Cyril jumped down the bike as soon as Tristian stopped it before his house, he ran ahead into his house, tripping, yelling at his mother, until she finally came out of the living room. "Cyril?"
"Mom, is papa, not my papa?"
She looked at him, "What? Of course he is! Who told you otherwise,"
"Glizzly Westburg"
That name made her facial expressions change drastically. We all inhabit secrets that we tend to forget about, things that hurt our existence to such an extent that we lock them up inside our unconsciousness and throw the key into darkness. Neither we nor anybody else knows where that key fell and what realm of darkness does our unconsciousness withhold? We do not know. Until we are forced to face that darkness once again when that key comes back to us.
You can either accept it or deny it and continue to live in an illusion. But that won't change the fact that the key still exists with or without your knowledge. And one day someone will find it and unlocks parts of you that are dirtier than a teenage wet dream. And they would always affect the people that love you, can you still choose who or what to love knowing that your secrets have the power to hurt them?
"I don't know who that is," She was stiff, ruthless and unwavering with her fragments until Cyril turned back, "I'll get a DNA test and find out by myself," She watched him go, and she felt like he won't be back, he must be stopped, she loved him. Regardless of his miraculous powers, and undulating strengths, she loved him because she made him. And she wanted him to love her too. But that, perhaps, would be too much to ask for,
"Your papa not your papa,"
Cyril turned towards her, "Whatever Glizzly told you...it's true. I had you in the ocean, you are the life force of the city of Atlantis; the city that I betrayed for power, youth and eternity. I was blinded, please, do forgive your mother," She was reaching towards him, wishing that he would love her too, hold her and tell her he still loved her. She wanted to be held, "Even since you've come into my life, I have always cared for you. You are my son, Cyril. Your flesh is what I made, if not your soul. And I love you. I'm miserable. Because everything I love...keeps leaving me. But you, I could lose everything but not you, Cyril," She was so close to touching his shoulders, but then, he spoke harshly,
"You do not care for me," Cyril moved away from her, "You watched papa hit me, torture me, lock me in my closet for doing things that I love, and force me into a sport I hate. You never did anything to stop him! I hated him, but now I know, that I don't hate him more than I hate you! You took me away from my home! You destroyed my life, "mother" and my "father" is a controlling, emotionless garbage! Tell him I said that," He threw his surfboard down, "Cuz I quit"
He turned back to leave but she yelled and she cried, "You were locked there! I wanted to help you!"
"You only wanted yourself! Clearly, that didn't work!"
"No, I wanted to save you from those...Atlantian monsters! It was only a utopia because you made it so. And in order to keep it a utopia, they had to lock you in those horrifying chambers until you die. And then, they'd bring another kid to do the same. That's a utopia that functions only if someone is extremely sad, lonely and confined. Only then, can all the Atlantians be happy and free,"
"Don't speak for me! I never asked you to help me! And how did you help me? By bringing me into your miserable world? If life above water was so pleasant, why did you choose to stay in Atlantis?! You could open the portal, you could travel back! ALONE! WHO THE FUCK WAS CONFINING YOU THERE?!"
She had never seen him this disconcerted, "Don't talk like that to me, I'm your mother!"
Cyril suddenly became quiet, and then, he spoke again, this time much calmer "When I die, I hope you realise, that you are not my mother," She looked at him, "That you are just a mortal woman who destroyed my perfect civilisation,"
"But it was not perfect. How many times do I tell you that you were caged? Forever. I freed you,"
"Is this freedom?" Cyril spread his arms while standing before a gigantic picture of his father, the flowers in the vase beside it were withering because she had forgotten to change them, "You say you freed me, so I ask you, mother... Are you free?"
She turned silent and reflected at once as she looked at the carpet underneath her. When she looked up again, he was gone.
She was abandoned.
She reached for her mirror and looked at her old and sagging skin. Her face slowly began losing its lustre, and her arms started thinning down, "Cyril..." Her hair slowly turned grey, and her frame turned small, extremely skinny and fragile. She laid down with the mirror between her hands, resting on her chest, and slowly turned her skin came apart as small grains of sand, leaving behind a tiny desert on the chair that once withheld her heavy body. The clock stopped moving and everything came to a standstill in that room, as if time just stopped the moment she died.
Cyril came outside, with Tristian waiting for him on his bicycle, "Are you okay?" He asked as he looked at his menacing eyes,
"Yes," Cyril replied as he passed by him but Tristian held his arm, "No, you're not." Cyril's blue eyes looked into Tristian's brown eyes, "Talk to me, Cyril. Let me help you."
"You can't,"
"I'll listen,"
"That's helping anything, Tristian. I'm done talking," He pulled his arm away from Tristian and began walking towards the ocean, "Cyril," Tristian ran behind him, "Cyril, listen to me,"
But he just kept on moving forward, "Your silence seems like you hate me,"
"It's not about you, Tristian," He glared at him, "Stop making everything about yourself! Right now, I could not give a single fuck about you! You do not matter to me! In fact, nobody does!"
Cyril began walking down the stairs to the beach, Tristian pressed his fingers upon themselves behind his back and got on his toes, nervous to speak, "Am I nobody now?"
"You're one of the men I've loved, but love seems so trivial before this! This absolute foreignness that defies to provide for me, for my identity!"
"One of the men, huh? You complain of losing an identity yet you refuse to provide me with one! I'm not "one of the men", Cyril. I am Tristian White...Scared,"
Cyril turned back at the last step and looked at Tristian, standing before the sky, standing at the top, looking so much bigger than him, bigger than the whole sky. "I'm so scared that you're ending this...Whatever we had. But I knew that we won't last-"
"I don't know how you got that idea, Tristian, but we never were anything," Cyril looked at Tristian, "Truth is, I hate myself. I hate how every bloody thing I touch, is filled with hatred to its brim. Look at you, you used to be happy and cheerful, and then you met me, and now you're trapped in a cycle of self-hatred, the agony of unrequited emotions and an idea of love. You don't even know me, Tristian. You imagine an idea of what I could be, and you love that. And that, that is your downfall,"
Tristian almost felt like crying, Cyril was so cold and...I can't seem to put it into words. He was mean, unrefined and cruel. And scared of love. The cruelty that scarred his maiden heart, turned it rancid and opaque and outgrew itself upon unfortunate souls, so much that at that instant, it would be a privilege to matter to Cyril Edwards.
He was gone.
-To be continued
Arthur
Undercover Blue Riot