Hallucinations // h.s

Chapter 2

I clearly remembered the day before everything fell apart, even now, as the first strike of thunder vibrated throughout the still air while I concentrated on the luminous light shining from the window.

It was a Friday evening at the end of fall. The day was chilly and the cold wind felt like feeble whiplashes against my cheeks as I was walking back home after school had ended. The harmony of the slight sun yet sharp pinches of the cool air made it an absolute necessity for me to bask in the weather. I couldn't get enough of it. Out of all the trees in their transitioning phase due to the seasonal change, red maples and white oaks were my favorite. They weren't the most unique, but the vibrant colors of their altering leaves left me stunned.

As I let the perfect weather envelope me, I finally approached my house.

It was a quaint, average-sized home that my dad, older sister, and I lived in. Apparently, the previous owners thought it was a good idea to paint it an awful mint color, so now we were stuck with a squat house with chipping green paint. And if that wasn't bad enough, stems of ivy grew in a horizontal line across the two windows on the second floor and around the door that stood under them, making it look like a pathetic old man with a horse shoe mustache and a unibrow. It was the only one like that in the whole entire neighborhood, making it stick out like a sore thumb. I had even remembered telling my dad to just take it off so we weren't the social outcasts of our town, but instead our conversation went a little like this:

"Dad, when are you gonna cut down that stupid ivy? It looks like we're living inside a perverted homeless man."

Where he proceeded to say: "I'm not taking it down, it gives the house character."

My sister violently nodded her head like the kiss ass she was.

I proceeded to say again: "Character, my ass."

Where Dad lastly proceeded to say again: "Damn, Ember. Since when did you become so judgemental? Maybe the perverted homeless man of a home wants to be loved too. It's called standing up for equal rights, child."

Where he then still refused to take down the damn ivy.

And even after that, Dad made me water the entire ivy for a whole month, just to prove a point. I didn't even want to imagine what that looked like. Just a nineteen year old girl casually watering her house's mustache and unibrow, don't mind me.

The only perk was when the seasons changed, like it was now. The green ivy would change into a bright red along with all the other leaves and compliment our green abode. When Autumn and Winter finally approached, bam; we had instant early Christmas decorations.

I shook off the memories and entered the cursed house to find my dad and his lazy ass on the creme colored sofa watching TLC.

"One day that stuff is gonna rot your brain, old man," I told him before slipping my shoes off in a messy manner and throwing my book bag on the nearest chair.

"Shouldn't I be the one giving you life lessons?"

Yeah, right.

"I gave up on asking for your advice right after you told me our house wants to be loved," I snorted.

He rolled his eyes and huffed. I swear I heard him say something along the lines of 'kids these days' but I could never be too sure.

"Anyway," I plopped down besides him on the faux leather couch, "What are you watching?"

"I don't know. Some stupid beauty pageant bullcrap," he murmured before switched the channel to the local news. They were going off about how mental illness hospitals that once resided in the city all relocated to suburban areas in the past couple years.