FFXIV Write: 04 – Extra Credit

Intro Line Prompt: As soon as she walked in, she felt the tension…

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Content Warning: Suggested Domestic Abuse

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As soon as she walked in, she felt the tension. It rasped on the air like static electricity dancing upon the skin. The reek of alcohol, stale sweat, and piss lingered on the air. Evidence of broken furniture, thrown crockery, and torn sofa pillows flit along her periphery. A single feather drifted down from where it had gotten hung on one of the rafters, coming to a downy-soft landing not a fulm in front of her. What was the most terrifying about this scene was the silence.

Her ears shifted forward, straining to hear anything, anything at all. Not even the mantle clock tick-tocked the minutes as they passed, but then the mantle clock was broken. Shattered, it lay on its side by the hearth, springs and cogs spewing forth from the crack in its side like so many mechanical entrails. Just silence. Eerie, out-of-place silence.

“M-mother…?” Even a whisper sounded like thunder in the ominous quiet. In the distance, floorboards creaked and there was a grunting growl. The rattle of a glass bottle being kicked across the floor, the subsequent crash as it broke against a far wall. Her ears flattened against her head and she shrank against the doorjamb of the front door, not wanting to venture into her own home any further. Something Dangerous was here.

But she could not leave her mother alone.

“M-mother…?!” Again, shattered stillness. Again, in the distance Something Stirred.

” ‘Ati?” It grumbled, mumbling the word through a visage gone numb from drink and drugs. Silhouette stumbled into view at the far end of the house, framed in the doorway of mother’s bedroom. ” ‘Ssat you?”

She clapped both hands over her mouth, unwilling to make a reply and draw it’s attention toward her. Yet, her malachite gaze dared look past that malefic shadow, trying to find some sign of her mother in the room beyond. Nothing. Nothing and no one.

The Shadow shuffled closer, avoiding the light that streamed in through the open window. Curtains drifted on an errant breeze, bearing with it the clean, leafy smells of the Shroud beyond. It helped to waft away the stench that lingered, but as the Shadow drew closer it only served to reinforce those malodorous scents. She abandoned her post at the doorjamb, backing out of the doorway to the porch, fumbling her way down the steps on uncertain — or perhaps unwilling — feet. Mother was still in there. She had to help mother.

The best thing you can do for your mother now is to run. Run and find help. As if manifested by her own conscience, her carbuncle, Bitters, appeared next to her in a glimmer of aether butting his head against her shins to encourage her to leave.

She looked in askance at the doorway, at the Shadow that continued to lurch closer, side-winding its way across the house toward the open front door. There was no getting around it, no bulling her way past it. She knew as sure as the sun rose that she did not want to be caught by it.

Please, Katja. Run! Her carbuncle urged.

“But mother…!” She protested, looking between the construct and the door once again. Guilt filled her heart along with dread, as if she knew what Fate she was leaving her mother to if she turned tail now.

She will understand. She would want you safe. You cannot help her if that monster has you, too. Find Lieutenant Ohuxael, he has always been kind enough to help you.

A course of action given, an egress from this frightful stand-off, Katja nodded before turning to bolt back down the lane toward Sweetbloom Pier and the boat that would take her back to Gridania and safety. She vowed in her heart that she would come back once she found the kindly Adder, she would win mother back from the monster.

Next time, she would not be so afraid.