Myopia

#1

((Aracelis Fuentes continued from Venom))

What happened after Leslie dragged Aracelis away from Bethany and the campground was as hazy as an old childhood memory. At one point there was the sound of snow crunching underfoot and when they suddenly stopped she looked down to see splashes of scarlet glowing against the pure white snow.

Tree branches occasionally brushed against them as Leslie supported her through the wilds.

Occasionally, he'd grunt something to her and she'd slur something akin to a reply. Once or twice he stopped and set her down against a tree while he caught his breath. One of those times they'd had a conversation while he bandaged her face, or he just bandaged her face? She wasn't sure, she thought she had been talking to him. Her attention had been caught by all the blood that had stained her grey plaid skirt. She really liked the skirt too, she thought it was really cute.

After that, they kept moving, and that second journey was the one Aracelis couldn't remember anything from.

The first she knew about them having reached the town was waking up in a bed. Her face had been stuck to the pillow from the blood leaking through her bandages and the overwhelming smell of iron filled her nostrils. After peeling her head off the pillow, she rolled herself over and sat up to look around. For some reason, she was in her abuela's house. The pillow and duvet she had left bloodstains on were a pink and white floral Laura Ashley design, the drapes over the windows and bed itself, the skirts on every piece of furniture, the wallpaper. It was all there.

But she didn't know how Leslie had managed to get her back to her abuela's.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed she stood up and looked around once more, moving over to where the light switch should have been. Upon reaching it she flicked it up but nothing happened. Frowning Aracelis tried twice more before giving up and sloping over to the door.

"¿Abuela?" She called, as she carefully stepped across the darkened room. Once she had reached the door she reached out for the handle and hissed as her knuckles bounced off the wood. She shook her hand and rubbed the knuckles with her other hand then felt her way along the door until she eventually located the handle on the left-hand side of the door. Which she had found weird because she could have sworn the handle was on the right.

"¿Abeula?" She called out again after opening the door, quieter the second time. "Lo siento por tus sábanas."

There was no response, only the whistle of the wind as it passed against the walls and windows and the creaking of the house itself.

Gulping and taking a breath Aracelis stumbled out onto the landing. The house was uncomfortably still. All Aracelis could hear was her own breathing and the floorboards as she stepped deeper into the darkness. She looked both left and right but couldn't make out anything she recognized in the dark.

"¿Dónde estás?" She whispered to herself, concern starting to seep into her voice. Aracelis turned around but found herself unable to locate the door to the room she had come out of. Meanwhile, the wind still continued to circle the house.

Reaching out behind her body, Aracelis felt for the wooden banister. The silence in the house had become overbearing and each move she made sounded cacophonous against the stillness of the dark. As she breathed it felt like the house did the same, groaning with its age. Keeping a tight grip on the smooth wood of the banister Aracelis shuffled forward, trying to keep any noise she made to a minimum.

As she was doing so she heard a loud creak from one of the other rooms, like weight shifting on a mattress.

"¿Abuela?" She whispered again, this time meekly. When she got no response she slowly stepped closer to where the noise had come from. But as she did so she heard the unmistakable sound of the floorboards creaking in another room before going still again. She froze in place as she listened. They creaked again as whoever else was in the house with her moved around. Her heart started to beat faster and her hand once again reached out behind her to find the banister but this time it was more panicked as it blindly grouped for the wood. Once she found it she gripped it tight and slid her feet backward and towards it.

As she did so she heard the footsteps again, moving closer to herself and the door that separated them.

"¡Mierda!" Aracelis hissed and then she quickly shuffled across the landing using the banister until she reached the stairs. From where she stood at the top Aracelis looked down at them and she found it difficult to focus on them, it felt like they were moving away from her. She raised her foot and hovered it over the first step but found it hard to step down onto it in the dark. Then she was grabbed from behind letting out a loud, fearful yelp.

As it turned out Leslie had woken up and caught her before she attempted them alone. It had probably been for the best even though he had nearly killed her via a heart attack.

That had been at some stage during the night and as Leslie had put her back to bed he'd noticed the blood on the pillowcase.

Once the morning had come that had then led to her being sat down on the floor, back against the sofa as he cleaned her wounds and applied new bandages.

In the grey light of the morning, Aracelis realized how bad a way she must have been in the night prior. As she looked around the bedroom with clear eyes it was obvious that it wasn't in her abuela's house. At a glance, it had the rough appearance of the house, but where her abuela's house had always been clean, light, and welcoming the house Leslie had put them up in was cold, dark, and musty. The years of abandonment had drained the life and color from the room, each piece of furniture had faded from its original bright color palate and the wallpaper was peeling off the wall, exposing the rotten wood beneath. The carpets themselves were coated in a thick layer of dust, that kicked up in clouds with every move they made.

Aracelis winced as Leslie began to peel away the layers of bandages he had previously applied. The old ones had been made rigid from all of the dried blood, the closest thing she could compare it to was the feeling of dried paper mache.

"How bad is it?" She’d asked, even though she didn't want to hear the answer.

He’d only grimaced and remained silent.

((Aracelis Fuentes continued in Depth))