Lyra
My childhood home looked wrong.
The flowers growing along the porch were replaced with twisted black vines. The windows were streaked with soot. And the ground shook under my feet.
I stood at the front door, the same door father had opened a thousand times for me. However, when I reached for the handle, my palm came away wet with blood.
A faint smell of iron filled the air.
“Dad?” I called as I stepped inside.
No one answered.
“Dad?” I called again, going further in.
I entered the living room. And I froze.
On one of the couches sat Mother. She was alone, but not as there were beeping monitors around her and IV drips hooked into her arms. She saw me, and suddenly her body began to shake.
“Mom!”
I tried to go to her, but my feet wouldn’t move. My body stayed locked in pl
