Maybe it's the vibrancy of the colors that told Gerard something was wrong.
Perhaps the mundaneness just seemed too gleamy, the silence too revealing- the fact that there were so many things untold, secluded- it all seemed like a giant spider web he caught himself in while the predator was on another hunt.

Gerard doesn't have a good feeling about this.

His idea of a great life has nothing to do with creepy little towns the world had forgotten a long time ago. He isn't sure what his ideal would be, though, but he'd gladly settle for ratty New York suburbs, even something incredibly sunny- Arizona, maybe- if it meant that he wouldn't have to rot off the best years of his life in a shitty little place like the one his mother picked out for them.

It's not really a matter of teenage rebellion, not anymore. He just feels incredibly wrong about this.

The back seat of the old Chevy is much more comfortable when Gerard isn't feeling jittery. His earphones are blasting music he'd usually find some salvation in, but Jarvis Cocker's vocal chords aren't helping this situation at all. He feels so hopeless he might as well bang his head against the car window. Being cut off of any form of actual, living civilization probably wouldn't be as tragic if the landscape wasn't giving him the creeps. He's read way too many ghost stories to know oddly normal things are the most dangerous ones, and his knowledge of classic horror flicks only confirms that fact further.

The worst part of it all is that the town is filled with abandoned shit- so many shacks, buildings nobody wants to go in, and stuff like old warehouses wherever your eyes might linger for long enough to notice. It's nothing surprising, not really, since the place used to be a part of a large industrial district back in the sixties. That period is over now, and all that's left is basically a shell of a small, once pretty town.
But still, it heavily reeks of the notion that it's also the perfect place to get brutally murdered in.

Although, Gerard can find a strange comfort in the fact the entire town is so fucking... beautiful. It emits that vibe only Silent Hill can give you, but there's so much more to hold on to. There's this patch of air surrounding the place, as if it's dusk the entire time and all Gerard can think of is the way the forest looks like a bloody scrape of skin littered with rust.

It smells like tension here, he concludes, letting the soles of his shoes touch the ground of this place for the first time. The wind is warm, but the sky is clear and Gerard instinctively wraps his hoodie tighter around himself. He doesn't like the wind; it always feels like it's invading his privacy.

The house sheltering him away from the orange sunset is cream-colored, with a brown, hipped roof that makes it feel like it belongs somewhere in the mountains rather than a shitty little town in the middle of nowhere. Its windows are large, with wooden sills, the front door smaller than he's used to- but it doesn't really make a difference, it's not like Gerard is tall enough to worry about that.

All in all, it looks like a home; Gerard's just not sure if it's the right one for him.

His mother's hair matches the color of the burnt umber that is the hallway, and her hand is flailing around dramatically as she's ordering him which box to put where. She started looking fifteen years younger as soon as they'd passed the 'Welcome to Redwood' road sign, and that's probably the only thing keeping him from losing his mind at the moment.

"Gerard," she calls, "you're spacing out again."
Gerard blinks a few times, his eyes focusing on her face. "Sorry."

Her eyebrow is up for a few more seconds, dark and defined, the sharp edge carving into her skin. But then she grabs the box out of Gerard’s hands and puts it onto the ground, placing her hand on Gerard’s back and gently stroking the unhealthy curve of his spine. Her face turns softer, the tiny wrinkles smoothing out and showing nothing but sympathy now. "I know this is hard for you. But it's for the better- and the sooner you accept that, the better our life here will be."

And Gerard is really grateful he's taller than his mother, because his face fits perfectly when buried into her shoulder.

*

The room he claimed for himself is nothing special, but Gerard likes it. There’s just enough wall space to put all his posters up, plenty of storage room for books, records, movies, clothes- he even likes the order the furniture is in. The desk in the corner is massive, and the huge bed he’ll be sleeping on smells nice, like flowers and just a little bit of dust. The sheets are dark purple and pretty thick, and the thought of curling up underneath them on stormy nights makes him feel just a little bit calmer about this entire situation.
He’s already put his alarm clock on the night stand, along with an Obi-Wan figurine and a picture of himself holding his little brother a few days after their mother gave birth to him. He thinks those things belong there, and having them so close to him make him feel secure; less anxious about the future this place has in store for him.

