#I WENT FULL AUTHORSHIP AND CREATED EVERY PIECE OF SHIT HERE FROM SCRATCH

[momo-de-avis]

Wordtober Day 5: Build

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚜 𝚊 𝚝𝚢𝚙𝚎𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗 𝚌𝚘𝚙𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚕𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚢 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝙰𝚞𝚛𝚊 𝙼𝚊𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚘’𝚜 𝚓𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚊𝚕, 𝚕𝚎𝚏𝚝 𝚊𝚋𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢’𝚜 𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚎, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝟸𝟶𝚝𝚑, 𝟷𝟿𝟾𝟹.

I can see it through my window. Every morning, every night, every afternoon. I watch the dancing shapes between the rustling leaves and branches and every single time I am certain, I am positive, something lurks in there, watching me, taunting me. That path, that perfidious, treacherous path. The last path my brother walked.

It feels like something calls for me. It’s been calling for me every day since I last arrived here. A week. That’s how long I’ve been here—one whole week—and I can’t tell, today—for the life of me, I can’t—how the hell did I spend twenty years in this house, sleeping in this room, looking straight at that path. The first sight upon waking up, and the last thing I saw before I pulled the curtains shut. Just right outside my window, like an unwanted guest.

The house isn’t much better. The walls are painted with mementoes, and everywhere, there are memories engraved on every slab and tile of every wall. The white sheets that cover the furniture in almost every room, left abandoned for eight years, have something daunting to them. Traces of something bittersweet. Where the dust should settle, I swear—on my life, I swear—there are little marks of something I can’t understand what. As if my mind is trying to recollect happy memories that were here before he was gone, but now all my eyes see is the charred corners of a photograph that was once colourful.

And I’ve been sleeping here, right under these ceilings, for a week. Every night, I lie under the covers and I pull the sheets up to my head and sometimes, like when I was little, I glance quickly at the walls around but there’s never anything there. That’s what’s so disconcerting. I can’t see anything yet I am sure there is something, in those abstract lines of humidity and the cracks of the plaster that has chipped off with time. Something lurks, something leers at me, something mocks me, torments me, laughs at me. I can’t hear it either. The house is so silent now it feels the silence itself is the haunting. 

But the house isn’t haunted. If anything is haunted in this place, it’s that path, that narrow strip of earth that zigzags through the juniper bushes up to those two pillars, those two pyramidal pillars with that rusty chain swinging between them. It’s absurd when you think about it, because they stand alone by a wall of green, a fortress of foliage barring entrance from all and any who dare cross that barrier and sneak into these parts off the limits of our house, yet it’s just a pair of pillars with one single line of chain links locked on its flanking whitewashed stone.

Perhaps that’s what enticed Sam. He saw that pathway, saw those two pillars and thought: what could be wrong? It guards nothing. Anyone who looks at them thinks they could just go around, but somehow, they never do. In truth, it’s pretty ineffective as a barrier itself. There’s even no warning, nothing fending off possible intruders or curious adventurers who need to be reminded this is private property. Nothing. Anyone can just... hop it. But no one ever does. No one ever did, except Sam and me.

Of course, I crossed it too. When Sam dared to go into the forest through that chain, I had to go with him. We always went together, and every time Sam found something worthy of some good hours of exploration, he took me with him. Except this time. 

He always did take me with him. We’d wander off into the immense bald land, meandering through the golden twigs and weeds, charred by the blazing summer sun, and hop between the abandoned railroad tracks as we counted our every step. We’d steal old wooden planks and stones and wire and pipes and build our forts below an oak tree, overlooking the shepherds that wafted placidly between the bushes, the clappers on the necks of every sheep clanging loud in a hollow singing behind them, carried by the warm winds that kissed the sweat on our backs. We’d construct these corners for ourselves—shelters, havens, hideouts—for me and my brother only. Our very own corner.

We always loved building things. Just little places for us to hide, enough protection for ourselves only, and outside, an entire real world we willingly ignored. 

