The Loss of a Child

It was dark and I had slept on the couch. My room was upstairs and I’d thought I’d heard something. It was so dark outside, not even the street lights were visible. Even though I could feel that they were on. The kitchen light had a radiating yellow hue. Sickly. Something I couldn’t imagine eating under. The table was covered in dust. Like years had gone by. I hear something from upstairs. Right in front of those stairs is the door. I felt a strong urge to lock it. I opened the door to lock the screen first. I couldn’t see anything. But I could feel something watching me. The idea of something reaching out to grab me was unbearable. Like it was going to steal my heart from my still living chest. I closed the door slowly. Hesitating the entire time. As if I wanted it. The taste of fear.

I heard the noise once again. Sounded like a baby crying. For some strange reason, I knew I had a child. What’s worse, I knew they passed years ago. Their bedroom was on the second floor. Exactly where my childhood bedroom used to be. The crying was noticeably loud. I must have followed the noise, because the next thing I knew I was up at the top of the stairs. I never understood why, but there’s a door right at the entrance of the second floor. However, it was missing. I turned around to face the bottom of the steps. My eyes nervously looked to my left where the sound came from and back down. I couldn’t tell what to do. The door to the child’s room was wide open. Showing me an empty void. I felt as if I knew I could walk on the obsidian floor which the edge provided my perspective.

Something else caught my attention. The front door, which I can see from at the top of the staircase shuttered. A banging could be heard and terrible screams radiated from it. Blood pooled in from the outside. Like someone was killing another with the door itself.

I saw the blood flowing in. Like a flash flood, it almost had no end. I felt as if I was on the floor, but the stairs were now above my head. The flooding changed in a way. Flowing up the stairs instead of down. In a way, I suppose, it *was* down. As the position changed. That doesn’t explain why it flows on the ceiling stairs themselves and not just straight to the floor. I couldn’t hear myself think with the screams and the bangs. Then, I hear downstairs the crashing glass of my patio door. Followed by hasted steps. I shut the upstairs door and latch it. Only to be met by banging on this same door. I back into the painting my mom had up. Some famous artist. It was glass instead of a clear plastic. It cut into me.

I rush into the void room and the door shuts by itself. My heart sank when I saw something in the cradle. It writhed, crying… I felt it was my own. Even as it’s face is pallid and chilled. I held it in my hands. Holding it close to my chest. It was my heart. Lost in a place I couldn’t see. Missing in a world of make believe. I crumpled to the floor. Hugging the lifeless form. Silent again. The smooth surface of the ground showed me that this wasn’t the home I knew. The cradle fades and I couldn’t find it anymore. The screams and the banging stop as well. The only sound I could hear was my own whimpers. Experiencing what I once did long ago.