The Garden of Eden

Chapter II

16th February

2:15 PM



Under the oppressive weight of the afternoon sun, a boy sat in the dimly lit confines of his room, engrossed in the glow of his phone screen. The rhythmic tapping of his thumbs against the glass was the only sound that pierced the silence. The boy remained fixated on the digital realm before him, oblivious to the ominous undercurrents stirring in the stillness. As twilight began its slow descent upon the world outside, the boy’s thumbs danced across the screen, his focus unwavering as he neared victory. But things took a different turn when his last companion died on the battlefield. He was left alone. The boy lost his only focus and tried to win the game on his own, but no one—no matter how strong—could defeat a four-man army alone. He tried to run away, and he could hear his friends—beneath the relentless rhythm of drums or percussion and the blare of brass instruments playing martial tunes, the kind of music that came from the battlefield—screaming at him, “Run!” But he was too slow. One of his enemies dashed, and with a quick leap from above, in his head, he could picture himself as his own character as he looked up. He shook his head and removed his fingers from the joystick. As the enemy dropped down, a blade thrust itself upon him, and his character lay on the blue river in the middle of the battlefield. He shifted his gaze toward the map, and as he scrolled through their base, one last hit made the tower collapse. The boy, frustrated, heard the words “DEFEAT” for the fifth time.

He heard his friends laugh and snicker, “It was a good game, Daniel. Want to go again?”

He didn’t reply. He exited the game and closed his phone. He sighed deeply from the loss. He left his phone on his bedside table and stood up. He’d been sitting for hours, changing positions after each game. He stood by the window and watched the clouds move. He grabbed his last cigarette from a packet hidden beneath his drawer, took it, and as he closed the drawer, the frame sitting on top fell down. He gently picked it up and stood it back up—a family portrait, a memory of his mother emerging in his mind. He clasped his lips tight, trying to forget. There are no bad memories, he thought, but memories of the dead are meant to be forgotten. He leaned forward outside his window and lit the cigarette between his fingers. He took a drag from the stick and blew the smoke upwards toward the sky, where he watched an airplane flying slowly through each cumulus.

‘Dad would rage if he caught me smoking one of these packs,’ he thought to himself. A seventeen-year-old boy, smoking his lungs out.

He took another drag and heard a thud from the living room downstairs. He moved along and extinguished the ember at the tip of the cigarette. He grabbed one of his Bench colognes standing silently on top of his drawer and walked toward the door, thinking, ‘Dad’s pretty early today.’

He opened his door and stopped.

He watched the room slowly turn dark; a shadow emerged from the bottom of the stairs that took him aghast. There stood his mother, a tall woman, pale as a sheet of paper. She moved with ease, putting one step up the stairs slowly. She called out to him, and to him, the sound echoed and reverberated through the walls of the house. Her mouth curved into a smile that stretched from ear to ear. Her eyes, though lifeless orbs, were staring at him.

“Daniel, honey… where is your father?” she said, and slowly her hands stretched out to reach him. Daniel could not move; it was as if his feet were glued to the floor.

His mother took another step up, her pace quickening as she continued to grin. A soft chuckle came out of her closed mouth, revealing a set of rotten teeth.

Her voice, once so lovely and sweet, began to grow deep, like a growl from beneath. She spoke once more, “HONEY! WHERE IS YOUR FATHER?!” She stopped. She looked down, and slowly, as her head lifted, her smile was wider than before. She craned her neck to the left and spoke in a dead language, “Veni, et mecum in aeternum coniunge.”

She sprinted up toward Daniel, who, in fear and shock, suddenly moved back. He ran to his bedroom door; her hand almost reached the back of his head as he swiftly shut the door. He sat behind the door, making sure nothing would come in. A loud knock drastically tried to crash through, and the deep growling voice from behind spoke, “Your mother is rotting in hell. Now open the f*****g door!”

He closed his eyes tight and whispered, “Please, go away, please.” The knocking slowly diminished until there was only silence. His face looked swollen and light. Sweat dripped from his forehead as he looked up at the ceiling, catching his breath. He tried to pray, but he forgot the words.

Smoke suddenly appeared from the creases of his door. In fear for his life, he stood up, looking back. He was gasping too much as he walked back, staring at the door. He fell, sitting at the edge of his bed, and the door opened wide. Nothing could be seen as the smoke rapidly grew in front of him. He closed his eyes, and a touch of something cold reached for his arm.

A door opened, and his eyes widened. There stood his father, staring at him with crossed brows.

“What happened, Daniel?” asked the father.

The boy sobbed; that was all he could do. He ran to his father, hoping this wasn’t part of the illusion. It wasn’t.