Simon runs and runs and runs, his pants tearing on the branches of trees and shrubs that have sprouted in the dirt paths that he once ran free on. His body burns, his still healing arm making it so much harder to stay steady as his head pounds, but Simon doesn't stop until he sees it.
The place is barely standing, settled between two edges of a forest that have begun to reclaim it. Trees and bushes and other foliage grow up through the burned remains of a house that was never a home, the lake reflecting a time when this house was alive. Simon can remember the four times he entered that lake.
He was 10 years old, laughing as his mother chased him around the backyard. Tommy is in his playpen by the porch, laughing at them while chewing on his toys. There had been a bug, Simon doesn't remember what kind, just that it was big and in his face. His mother had laughed so hard when Simon had screamed and fallen back into the lake, still able to sit up in the water. The bug flew off quickly, and Simon's joy had returned quickly as his mother joined him in the lake to get her ankles wet.
It was the following summer when Simon entered the lake again. He remembers how the water filled his lungs, how he tried to scream for his mother, nails scraping at the strong hand holding him down. There was a beer bottle floating in the water next to him, and Simon remembers seeing the blue label before he passed out. His father loved that brand.
He waded into the water for Tommy's sake, the graduation party in full swing as people jumped into the lake and yelled and had fun. Tommy grabbed his hands, pulled him as far as Simon would allow, barely knee deep in the water. Simon smiled, sipped his beer quietly as Tommy and a few boys wrestled in the murky water with each other, pushing down his fear and panic each time Tommy's head disappears under the water.
Three weeks later, when he's finally able to come home again, Simon is in the lake again, his knuckles bloody and party streamers still floating on the surface. Tommy is inside, a broken nose and bruised ribs and familiar cuts on his arm from a beer bottle with a blue label. The body floats in the water, face still twisted with rage even in death, and Simon can't find sympathy to mourn the death of a man he could never call 'dad'.
With a broken arm, it's hard for Simon to traverse the burned ruins of his old life, memories bombarding him with every room he walks through. He doesn't stop though, moving forward, one foot after another, his hand bracing against ash covered walls, until he reaches his room. It had become Tommy's room after Simon moved out, there are still books hidden beneath the bed, burned and falling apart. Simon can't look at it.
He curls onto the floor, his skin staining black and white from the charred remains, and removes his shirt. If he were 5 years old again, his father would be in the room with him, dark brown eyes and blonde hair, a nose that matches his son's. Simon looks up, can see the memory in front of him, flinching as he feels the decades old pain of a belt buckle scarring his skin. His eyes close, and the clear memory of his father twists, that vitriolic voice wavering until it's a thicker accent, blue eyes staring down at him.
Simon can feel the knife in his back, how the blade was traced so delicately on his skin, the handle traded back and forth between the two men he trusted the most. Somewhere in his mind is a burning fire, a pit that is swallowing his memories and jumbling them up. Roba, Price, his father, Nikolai. The memories all ripple and shake until one man becomes the other and they all shift between time.
The blade is cold against his skin and shaking, Simon's hand trying to hold steady as he slices through the tissue of his body. It's an awkward angle, using his left hand to feel for the scarred lettering, his right hand gliding the blade into himself. Guilt and grief and anger, so much anger, builds in his chest like a war drum hammering against his ribcage. The blood seeps down his wrists, his arms, staining the floors of a home covered in blood.
The letters on his back disappear, mutilated beyond recognition, and yet.
And yet, Simon feels an unimaginable grief at his own actions.
