Respite of a Distant Dream- Chapter 3 (FNAF Project Samsara AU Fanfic):
Michael’s eyes can’t stop darting to the brunette ten-year-old casually conversing with his father as if they were good friends entertaining formalities for pleasure- the enigma who had his younger brother’s face, his body, his eyes. Even in his gaze, in that moment- when he held his chin… a multitude, an entire spectrum of emotions began to flow through him, flashing like brilliant thunder in the worst of the storm. Pain, regret, longing, love- a fondness and warmth and sheer, trembling desire that screamed of primal HUNGER and yearning, of want and need-
Need for what? For WHAT!
Michael wanted to bang his head against the wall- his thoughts were swimming in his head like fish in a river, he couldn’t concentrate on anything- nothing was concrete. The tension in his body uncoils like springs coming lose as he turns to his friends, figurative steam already hissing out of their ears. Dorothy is intrigued but slightly pissed, Andrew is still trying to process the whole ordeal, and Elijah appears as if he wants to punch something until it breaks.
“That little smart aleck… gonna kill him the next time he’s left alone!” Elijah seethes, teeth gritted and grinding together with every word he spat out in rage. “Good heavens, Elijah! Calm yourself- you’re practically purple-faced! This is exactly what the sly bastard wants,” Dorothy admonishes, gaze darting to him. “Can’t help but admit, though- he’s quite the interesting character. And as annoying and overly smug as he is… he’s very intelligent.”
Michael sighs- even then, there were multiple, interdimensional and complex facets to this enigma. Kind, wise and a good friend to Evan and Elizabeth and others younger than him or his age, while enigmatic, terse, and mysteriously polite to his parents and other adults. Blunt, brilliant, sly and cynical to him and his friends, and oh-so-mischeviously callous to those who dare cross him. All these layers, piled on top of each other like a cake- reflective within him like shards of glass composing a diamond, solemn and yet aloof, sympathetic and dutiful and loyal and yet carefree- all and yet none of them his true self.
He wants to rip apart the styrofoam jigsaw foam mat beneath him to pieces with his bare hands, wanted to dissect the boy caught in his gaze, piece by piece, until he had him all figured out, and even the embers of that desire were quenched to nothing more than sputtering kindles on the dampened wood of a campfire gone out- he clenches his hands in his pocket instead, jean fabric bundled up in them. “You’ve gotta respect him for the nerve he has,” he finds himself mumbling.
“You’re shitting me,” Elijah groans- but even he nods in agreement alongside the rest of the group.
“Well, look on the bright side, guys,” Andrew states a bit cheerfully, and Elijah glares to him like he wants to tear the hazel-eyed blonde’s face off. “Now we know that he isn’t really what he seems. Something’s definitely up with him, even more so with the answers he gave- I mean, c’mon, ‘Addison’? Hell kind of a last name is that, especially when it sounds like a play on the words ‘Afton’?”
His last name.
Everyone stares at each other with knowing eyes- the unblinking eyes of unsettled deja-vu that strikes them mind deep, daresay plucks a chord from within their soul. They’re all thinking of the same thing- the brunette boy with eyes of darkness and light, harboring a relentless fire and unbreakable spirit that never falters once.
“...We’ll figure it out eventually.”
By god did they hope that they would fulfill that half-assed promise.
***
Later that night, the dreams that plagued Michael were beyond strange. At first, they started as memories of the past.
Evan as a cooing infant, babbling and making faces at him from in his arms- a sweet, magical little thing, beautiful and full of life and warmth and joy. His mother’s eyes, tired but green and shining viridian with joy. His father, laughing along with her, the colors of his cheer accentuated especially in his smile. The joy at the sight brings him heartache.
The colors invert, the scents shift and turn like gears and cogs beneath his nose, and suddenly he is in front of four year-old Evan on the carousel. The carousel- always a hit-or-miss ride for Evan: some he loved, and some he didn’t. Ever-changing, adaptable, transient- reflective like his nature.
The memories flash and invert, playing out before him like an old cartoon reel- him and Elizabeth watching cartoons, them scribbling drawings together, him looking up at Michael with tears in his large doe-eyes, harboring darkness and light in them.
