A Tale of Regret.

This story has not been edited to fix errors in spelling or grammar, so please don't judge too harshly in that And, yes, everything in this story is real as far as my own past. I've not intentionally falsified anything as far as I can tell. It is just from memory, so I may have made some mistakes. Of course, no one would know anyway, right? And, of course, I didn't really time travel...
Oh yeah, it isn't finished yet. So when you get to the end

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The moment I began to wake I knew something was wrong. The bed was different; it was springy, uncomfortable, cold...and empty. I opened my eyes to a bright morning sun streaming through a window where there shouldn't have been one. I sat up abrubtly and immediately took stock of my surroundings. The blankets covering me were all old, blankets that had been around for most of my life. One of them was a quilt that had been made by a long-dead relative. I hadn't seen it in years. The hands clenching the edge of the blanket were thinner, smoother, and less scarred than they had been the night before.

This couldn't be happening... It must be a dream, I assured myself. No, fuck that. This was a freakin' nightmare! How could I end one night in the happiest period of my life to wake up in this shithole? I shook my head, pinched my skin, focused on the fact that this was just a dream. Sometimes, if I tried hard enough, I could shake myself free of nightmares by recognizing that they weren't real. Sometimes it worked. Unfortunately, this wasn't like most of those dreams. I could escape those because I could tell that they weren't real, that they were just nasty dreams. But this was all too real.

I slowly pulled the blankets off of my legs. Almost hairless... Every detail that was slowly filtering through my eyes was exactly as it had been...whenever this was. The dirty carpet, the dirty clothes strewn across the floor and the broken dresser. The clean clothes shoved in a plastic bucket by the door, since I had always been too lazy to put them away. A computer desk sitting under the window directly across from the closed door, and the old piece of shit computer sitting atop it. A PlayStation was sitting on top of the dresser next to it, and the small television set next to that. Yes, this was, without a doubt, my old room.

I swung my legs off the bed and dropped my head into my hands. How the hell could this be? Did I just fucking time travel? Even I, of all people, hardly believed that possible. Or perhaps it was just that I didn't want to believe that it was possible. I still wanted to believe that this was a dream. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to do it? I barely made it through the first time. Now I had to deal with him again. Him, the man who nearly destroyed my life. The man who destroyed my sister's life. My mother's ex-boyfriend. Well...not anymore. If I was in this house, then that meant they were still together.

I pulled my pants on; they were sitting on the floor next to my bed where I had obviously left them the night before. Old habits die hard. I remembered socks being somewhere in the barely functioning dresser. It didn't take long to find them. The drawer immediately above them was missing, leaving the socks below in plain view. I didn't even bother opening that drawer. I remembered that I never did. My shoes were an old rotting pair of Vans, brown and black. They were they only pair of Vans that I'd ever had, or intented to ever have. I hated name-brand clothing. I hated anything that brought attention to me. But I hadn't bought the shoes, so I didn't complain.

I took one last look around what had once been my sanctuary, the only place I could go to escape what I had come to terms with as the demon of my past. Only now that wasn't true. I spotted the writing desk against the wall between the dresser and the bed. It had belonged to my brother at one time. It was ugly, and uncomfortable to sit in. And the corner of it was missing a fist-sized hole. I obviously hadn't put it there yet. I shook my head, tried to scatter the memories of a life that hadn't even happened yet, apparently. I knew I couldn't stay in this room forever. If there was something I needed to do to escape this hell, then I needed to hurry up and get it done. Sometimes, in stories, there was some sort of key, or activation, that allowed the person to move on or escape. Obviously, this wasn't a story. But, again, this sort of shit only happened in stories.

I opened the door to the hall beyond. Directly across from my door was my mother and Eric's bedroom. The door was open and the bed was empty. I wasn't sure where my mother was, but I could hear sports on the television down the hall. I remember waking up every damn morning to the sound of sports on the T.V. It didn't matter what sport it was, or who was playing. He would watch it. God I hated sports. A slam in the kitchen told me my mother was in there. Or perhaps it was my sister. Had she left yet? I couldn't remember. How could I remember? I didn't even know what year it was. I was in highschool, I knew that. But was I a freshman? Or a senior? Had I met her yet?

I forced my legs to carry me down the hall. On my left, just passed my mother's bedroom, was the bathroom. The door was open, and it was empty. The familiar green, my mother's favorite color, seemed more ackward to me now than it had been before. On my right was my sister's room. The door was shut. I wasn't about to open it, not without being sure. I had finally reached the end of the hall. It felt like a nightmare all in itself, a mix of one where you are trying to get somewhere, but your goal is constantly receding, and where you are trying to run away from something but for some reason you can't run worth a damn. In my mind I was walking into the depths of Hell itself. And for all intents and purposes, I was.

On my right was the living room. The corner of the living room directly in front of me held my mother and Eric's computer. It was on, a swirling mash of colors telling me it hadn't been used in a while. Next to that was the green couch, facing toward the wall to my right. I took a few more steps forward. The couch was empty, facing the T.V. screen against the wall in front of a large window. I knew, then, that he was against the wall to my right, in his usual chair.

His sudden laugh sent shivers down my spine. God I hated that laugh. Almost as much as the sports he watched. He sounded so stupid, a high pitched laugh like it was forced. It probably was. A man like him most likely didn't have natural good humor anywhere in his soul.

The kitchen was on my left. My mom was standing at the sink with her back to me, staring out the window at whatever the dogs were barking at. She was slowly scrubbing the pan she had just used to make Eric breakfeast. I knew there would be none for me. There never was.

"You don't eat unless it is put in front of you!" "If you got up earlier, maybe we'd make you breakfeast!" There was a never ending stream of excuses or complaints, mostly from Eric. But sometimes my mom would feed off of his vibes and start acting the same way. I knew now that she didn't always mean it. She did what she had to do to put up with the man. They always say, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

But this wasn't an ideal morning to ponder whether or not she was at fault for being with the prick. I silently turned around and headed back to my room. I need to know "when" I was. I wasn't prepared to speak to either of them, not without an understanding of my circumstances. If I sounded too much like a dimwit, they would start asking questions. And I didn't have any answers. I quietly shut the door behind my and turned on the monitor to my computer. I usually left the computer on, so I didn't have to wait for it to start up. I sat down in the chair, another hand-me-down that was hardly functional. But I suppose it was better than standing. The date on the bottom left corner of the screen made my heart drop.

I guess because of the chaos we faced around this time last year, I never saw you post this. It gives me goosebumps, reading it!

I just want to delete it. I don't really like it, either revisiting the memories or my writing style.

I guess that is why it is so special. It's not really you...and yet, it is. A part of you without the Righteous Knight of the Order of Gedrich persona keeping you calm and composed.