1 WEEK UNTIL 11TH ANNUAL PURGE
“Mom, stop!” His pleas seem to go unheard and his efforts to free his sister from the claws of their mother are met with a hard SLAP that sends him toppling backwards.
He can see Darlene’s small feet kicking, her hands clawing at the grasp around her throat and he knows if he doesn’t do anything now SHE COULD DIE. He couldn’t let that happen. So he picks up the first thing he sees, his old baseball bat perched against the wall where Darlene had been playing with it earlier. He doesn’t even have time to think about it, to consider the consequences, and perhaps a part of him WANTS to, the part of him that feels some kind of satisfaction from releasing pent up anger in the blow that sends Magda to the ground, for her to be on the end of a hit for once.
But unlike in reality, this time when he reaches for his kid sister on the verge of a panic attack, his hand is suddenly met with nothingness as his surroundings disappear and he suddenly finds himself in the midst of his own chaos, trashing his childhood bedroom with the same baseball bat, the anger and confusion of that day fresh in his bones. “Son, what are you doing?” He hears that familiar voice that he’d tried to wipe from his files, that made his system vulnerable but as he turns to face his father he realises he isn’t looking at him, but behind him. Following his eyeline, he turns toward the window, slightly startled to see his own reflection in it. Only unlike a mirror the reflection isn’t mimicking him, but standing still, staring with a deadly stoic look in his eyes, the hints of a dark smirk curving at his lips. “Are you afraid of your monster?” The reflection asks. Those ungodly sirens begin to blare somewhere in the distance, from inside the reflection, the ones that signaled chaos. Elliot glances back toward his father, who looks distressed. “Hey, now, son, lets talk about this!” His father pleas, and glancing back toward the reflection Elliot sees his mirror image is now loading a gun. It dawns on him and Elliot attempts to stop himself. “Woah, woah, woah, hey!” He cries, but it seems too late. His reflection already pulling his mask down, aiming the gun toward their father. As Elliot moves to put himself between his Dad and...himself, the reflection speaks. “When we lose our principles, we invite chaos.” Before he even has a chance to recall where he’d heard that, the gun is fired and as the bullet his his chest...
Elliot wakes up, gasping, clutching at his chest, still momentarily suspended in his own nightmare before snapping himself into reality, trying to ground himself. No bullet. Check. The arcade. Check. Angela sleeping beside him....His hand falls on the empty bedsheets beside him and the panic returns to his heart, anxieties heightened from his fucked up dream. He grabs his phone, the screen illuminating the dim room alerts him that it’s 4am and 7 days until the 11th Annual Purge. At least those sirens had only been part of his dream, but he still can’t help but worry, grabbing his t-shirt and slipping it on as he wanders out into the main area of the arcade. “Angela?”
Noticing the door to the alleyway slightly ajar, held open with a brick, he hurries outside, panic easing the instant he smells smoke filling the air, slowing down his pace a little. His anxiety completely dissipates the moment he turns the corner, finding her leaning against the arcade wall, blowing smoke toward Coney Island looming above them. “I was wondering where this went.” He smirks, noting her wearing his hoodie, helping himself to the lighter and cigarettes in the pocket of it. He places a smoke between his lips, “I thought y’didn’t smoke these anymore” glancing at her with a smirk still dancing across his mouth and eyes as he lights one, joining her against the wall as he blows his own little pollution signal toward their favourite theme park. The waves crash gently against the shore, the quietness of this part of the city, in the city that supposedly never slept, reminding him why he loved this place. But he can’t help but think how that shore could possibly be filled with bodies by next week. Their safe area compromised once more by the systems annual attack.
@eyescaptivate