Then one day, I caught him staring at those two pillars, and I knew he wanted to cross them. There was just a beaming desire spread about his eyes. He took one step, then another, then another, and when he was so close them temptation gripped his breath, I called him. 

“Sam,” I screeched, “where are you going?”

He turned around, and in that moment, I could swear his face was different. Paler. Emptier. Dull. Like all emotion he had ever felt before in his life died, and what was left was his carcass, hollow and waiting to be filled with something else. I shuddered in dread, even as he answered my question with a slight pursing of his eyebrows and a slash of his lips I took for a smile: “You ever wondered what’s beyond this little chain?”

I wanted to say we were not supposed to go beyond it, it was the only answer my childish mind had at ready, but somehow, I didn’t speak. So when I saw his leg raise and leap across, I followed him. I couldn’t let my brother go alone. I had to go with him.

It took me fifteen years to realize crossing that chain was what set it off, but back then, it all seemed normal enough, save for the slight trepidation the action had caused in me, though I am still uncertain whether that was an omen or just my guilty conscience. We found, thirty minutes after walking between the thorny foliage and cluttered, narrow paths, a clearing. It stood beneath two trees that bent over like a rooftop, branches entwined together into a perfect pyramidal shape, casting a sombre shadow on the bare, whitewashed ground. Dried leaves and twigs cracked beneath the soles of my brother’s feet, and I watched as he started to rummage through the meshes of brambles and weeds for wood and rock to build something, moving so excitedly about he barely paid mind to the bloodied scratches on his hands.

I couldn’t understand why he suddenly seemed so eager to build something. It was an impetus I had never seen before.

“This is the perfect spot,” he said. “This is the perfect spot to build our hideout.”

I wanted to say he was wrong, that I didn’t want us to have a hideout in that place. Something felt wrong about it. The air was dense and prickled the back of my throat as I breathed in, and every shadow seemed heavier than any other I had ever seen. And something lurked there, that I know. Like a thousand pairs of eyes watching us.

Sam was focused on his job, moving so frantically he barely noticed the sun setting around us, until I tapped his shoulder hurriedly and begged him to stop. I had no idea how long had passed when I forced him to stop. When he breathed out, something new possessed him. Before him, stood a tiny hut, no higher than a meter a half, made of twigs tied together with ropes made of dried roots, just as he had taught me to do, but so perfectly constructed I had no clue how it came to be. I had stood there, the whole time, and couldn’t explain how something like that came to be, but as the years passed, I have accepted that time simply moved differently there. Not faster nor slower, just in a different rate, a different reality. Things come to life, I suppose, if you wish them so—but there is a price to pay I haven’t entirely understood just yet.

We returned home, and never mentioned our discovery. Then, for the following week, I barely set my eyes on my brother at all.

He would leave by the morning and return only as night settled. By the time the sun would cast its last rays of light over the treetops, he was irritable, restless, but most of all, furious. His hands were bruised, dried blood around his fingernails, and slender hoops of red circled his eyes, like life was slowly sucked out of him. I was, for the first time in my life, afraid of him. Sometimes, I’d hear him mumble something between gritted teeth in his bedroom and as I peered through his door ajar, I’d watch him furiously scribble something on torn pieces of paper he’d crumple into a ball and fling madly against the wall. When I finally dared to ask him where he’d been—because I had searched for him all over, because we had plans together, because I was worried for him—he simply answered: “The animals keep tearing it down.”

It took me a week to realize what he meant.

The pieces put themselves together as time passed, and I finally understood where he was spending his days. When I didn’t find him at the railroad tracks, or the several tiny huts we had built on the fields with cardboard and wooden planks, I knew there was only one place he could be in. 

It made me shudder in anticipation. I stood for a long time before those two small columns and that dangling chain, watching the lurking shadows of the dancing twigs and rustling leaves, and realized, for the first time, that no sounds came from beyond. It was empty. Even the trees were silent, and no birds chirped. The wind died at that chain link, and the sun fractured about the greenery in washed-out sepia tones. 

