Chapter 5.5: Dystopia In Solace
1602 Words
The evening sun dipped low behind the clouds, staining the sky in bruised oranges and fading gold. Lucien walked home in steady steps, janitor’s scrubs now dumped and long gone. His school uniform was back on, wrinkle-free. His hair in place. Even his shoelaces were perfect.
But inside his head?
A riot.
Dust in the air... it stuck to her skin. Like pollen clinging to a dying flower.
Her skin was soft—no, NO. f**k. Don’t think about that. Don’t you DARE think about that again."
He walked a little faster.
The street was quiet. Too quiet. He passed Mrs. Granger’s dog pissing on the hydrant.
Passed the liquor store.
Passed the bakery where he once bought Christy a sad little cupcake for her birthday.
Normal.
So damn normal.
“She’s dead.”
“Not my fault.”
“She slapped me. That’s assault. That’s... provocation. Yeah. That counts, right?”
His fingers twitched in his jacket pocket.
The air outside smelled like motor oil and melting garbage.
Not blood.
“People will look for her. Parents. Friends. Teachers. But she was always skipping class. Skipping rules. Skipping consequences. This time? Ran away from home ? Right simple”
“Could’ve been anyone. Could’ve been the janitor.”
A soft laugh escaped him before he could catch it.
It sounded too dry.
Too empty.
“God, even her friends hated her sometimes. Girls like that don’t get eulogies. They get forgotten.”
“No DNA ? . No fingerprints ? Maybe . Used the condom ? This doesn't make any sense. Flushed it for sure. Clothes, uh, some of it maybe the skirt, burned in that rusty bin beside the back staircase.”
“No cameras. Cameras were off. I knew it from before.”
“I covered every angle. Every. Single. One.”
A pause.
“... But it felt good.”
He froze in place.
Right there.
Middle of the sidewalk.
The wind brushed past like it didn’t see him.
He didn’t move for a long minute.
“No. No no no. Don’t say that. Don’t THINK that.”
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Pressed his nails into his palms.
The thought still echoed.
“It felt good.”
He reached his front door. His hand hovered over the knob.
Tried to straighten his face. Smile. Blink normal.
“Just walk in. Just be Lucien again. Not the other one. Not the one that got off on power. On silence. On watching her realize she was no longer in control.”
“f**k. Stop. STOP.”
He opened the door.
Stepped inside.
This time, the atmosphere somehow felt… lighter.
More lights were on.
The usual haze of cigarette smoke and cheap alcohol? Gone.
Even the walls — stained with years of silence and resentment — seemed a shade cleaner, or maybe just less cruel.
A faint scent of air fresheners hung in the air, floral and artificial. Lucien paused. His brows knit, but he said nothing. Just kept moving.
Then — another smell.
Something warm. Familiar. Something human.
Home-cooked food.
He followed it — slow steps down the hallway, past the living room where the TV wasn’t screaming for once, past the tilted photo frame of a family that no longer existed.
Into the kitchen.
She was there.
His mother.
Not in a stupor. Not on the couch in yesterday’s clothes. But… upright. Moving. Stirring a pot like it mattered.
Lucien froze.
She turned — eyes brighter, face flushed with heat and something dangerously close to joy — and when she saw him—
She walked straight toward him and wrapped her arms around him.
No warning. No words.
Just a sudden, tight, real hug.
Like the kind he hadn’t felt since he was small enough to believe it meant something.
He didn’t lift his arms at first.
His body went rigid, unsure.
The warmth pressed into his chest like a bruise waiting to form.
Her voice was muffled against his shoulder.
“You’re home early, baby. I made curry. Your favorite. Chicken stew, right?”
Lucien blinked slowly.
His arms still limp at his sides.
His throat, dry.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
This wasn’t supposed to be today.
His mind, still replaying Rae’s glassy eyes, her torn shirt, the silence — suddenly couldn’t match it with this moment.
His mother pulled back just enough to look at him.
“Are you okay? You look pale.”
Lucien managed a small shake of his head. Not no — not yes — just a glitch in motion.
Then, finally, his arms lifted.
And he hugged her back.
Not tightly.
Not fully.
