until you reached a house, familiar and almost welcoming as it had been all those years ago. Again, almost.

Your aunt and uncle's home, a big house for just the three of you, where you had spent a large portion of your childhood. Now empty and standing alone there, with no soul walking through its hallways, walls grown with ivy, so widely that you feared any spiders living in those plants even if it looked lovely. You decided to leave it, along the overgrown weeds that plagued your gardens and fields; your aunt and uncle never allowed plants.

After parking in front of it and entered the property, creaking doors too hostile for the house to feel yours. Standing in the living room, you took your time to absorb your new surroundings; right there on the wood next to the sofa you swore you could make out the outline of the exact place that Aunt Ellis had succumbed to her death. A dark stain in the floor, almost like blood or... Almost as if her body had melted into the planks and her face was now staring back at you, as daring and scolding as she did before.

Later that day you would place a rug on top of that place, effectively drowning the screams of dead ancestors coming back to haunt you.

It took you a few hours but you had all of your stuff inside the house, half unpacked but enough to make it seem like a home. You scanned the room with a somber look, took out your phone and dialed your home number. Your father's voice eagerly answered, "Hello, yes? ██████ is that you?" Followed by a yell and quick steps coming, almost surely your mother.