I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to cross. But beyond the calling that pulsated through the darkness, what I felt was my brother’s presence there. I had to go. So I stepped forth, and I crossed the chain a second time.

It took me a surprisingly short time to find the way, and I could swear the path I had taken was shorter than the last time. Sam was kneeling on the ground, right in the middle of the clearing, and the canopy-like foliage above him rose like a castle of his own. I could swear there was a golden ambience cast around us. Before him, something white and dull rose, so opaque I barely made it out against the background. A tiny little house made of something white, rising to the same height as Sam’s previous construction. A meter and a half only.

I asked him what he was doing; Sam jumped in fright, turned around and looked at me. His eyes were scooped, his face craggy, and shadows fell on his semblance, creating shapes I had never seen before. When he laughed, I didn’t know that laugh. That wasn’t my brother, but someone who had been completely possessed by something alien. He stood up, patted his hands together and gave two steps to his left, a hand waving at his new construction like an artist presenting his work before the audience. His fingertips were stained with white dust, and his pants were torn and ratty around the knees.

It was a house, small and humble, with nothing but a tiny door and a gable roof. It looked almost sweet and admirable, had I not given a step forth and realized what it was made of.

Bone. Sawed, scraped bone, polished almost to a shiny surface. But bone all the same. I could tell it was bone because Sam had kept the shapes in its alignment, tied together with the same scrubbed root he always made rope out of. But so many bones—piling together in order, beautifully arranged to compose walls and a roof and a door.

I stumbled back and began to cry immediately, but Sam didn’t seem to notice the tears in my eyes. “Is that bone?” I whispered, barely able to breathe at all. “Where did you find those bones?”

There was a maniac glow to his eyes. His smile disturbed me so deeply my body shuddered again, and I felt forlorn in the opened space of the clearing, the trees above engulfing me whole, ready to swallow me like a gurgling monster. But worse, I was sure, was that it was my brother they wanted to swallow whole.

“The wood didn’t last,” he said—his voice raised to an octave, high-pitched in excitement, “the animals destroyed it overnight. I had to do it again. But this was the only thing that worked.”

“How long have you been here?”

He eyes opened wide, wider than before, and a screech escaped his lips, something that would have been a laugh, but entirely different then. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve been here all night.”

I looked up at the skies, but could see the sun. It was around noon when I left the house—had he been there all night and all morning, working tirelessly on his construction? The idea of my brother completely alone in that place, that horrid place, touching bone with his bare hands, horrified me. I grabbed his hand—it was dry, his fingers thickened and full of callouses—and tugged his arm.

“Let’s go home,” I begged. “Please.”

He pushed me aside, his eyes now glowing in anticipation. “No,” he said. “I have to try it.” A glimmer of madness, and another laugh—a distant, alien laugh. “I have to go inside.”

I screamed for him to stay away, but he didn’t listen; my eyes burned with tears and I watched, frozen in terror, as my brother opened the tiny door and looked inside—the darkness luring him in, cold and bristly, clawing at his existence like that same gurgling monster I had felt before, had envisioned before, only now coming to life in full as he lurched himself at that tiny door. My voice grazed my throat, my lungs collapsing as the air was sucked out of my body, but I couldn’t move—how much I have detested myself since, for watching my brother being sucked into that tiny black hole and unable to do anything if not to scream.

Then, there was a hollow thud, and the door shut. All around, there was silence—no, the absence of sound. Even my blood rushing through my veins was silent, and my heart ceased to beat; I was left to my own isolation in the woods, alone in the clearing as I watched, shaking on my knees, the door that sucked my brother away into this fortress of bone. I trudged on carefully, quivering hand reaching for the door, and pressed it slowly—a shove came then. And another, and another. I flung myself at it until my shoulder hurt and my body turned sore from pushing it with all might, but it didn’t budge. It didn’t even shake a little bit. It was rooted to the ground, firmly shut. Forever.