The sight before him glitches like some old computer’s or camera’s CRT- like the screens back at the arcade or at school, and suddenly everything is light- hazy in tones of sepia and oversaturated, so much so that he can barely make out the outlines amidst the afternoon light floating through the window. He can hear his brother singing a track Mother once sang to him… but he’s changed the lyrics- he tunes his ear and feels his heart drop with countless pangs of soul-crushing guilt.
“Same old empty feeling in your heart…”
Empty… him? Was he empty, were they all?
Why did the thought of associating his brother with the word ‘empty’ despair him so? He wasn’t supposed to care. He wasn’t supposed to remember.
DON’T CRY.
His head pounds, he jumps, quivering in his boots- for the first time, genuinely scared- something screams at him from within, the voices in his head conflicting, rising and falling over one another in their unbearable, overwhelming clamor like the tide.
DON’T BE SAD. DON’T BE SCARED.
What in the hell-
ł ₩łⱠⱠ ₳Ⱡ₩₳Ɏ₴ ฿Ɇ ₩ł₮Ⱨ ɎØɄ.
A bang, a burst of sudden light. Face locked in a silent scream that has his jaws aching. He swims and drowns, kicks and screams, falls and flies and falls and continues to fly, fly, fly. Colors and lines and reality are nonexistent, smudged and chromatic and oversaturated, all too bright and overstimulating. His hands reach out to grab nothing, and yet they are sticky and slick with something liquid, something red.
Blood blood blood blood why is there blood.
Memories zip through his mind- of the past that was and the future that never was. Of neon lights and colors all too bright, of a ponytailed woman with blonde hair and the same green eyes as Elizabeth- her and the same boy fondly gazing back at him but why was he so tall and why was his body not his own.
Will you change? Maybe.
Will things change? Always.
Will you be okay? I promise.
His cheeks are wet- tears, the distinct and burning taste of salt in his mouth- his entire body on fire. The surroundings flickered in and out of reality before a brutal slam into the earth- the soft fabric of his bed’s mattress. He tries to scream, tries to beg himself to wake up wake up wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup-
Slam.
Darkness.
Michael gasps awake to utter darkness.
The dusk of the previous night and the subtle paleness of the hazy moonlight had not yet faded. The murky, overcast embers of twilight clouded the lens of his vision as he blinked multiple times to clear his head, to no avail. The full moon was a bright coin in the sky, stars attending and flanking it perfectly, some of the celestial bodies masked by coffee-dark clouds.
Michael still feels as though he is falling, dizzy, looking through the open window and shivering in the nonexistent draft. Closing his eyes, the vertigo comes back, and he has to prop his arms up on the bed to keep himself from falling over and collapsing into painful unconsciousness again. Into a longing to relive simpler, more joyful days.
He places a hand against his pounding heart, racing a mile a minute, quaking from within inside his ribcage and jacknifed into a fetal position.
I’m not supposed to remember this. This didn’t happen. This never happened, why why why why why.
His head is matted and thick with sweat, bangs sticking to his forehead- he presses his temples to calm the feverish pain, to cool the liquid lava burning and molten, coursing through his veins and threatening to decay him from within. “I’m going crazy…” he seethes under his breath- this can’t be a coincidence. But… he’s being unrealistic.
His body refuses to get up for a while and it takes a few attempts to haul himself off his bed, glued to the mattress with sweat and sticky, uncomfortable warmth, the blankets only adding fuel to the fire. Michael had to practically roll off and pathetically hobble to the door as if he were some incapacitated elderly man. It was fine, he told himself. Everything’s fine- he’ll just go downstairs, watch some TV to cool himself off, take a walk, get a snack to eat, turn on the fan to stop his body temperature from spiking too high and melting him from the inside out- to hell with the others if he woke them up, they could go rot for all he knew-
“Do you know what time it is?”
Shit.
He whirls around to see Elizabeth, the ginger-haired girl in the dark peering at him with scrutinizing green eyes, still dressed in her pink pajamas with those signature heart patterns. Her hair was tied up into a haphazard, messy ponytail done with a red scrunchie to keep it out of her face. Merely the sight of her makes him scoff in annoyance at this hour.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he grumbles. Liz tilts her head, raising an eyebrow- where’d she get that insolence? “We’ve got medicine in the cabinet for that.”
“Yes, but then I’d be sleeping,” he mumbles back, a hare’s breadth away from his words turning incoherent- he didn’t have the energy to speak, lest he fell asleep on the couch or fainted midway descending the stairs. Goodness knows the enigma that befell him in his dreams ever since the sly doppelganger of his crybaby younger brother came to stay with his family.