But enough to make her smile and return to her pot, humming something off-key.
He stood there in the kitchen doorway for a moment longer.
Silent.
Staring at the back of the woman who raised him, broken as she was.
She didn’t remember last night.
Didn’t remember the glass she threw.
Didn’t remember anything.
And now she was here.
Wiping the counter.
Making dinner.
Calling him baby.
Lucien looked at his hands.
Still trembling faintly.
And for the first time since the classroom — since Rae — a single thought slipped in quietly.
“Maybe… I still exist.”
Then he sat down at the kitchen table, hands in his lap, and waited.
The chicken stew smelled too good for a day like this.
Lucien sat through dinner in silence.
His mother was radiant — in her own way. Chattering between spoonfuls, describing how she finally got her job back at the accountancy firm, how she called in a few favors, how it felt strange to be seen again. She even laughed — genuinely — when she talked about how she struggled with the login password on her old office computer.
Lucien didn’t laugh.
He just watched.
Every word stabbed with glittering irony.
Then, between bites, she said:
“I filed for divorce.”
He looked up.
Her voice didn’t tremble. Not this time.
“And I got a restraining order. He’s done. He can’t hurt us anymore.”
She smiled.
Like that sentence was a victory cry.
Like she hadn’t spent the last decade drowning in her own shadow.
Lucien blinked.
The spoon in his hand didn’t move.
“Why?” he finally asked, his voice so quiet it barely passed the salt shaker between them.
“Why now?”
His mother paused.
Then she exhaled, as if letting go of years at once.
“Because you were right.”
“Because I was tired.”
“Because I needed to stop waiting for things to fix themselves.”
“Because you mattered more than my fear.”
"Lucien… I know I’ve said things I can never take back. For all those years I let my anger speak louder than my love—I’m sorry. Please, forgive your mom." "I never meant to hurt you… I just didn’t know how to handle my pain, and I failed you."
Lucien stared.
Her words floated, warm and affirming, like sunlight over ice.
But to Lucien, they only made it worse.
So much worse.
The timing wasn’t salvation.
It was damnation.
The universe gave him everything he ever wanted — after he did something unforgivable.
A home with air freshener instead of alcohol.
A mother who could laugh instead of scream.
Dinner that smelled like care instead of neglect.
A happy ending — served cold.
The Storm inside him?
A corpse in a locked room.
The guilt settled fast, a heavy iron coat.
And at that moment — it hit him all at once.
The sword above his head — hanging by a string.
The pot of gold in front of him — shining, taunting.
Short-lived happiness, bought with permanent sin.
Lucien stood up, his chair scraping against the tile.
His mother blinked. “Hey, are you okay?”
He didn’t answer.
Just murmured something about homework. About being tired.
Then he walked to his room, calmly.
Door shut. Locked.
And then—
Like something mechanical reaching its limit—
He broke.
Not a quiet, cinematic tear.
Not a noble sob.
A collapse.
He fell against the bed frame, metal biting into his shoulder as he slid down.
Fists clenched.
A sound tore from his throat — low, guttural, like steel twisting in fire.
His chest heaved.
His breath caught and refused to flow evenly.
He dug his nails into his scalp.
Pulled at his hair like he could rip the memory out.
But it stayed.
Rae’s broken shape.
Her glassy eyes.
The silence that didn’t scream.
“Why now?” he whispered again to no one.
Why did the world fix itself just as he shattered?
It felt like a joke. A sick balancing act by a god he once believed in.
The kind of justice that doesn’t come with a scale — just a brick to the gut.
And then the real terror slithered in.
He wasn’t a master criminal.
He wasn’t some phantom in the night.
He was a schoolboy.
With trauma.
With guilt.
With zero backup plans.
His mind was a reel of thoughts now,
The janitor. The hallway. The class roll calls.
The absence would be noticed.
And eventually…
So would he.
He curled tighter.
Nails digging into the back of his neck. Not bleeding. Not enough.
Nothing was enough.
His breath came in ragged, choking bursts.
“I don’t want this,” he said to the floor.
To himself.
To God.
To no one.
But it didn’t matter.
Because it had already been done.
And the weight?
Wasn’t going anywhere on its own.
- Writer