The house looked too tiny for him to fit inside, and too frail to stand, and yet, beyond that door, there was nothing—just absolutely nothing. Not even a sound, however faint, even as I screamed his name and banged the bony structure with my bare knuckles—there was nothing coming from inside. As if he had been sucked by something hollow, a hole torn open in the ground beneath this skeletal fortress that had swallowed him. As if he simply ceased to exist. 

I stumbled back, glanced around—night settled fast. The dancing shapes of shadows dashed through the corners of my vision, and that prevalent feeling of a constant absence made me quiver; holding my breath, I ran back, ran home, cut and bruised by whipping twigs and thorny branches, vision blurred by tears, until I was safely home to tell my parents what had happened.

They didn’t believe me. Nobody did. Sam was reported missing the day after. I never saw him again.

It’s been fifteen years since he was gone. I have been back at this place for a week now, watching that pathway for as long as there is sunlight, counting the times the rusty metal dangling between both columns creaks in the setting sun. There is still no life beyond it. The wind still stops at the chain link, and no birds chirp past the two stone pillars. The foliage on either side has grown thicker, the juniper bushes flanking that path unkept and wild, but past those two pillars, everything is the same, as dead as it ever was. Except for one thing different.

I swear I can har my brother calling me.

I’ve stood here for seven nights in a row, watching that hideous, horrid path, unable to shake away the sense that something keeps calling for me, just as it called my brother. I never went back to that clearing, never crossed the chain link again, even though I stared at it for ten years from my bedroom window. I used to see things moving beyond it, something dark and hungry, and sometimes, I heard the sound of bones smacking against each other, like chittering teeth, piercing my ears in the night, though I’m unsure if I wasn’t just imagining things. Now, I hear them again, but the melody is finished with the soft murmur of Sam’s voice.

Time has passed, and time has come at last. I wonder if the bone house is still there.

Yesterday afternoon, I had an impulse. I picked up my camera and walked outside, standing so close to the two pillars the creaking sound of the chains rattled inside my ears; I looked through the lens but saw nothing. Then, my eyes drew away, and I heard something—a voice, a male voice I hadn’t heard that clearly in fifteen years—my brother, calling me, saying my name, loud and clear. And in a shudder of dread, my finger pressed the shutter, and I took a picture.

I haven’t developed it yet. It’s still inside my camera. I am afraid to see what’s in it.

I think I’m at the end of my journey, now. I think this is where I’m supposed to go. I might not come back, but at least I will know. Even if the whole world finds itself with not one, but two unsolved mysteries, at least I will have answers I need.

I won’t deny that I am terrified; I don’t want to cross that chain again. But I need to find Sam, I need to know what happened to him. I need to see if he’s still inside the little bone house he built. 

I need to make sure the door will open for me.

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𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚖𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝙰𝚞𝚛𝚊 𝙼𝚊𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚘, 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚗 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝟷𝟿𝚝𝚑, 𝟷𝟿𝟾𝟹. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚓𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚊 𝚗𝚎𝚠𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚛 𝚌𝚕𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚛𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚂𝚊𝚖𝚞𝚎𝚕 𝙼𝚊𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚘, 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝙹𝚞𝚕𝚢 𝟽𝚝𝚑, 𝟷𝟿𝟼𝟾. 𝙱𝚘𝚝𝚑 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜 𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚖𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚜, 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚢, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚗 𝟷𝟿𝟽𝟸 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚗 𝟷𝟿𝟾𝟸, 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚜 𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚒𝚛𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚟𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚜𝚎.

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚘𝚞��𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝙼𝚜 𝙼𝚊𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚘’𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚖 𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚠, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝙼𝚜 𝙼𝚊𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍.

𝙼𝚜 𝙼𝚊𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚘’𝚜 𝚓𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚗 𝚘𝚗 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚔, 𝚊𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜, 𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚕𝚞𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚌𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚊 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚗 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚖 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎. 𝙿𝚑𝚘𝚝𝚘𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚙𝚑𝚒𝚌 𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚠.

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚕𝚎 𝚙𝚑𝚘𝚝𝚘𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚙𝚑 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚖 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚜𝚘 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚍.

_________

Past Challenges:

Wordtober Day 1: Ring

Wordtober Day 2: Mindless

Wordtober Day 3: Bait

Wordtober Day 4: Freeze