“Bad dreams?” she asks. Michael froze. How did she…?
“Your face says it all- you’re obviously a bit shaken…” she pauses, carefully evaluating and choosing her next words- it was surprising, she usually had no filter. “It’s about Gregory, isn’t it? The idea of someone finally putting you in your place is something I can get used to,” she smirks.
“If you rat me out to Father about this, I’ll kill you,” he hisses through gritted teeth, already defensively turning around and teeth bared. His younger sister puts his hands up in playful and sly surrender. “Calm down- I wasn’t going to. But why don’t you like him? He’s so kind to Evan and me… maybe if you were nicer to him, he’d be the same to you,” she whispers inquisitively, her raised brow a question that demanded to be answered. “I want to know who he is. Nothing more, nothing less,” he simply replies, gritting his teeth and biting his lip for a beat too long before the tension in his muscles uncoil once more with the fall of his chest, the exhale of warm air puffing through his flaring nostrils.
The palpable curiosity emanating from the ginger’s aura increase- the flecks chartreuse in her green eyes glimmer. “You think he’s hiding something?”
“I think he’s not all that he appears to be. He doesn’t seem like a criminal, but he’s definitely no saint, either. I just can’t seem to figure him out as easily as others… and that frustrates me way more than it should. Does it not bother you? Or do you just trust strangers left and right?” Michael mumbles, finally speaking the genuine truth- a part of him was appalled that he was confessing his privatemost thoughts about the peculiar stranger, Gregory, to his younger sister. His younger sister, of all people.
A smirk crawls steadily up the sides of her mouth, like how diminutive droplets trickles down a window on a rainy day- except they don’t flow down, but up. As if gravity isn’t right.
As if nothing is right.
“Well, your thoughts about him are just another reason not to cross him, right?” she asks, voice as bright and as distinctly british as ever. “Do us all a favor and don’t turn the TV on, lest you’re dumb enough to wake him up.”
And with that, she excuses herself and turns around to waddle back to her room, her creepy and odd Circus Baby doll in tow dangling from her hand, as if she’d officially dismissed him. A silent scoff escapes from the blue-eyed teen’s mouth- clearly, she’s been spending way too much time around Father.
He tries to focus on the world of hidden color cloaked in the darkness around him, mired in the barely visible embers of early daybreak with the lights turned off. Burgundy red, cerulean, forest green, maple brown, pthalo blue- all pooling out throughout his vision, darker hues of tangerine orange and and a deep indigo lining the corners of the outlined objects in the room. Already black areas become devoid of dimension, of reality, entirely- taking on a new shade of a shard of the encroaching pitch-dark abyss, the sight consuming the space in front of his eyes like ink, speeding up every time he blinked. They invert sometimes, distorting and shifting like memories- the blackness flickering like static, the vertigo resurfacing as he sits down on the steps, devoid of any particular emotion entirely, and starts to bask in being alone- in the setting, pale moonlight trickling across his skin with warmth through the windows and open curtains.
His surroundings are ethereal- almost surreal, liminal. The silent hum of twelve AM around him is lilting and dark, and the only thing keeping him sane in otherwise complete silence.
Lost in thoughts all alone, Michael can feel himself slowly, lightly drift. No matter how hard he tries, he’s miserably unable to shake the thoughts of the boy in the blue shirt from his mind.
Unable to shake Gregory from his mind.
______________________________________________________________
“Boring…”
William cranes his neck towards the source of the noise, curiosity piqued ever so slightly. He had been carrying a box of supplies to his workshop when he heard what sounded like Gregory’s voice coming from the living room, and he had peeked in to find a rather curious sight. “Boring… so completely boring. Ugh…” the brunette grumbles before closing the book and sighing, sprawling himself out flat on the couch. It is silent for a while, and then he speaks up again, not seeming to acknowledge the inventor’s presence: “Why do I feel like the standard of writing is going down by the day? I’ve searched through way too many books to count, and not one of them’s struck me as an actual page-turner so far… are the authors even doing their jobs?”
Icy blue eyes glance to the cover of the book, intrigued and wanting to know more. Out of the periphery of his vision, he spots the title- The Woman In Black. A bestseller.
