The house stood quiet and forlorn, the sun casting creepy shadows around the yard. ‘Ah, home,’ Jack thought with a slight smirk. The last time he had been here was the day his father had died. The two story hut was in even worse shape than he remembered, but then again, he had been gone for almost eighteen years.
The windows were all either boarded or missing; the lawn was overgrown. The wooden steps leading up to the door were broken, and there were vines growing up the sides of the house. Yet, the overall feeling of the house hadn’t changed; it was still hostile and unforgiving.
The rusted gates squeaked as he forced them open, his heart begging him not to go in. He closed his eyes as the memories he had suppressed flashed back to him; the anguish he had suffered here brought tears to his eyes, but he continued forward.
The old wooden door fell off its hinges as he pushed past, his mind dwelling upon the past. He sat down on the dusty, moth-eaten couch and watched his memories play out before his very eyes, the ghosts of the past haunting him worse than ever. He watched as his mother got drunk and passed out on the floor; he watched his father stumble in and fall on her. He remembered how his father had stood up, took off his belt, and proceeded to beat his mother until she was black and blue. Then Jack watched as his 5 year old self tripped back up the stairs as his father grabbed the rod from the fireplace and walked up the stairs. He remembered that night and the pain he endured. There were many nights like that one, and there were many scars left as painful reminders.
Slowly Jack stood and strolled up the stairs. To the left was the closet they used as his room. It still smelled like urine and other bodily fluids to him, but then again, it might have just been his imagination. He thought about the night his mother hung herself in the doorway across the hall from his room. His father had gone nuts and beat him within an inch of his life. He had been a weak, scared ten year old boy, and he almost died. Forever after that he wished he had died. Social services had taken him with the doubts that he would ever recover, but he was sure he would. Even at that age, he knew recovery meant having to live with those memories until he died.