After All(2)

He knew his way and wouldn't get lost. In fact, as he walked, no one even looked at him twice. That was the thing about the area. As dirty and scary as it was, the people there weren't known to kidnap or assault people. They just wanted money for drugs. And being that Emmett was just a kid, with obviously no money on him, no one paid him any attention.

By the time he was getting close to the apartment, Emmett started to feel more like a man than ever. Not only did he walk home alone, through the tesseract, but people ignored him. He didn't even feel like a child anymore. He felt invincible.

It was because of this that he stopped being worried about why his mother didn't show up. He ran up the stairs two-by-two to the top floor of the apartment building and burst in through his door, wanting to tell his mother all about his walk.

But she wasn't there.

He tried to think if maybe she had gone back to work–that would be nice, it had been a while since he had a good, hot meal–and then went over to Jimmy's door down the hall to see if he knew where she was.

He knocked and knocked and finally a guy who was napping on the floor by the stairs looked up at him and said, "He's not home. Do you have a dollar, son?"

Emmett shook his head. "If I had a dollar, I'd be getting a pop right now. Have you seen my mother?"

The man squinted at him for a moment and then said, "Yeah. Emily, right? Last I saw she was outside the butcher."


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That didn't sound too bad. There was a meat store a block up that provided cheap meals if you had the extra change. Sometimes his mother was up there getting them food. Maybe he would have a nice meal tonight. He hadn't gotten anything special for his tenth birthday.

So Emmett put that thought into his head, pushing his worries aside, and went back into his home. He sat on the couch and watched the clock and waited.

Hours passed.

Night settled in.

And still his mother didn't come home.

He searched the cupboards for something to eat and found a packet of stale crackers that he wolfed down. Then he decided to go and look for her.

Everything is scarier in the dark. In the day time you can see the horrors around you but at night, they were shadowed, half-hidden, which made them even more monstrous. Emmett felt like he was being very brave by doing this, the time when things got a little wilder, a little more out of hand. But he remembered that people had ignored him earlier and he knew that he couldn't just wait for his mother forever. What if something had happened to her?

And for once, the reality of "what if" was hitting home. As he ran around the streets, asking for his mom, looking for her, dealing with people who scared him half to death, he started thinking about death. The worst-case scenario. His mother was using more and more, looking sicker and sicker every day.

What if, what if, what if?

It wasn't until he forced himself into the back alleys that he knew he was close to death.

He could smell it back here, feel the dark, oppressive vibe.

The brick walls were covered in graffiti, the ground littered with shit, vomit, plastic baggies, discarded needles.

There were people back here too, but not many of them were moving.

Most were slumped here and there, the needles in their arms shining under the dim lights.

He peered at each one of them.

They were alive, but barely. Lost in the dreams of the drug.

And he kept going.

Because now he knew, he knew in his young, small heart that his mother would be one of them.

He walked the alleys for what seemed like forever. It wasn't until he was in the one right behind his apartment that he saw a familiar pair of dirty tennis shoes poking out from behind a dumpster.

His breath caught in his lungs. Bile filled his mouth.

The feeling of pure, undiluted dread was incapacitating, a living, breathing thing that pushed down on him until he felt he was drowning.

His mother's legs weren't moving at all.

In the cold light, they almost looked blue.

He didn't know how long he stood there for, frozen in fear, his heart crumbling inside him. For all her flaws, she was his mother and the only person in the world he truly loved. He didn't want to see her like this. He wanted everything to go back to the way it was earlier. If he could go back through the tesseract, back to when his mother wasn't lying in the alley, before his life changed forever, he would. 

Be brave, Emmett told himself. You're a big boy now.

And he was. He straightened up his shoulders.

Took in a deep breath.

And peered around the dumpster.

That night everyone heard the cries of that boy.

They seemed to bounce off the alley walls forever, drowning out the sirens and the chaos of the streets.