His slightly widened eyes, lips ever-so-slightly parted to reveal a thin crease of teeth inside, and his raised brows say it all to no one in particular- he had mostly expected the peculiar child to read one of Elizabeth’s books, and not truly share Evan’s exquisitely unique taste in reading where he aimlessly searches through novels that don’t make sense, only to discard them like garbage after reading the first one or two chapters in. Even so, how could he possibly be bored of that? A horror story not suitable for young children? Should William even be allowing him to read this in the first place? He feels a slight pang of guilt befall him for being so irresponsible, yet coming as quickly as it fades.
His brows lower and crease in worry as a sudden sense of deja-vu befalls him. It’s too similar. The appearances, the adaptable, witty personality, and now the interests- the only difference being that Gregory had confidence to boot. He was more sure of himself, and yet more unpredictable than Evan. Dutiful and dignified one moment around him, then aloof, bratty, headstrong and opportunistically mischievous the next with another person- like he was a version of him that experienced life, grew and mature and changed for the better. The only constant in him was change, this enigma of reflection that he senses - beneath the impending, faint sense of emptiness. Not within himself, yet within the child in front of him- the comically bored child, sad and empty and heartbroken.
William shakes off the odd feeling, and feels himself making a logistical decision in his head, muted colours in his mind spreading out like watercolour in the prism of light, unfurling like the petals of blooming flowers. And against his better judgement- out of sheer, dumb curiosity, he decides to go talk to the kid, his foster son, lying upside down on the couch even when he had better things to do.
“Book not to your liking?” he asks, carefully punctuating his tone to sound lightly amused- silvery and melodious in delivery. Gregory’s eyes appear to be wide and bulging out of sheer boredom as his bangs fall over his eyes- a side effect of gravity as he positions himself to sit back upright, muscles relaxing and releasing their tension in his presence. “Dissapointing, dumb and stereotypically cliche. The descriptions and characters make me lose brain juice with every word I read. And it’s not even scary at all. What more must I say to insult the author’s lack of skill?” he replies, bemoaning his obvious lack of interest. “Once again, I’m left unsatisfied.”
He has to suppress a chuckle- the warm feeling of familiarity and fondness at such satire expressed from the boy across from him. Temporary, temporary. This is only temporary, transient, worthless- foolish. None of this shall last.
William quirks an eyebrow. “Evan’s terrified of that book, mostly due to what others older than him have told him about it. Mostly Michael and his friends trying to extinguish his curiosity… and I can see that all it did was elicit a few humorless laughs from you,” he remarks.
The young brunette leans into one of the cushions on the couch nonchalantly, eyes of shimmering stars of amber, opal and gold, and twilight, heavenly black staring back at him, celestial bodies of ironic levity glistening in his gaze. “I daresay he’ll have any different of a reaction from mine.”
“And what makes you say that?” William asks.
A moment of hesitant silence hangs thick in the air, like fog clouding the distance around and five feet ahead. Gregory sighs, looks down, closing his eyes for a brief moment of respite- as if pondering on a distant dream, a memory from long, long ago.
“I’d… rather not say.”
Suspicion settles into his bones, burning and yet frigid, hot and yet cold. It is only temporary.
Some more comfortably awkward silence envelops them, before William sighs, the first one to look away, gaze falling back downcast to the box in his hands. Rummaging through the box untapped shut, his hand rummages through the leftover miscellaneous and scattered items of cloth and supplies before pulling out a dusty leather tome- a book he hadn’t touched since high school, before he traveled to America.
“Here,” he gently beckons, placing the book in Gregory’s lap. “A properly translated english copy of One Thousand and One Nights.”
“Oh?” he questions, his eyebrows conveying the hues of intrigue. His eyes sparkle as he stares at the cover, flips through the pages, glimpsing fragments of the words- of the magical world hidden within. “Huh, this one seems interesting so far,” the boy murmurs, his expression hopeful- William doesn’t know why he takes such immense satisfaction in his pleasure. “Maybe I won’t be bored out of my mind today after all. Thanks,” he tersely finishes, a subdued smile making its way onto his face. Gentle, demure features stare back at him, and it feels as though William’s heart stops in his chest- he is frozen in time, as if for a moment, he’s staring back at his son- a reflection in an unclear mirror, the surroundings calm, shrouded in an ethereal tranquility and silence that brought him peace for the first time in so long.
“Gregory!”
And just like that, the moment was shattered.
