Icarus

Nothing

Nothing

A bad vibe crept up his spine and caused his stomach to grumble. His head hurt. His whole body was in pain. Something was off. Maybe it was because he didn't remember anything from last night. Maybe because he was standing in a middle of a trashed room he had never seen before.

Two of the room's walls were decorated with dissected butterflies trapped in plastic frames, the other one had a big white cloth covering most of it and the last one was filled with black and white pictures and an old wooden desk right next to the locked door.

Mac walked towards it, forced the door but it didn't open. Then he directed his gaze to the desk, grabbed one of the pictures, and frowned.

"What the--" He couldn't finish what he started to say. His heart began racing, his blood filled with fear. The situation had the word danger written all over it. He grabbed more pictures, one after the other.

Cassie was in all of them...some of her walking down the street, others in a library, dancing ballet, at a restaurant, leaving Tate's house. He felt like he was invading her privacy even though he wasn't the one who took the pictures.

Who took them then? It definitely wasn't Tate since he was in some of the pictures. He threw all of them. They flew and landed in random places in the room. One picture, though, remained on the desk.

It was a picture of him on the floor of the room, sleeping. This must be a sick joke, he thought. Mac tapped his jeans' pocket and of course, his phone wasn't there. He heard a noise coming from behind the door...steps getting closer and closer.

"Hello?" he yelled. "Who are you?"

Stepping on the pictures, he stood in the center of the room looking at the door. His hands formed in trembling fists and his chest moved up and down following the rhythm of his breathing. A drop of sweat slid on his forehead from his ginger hair to his pale freckled cheek.

The door opened.

"Pete?" Mac took a step back.

"You thought you'd never see me again, huh?" Pete opened his arms wide, revealing his tattooed skin. The whole scenario looked out of pace, Pete wore a black sleeveless shirt that had cuts on the neckline and back, obviously he didn't mind the cold weather or the blizzard coming from the open door.

"I...what is this?"

"Home." Pete slurred the words. Mac watched him as he closed the door. The blizzard stopped but the room remained cold and dark. Mac hadn't seen him in months, but it was clear that he hadn't been the same ever since he left.

"Now is the moment you ask 'what do you want?'" He lowered his voice and frowned, mimicking Mac as much as possible. Mac stared at him. He could feel his breath from far away.

"You don't want to talk...fine, I'll do the talking for you..." He looked Mac up and down and placed his hand on his chin, then thoughtfully added, "You were always the quiet one, you were so boring back then and also really demanding and moody, sometimes I asked myself why were you in the band since you didn't seem to be enjoying yourself."

He started moving around the room, circling Mac with long hard steps. "Where do I begin, eh? I guess I'll start from when you kicked me out of the band."

"We didn't kick you out, we just-"

"There is no need to lie," he said calmly, "you kicked me out as if I had meant nothing to the band." Mac felt Pete's face slowly contorting into rage, but snapping out of it in just a second, his face turned to a calm but grizzly form of acceptance. He smiled, showing his perfectly white teeth. "That reminds me of a phrase I love, it goes: hic iacet pulvis cinis et nihil'...do you know what it means?"