The paint on the walls looks old, but it’s gray and Gerard doesn’t want to redo it since the pattern time has left on it is intricate- it kind of looks like someone ran their fingers through the paint while it was still drying. The wardrobe is the size of a mountain and made out of black wood, with large, copper knobs attached to it at the front, and Gerard feels as if it’s calling him and begging for him to paint some baby’s breath onto it.

It rains that night, incredibly soft, and when Gerard plays Joy Division really quietly it all feels like a movie from the eighties.

He doesn’t know what to do, his head is switched to vegetating mode and he can’t seem to grasp on a thought for long enough to ponder over it. He’s tired, but not tired enough, as it seems- his body’s aching for sleep but he feels like he’s on a brain-high; over-energized but with nothing to spend it on. He can watch television, or grab a hot shower, but he has no motivation to leave the bed he’s currently sprawled on. He knows he still hasn’t finished reading the book he’s started a few days ago, nor the coal sketch of David Bowie he’s been working on for weeks now- but he knows that if he touches any of that he’ll end up pulling an all-nighter.

His joints hurt because he’s spent too much time still today, his neck sore from the weird position he slept in back when they were on the road and all he wants is to sleep all of his pain and frustration off.

He has no idea how he manages, but when the clock strikes one AM and he’s still not blacking out, he stumbles down the stairs and into the living room. He can see that his mother’s unpacked most of their stuff and that everything looks relatively in order, which explains the fact she’s passed out on the couch with the TV still on.

“Gerard?” he hears as he’s about to go looking for her bag. “What are you still doing up?”

He sighs. “I can’t sleep. I came here to look for some Ambien.”

She groans, blowing her hair out of her eyes and switching her position on the couch. “It’s in the side pocket of my bag,” she says, muffled. “You know I hate it when you take those pills. I’ll pick up some melatonin from the pharmacy for you tomorrow.”
Gerard utters to resist, but she cuts him off. “Save it.”

He sighs bitterly, but nods, taking one pill out swiftly and putting it inside his hoodie pocket as he’s switching the TV off for his mother. He wishes her a good night and climbs back upstairs.

He leans against the cold window sill in his room and grabs his smokes from the desk, retrieving the last one before throwing the pack into the bin beside his bed. He gets his lighter from the back pocket of his jeans and puffs the cigarette out into the wet air in front of him, inhaling deeply.

As the cherry runs south, he looks into the dark green of the night, frowning at how ungracefully the piss-yellow of the street lighting kisses the cracked asphalt of the sidewalk. The street itself looks clean, almost too clean, and he can swear that it seems as if nobody’s ever dared to stomp on a chewing gum around this place. The trees around the house look violet, while they’re red under the sunlight and it’s pretty- slightly unnerving, but pretty.

At one moment Gerard realizes his fingers feel baked and he stubs his cigarette out against the outer part of the sill, cursing on the burn that appeared on his index finger and flicking the butt somewhere indefinite. He can feel a gust of wind flowing through the air as he’s about to shut the blinds and he shoots another look at the street, for no apparent reason.

He thinks that the large, glossy black stains on the road are a rather strange occurrence, when only minutes ago the entire street was painfully clean, but he waves it off and blames it on his head, swallowing the pill from his pocket dry. He strips off of his jeans and hoodie, turning the table lamp off and stuffing his head into the pillow.

If anything, at least he can hope that his life in this place won’t be as horrifying as the nightmares Ambien gives him every goddamn time. His mother’s right, he really should consider melatonin as an alternative.

Notes

welcome to spooktastic adventures straight from the glittery gutter *throws rubber bats at you*
i am miles and i'll be guiding you through this journey of incredibly predictable storylines and badly written gore scenes. i hope you'll enjoy. [who am i even writing this for lmao]

hopefully, we'll meet frank in the next chapter. hopefully.

xomls