His wife, Eleanor, appears through the kitchen door, car keys in hand and bright, ginger curls of a richer and darker shade bouncing on her shoulders. “We’re going to pick up your foster siblings from school, now!” she cheerfully calls, mirth and merriment melodiously evident in her call.
“Coming~!” Gregory says back, instantly shutting the book in his hands- taking One Thousand and One Nights with him tucked comfortably under his arm, and leaving A Woman In Black behind on the couch. He strolls out the front door, looking back only to nod at William and smile once more at him, without a care in the world.
Unable to think, the inventor gets up, brushing the dust off his knees and taking the cardboard box of supplies in his arms once more. His thoughts race, and he sighs, speaking aloud to himself in hopes to attain some semblance of clarity.
“I ought to get this taped shut for tomorrow.”
But the words never come out like they’re supposed to.
And his thoughts never stop racing, trailing like the flow of a river back to that boy. The brunette enigma that walked into his life and made himself all the more known.
______________________________________________________________
“Good afternoon,” Gregory cooes at Michael in half-mock sweetness, nudging his arm- teasing the poor boy with the Foxy mask had become one of his many favorite pasttimes. “You look terribly drowsy, didn’t you sleep well? Tsk-tsk, I thought not sleeping was supposed to be our brother’s job… come, then, out with it- what were you up to last night, hmm?” he asks. The front hood of the white car he’s sitting on, presumably belonging to someone else, slightly dents under his weight.
“Go fuck yourself,” Michael shoots back with so much contempt even he had to concede he was avoiding the question. His cheeks flush crimson, and the brunette android can’t help but let out the giggle he barely tried to stifle. Cute.
“Awh, ouch. At least you could treat your foster sibling kinder for not ratting you out, yet~?”
“I am,” the taller growls back, ocean blue eyes flaring with annoyance underneath the muggy, hot sun. “By not beating you up where you stand.” Gregory can’t help it- more satirizing, artificially honey-coated words fall from his lips. “That stings, I’ll admit~ but I love you too.”
Silence- awkward coughs and lip bites, the only ambiance in the background being his mother conversing with Michael’s teacher, the two women sounding substantially disappointed, faces twisted into obvious displeasure. Craning his neck to get a better view, he leans his body back ever so slightly, trying to see clearly the angry napthol red marks amidst the multitude of papers in the ginger woman’s hands. “Those your failed tests?” he asks, to which Michael huffs out a solemn nod of acknowledgement and affirmation as his answer. “What else did you think it was?” he mumbles after silence passes for a beat too long.
He quirks up an eyebrow. “Why can’t you just search up the answers on the internet?”
Wide blue eyes bore into his soul, trying to intently read him. “The hell…? You mean ‘arpanet’, right?” he asks, expression conveying one of bewilderment and obvious confusion.
“No?” Gregory asks, equally confused- what was this guy’s deal? “The internet. It’s quite easy. Just go onto Wikipedia-”
Michael spreads his arms out, fingers parted wide. “Wait wait wait, hold on,” he asks, throwing his hands up in surrender before letting them merely fall at his side. “Now you’re talking about searching through an Encyclopedia for information? And why the hell do you call it a ‘Wikipedia’?”
Realization hits the brunette like a truck.
1983, dumbass. Internet was still developing back then.
He quickly withdraws, tight-lipped. Stupid stupid stupid, he chides himself as he feels those burning, stove-flame blue eyes bore into his soul like cobalt and azurite pricking his outer layer, intently prodding to pick apart the flesh and peer at the bones within until he was examined and figured out from every angle. “Nevermind- ignore me. I’m being thoughtless with my words. Let’s just hope your friends aren’t too late…”
Michael rolls over the words, mouthing it silently, spelling out ‘internet’ and ‘wikipedia’ on his tongue without sound. For the first time in a long time, the LED processor hidden underneath his bangs flashes and flickers, turning to yellow.
Anxious, apprehensive shades of yellow, beneath the surface, barely there. Hoping that if it disguised itself from the human eye hard enough, it would no longer exist.
______________________________________________________________
Evan had peered at the window earlier, golden afternoon sunlight somehow growing dimmer sooner than it should, even with the approach of spring. Somehow colder, less warm and welcoming on his skin. The chatter of children took place as usual, kids his age murmuring amongst themselves- except everything was muted. Sounds were of a faded, low quality audio- as if everything were pre-recorded and playing to him. “Dude, you good?” Cindy had asked earlier, only for him to nod as if on autopilot, not even bothering to establish even a moment of eye contact. He was about to finish his family tree activity- mapping out him and his family members, and he had even drawn pictures of Elizabeth, Michael and his parents, and had originally dismissed it as a symptom of hyperfocusing on a particular activity.
He glances to the blank box branching off where he is supposed to write his name, the big bold letters of ‘ME’ displayed above it. It was so easy, just writing out his name in his sharp, punctuated handwriting in all big capital letters on the blank before him- ‘Evan’.
His name was Evan.
And the countless nights before twelve AM, where he would stare at the ceiling shrouded in utter darkness, the same old empty feeling weighing down his heart- some nights he cried for no apparent reason at all, begging for the nightmares to come as a distraction from the growing sense of his broken form, his sense of everything being wrong and out of place, his missing everything.
Those nights of emptiness from inside would say otherwise.
As if he were in front of a large, predatory animal, on longer at the top of the food chain- but instead of being devoured whole and thrown headfirst into crushing, abyssal nonexistence, the eyes of someone much more powerful than his pissant, insignificant self continue to stare at him, piercing him, asking him that one true question before the night swallows him and leaves him all alone to float adrift:
Self, self. What is self?
What is the true self hiding within, the one who is pure, untainted by mistakes, by tragedy, by pain?
What is the true self inside him if his heart were full, if he were satisfied? Was it the current form he inhabited, his imperfect body that was mired in charcoal stains compared to everyone that shined like gold? With their nymphlike faces, bodies, voices and eyes that masked a plethora of intentions from person to person? Was it the kindness and supposed integrity, the skill and talent that measured the worth of a person? Was it, mayhaps, their interests- their actions and reactions? Was it the love they gave to the world, or the love they got back?
Maybe it was the breathing of a being not fully conscious, only taking hold truly when a gasp or stutter causes one to stumble, and the mind takes control. Maybe it is the true self, the spirit inside that soaks in fulfillment, in peace, and can breathe easier.
He scoffs softly- save for the occasional greeting or respectful nod of acknowledgement, he hadn’t gotten any true love ever since he turned five. With Father’s and Mother’s fights getting worse by the day, with the cracks and rifts in his family spreading wider, growing deeper, he didn’t think anyone felt love at all nowadays. He didn’t think anyone could breathe easy in the slightest, despite the facade they projected to his friend- from the rest of the world as this picture perfect family with picture perfect children.
His image- sensitive crybaby with a fragile form and a broken heart. Their image- stereotypes, with or without evident flaws.
And what had he to show for all his hard work in keeping himself together and living despite it all, keeping up this image of innocence and youth? Nothing but a few more scars and a pain that knows no end, jagged and rough against all that had formerly been unblemished. Things were much happier, much better, when Gregory came, though.
Gregory. The one who shared his eyes.
He feels an almost obsessive feeling crawl over him as he scribbles over his name, erases it for the uptienth time- a need, a primal hunger, an intense desire that flares akin to a wildfire from within, sudden passion, fury and love quietly dampened by basic social awareness, yet refusing to be extinguished as he continued to drift. Every time when he is near, he feels the sense of long-held emptiness be fulfilled. He can feel himself shudder with sheer power coursing through his veins- pure strength and might to carry on in it’s most electrical, magical form, as if his capability were unfurled, maturing from the bud of a malnourished flower and suddenly fully realized with the help of a saving grace.
He felt… complete. Fulfilled. As if he wanted to be him.
As if that mysterious enigma was the only one that ever understood him. As if, at some point… he was just like him.
And even though he’s scribbled and erased a thousand times over, staring blankly with eyes joyless, dry and devoid of even the slightest speck of light, the stars draped in a dark cloth with clouds taking on the hues of coffee, he still cannot fathom the unreachable answer, the escaping light at the end of the tunnel, trudging through the bog and searching.
What is my name? Who exactly, truly, am I?
He feels exhausted, as though he cannot reach the end.
And it seems as though he shall never know, even when all things always reveal themselves with the passage of time. Time cruel, time unforgiving- time that only serves to hurt and take things away.
Evan hopes amidst the maplewood pews, underneath the filtered light of the intricate stained glass- underneath the eyes of judgement that saw what even he could not, what his identity was and what the entity known as him could exist as- he could maybe grow one step closer to the answer that has evaded him for years.
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