#bsnsler

He purposefully picked a simple house for his first solo home raid, even though the richer ones usually still had backup generators to keep things chilled in the refrigerator. The door, simple with its glass panes and brass doorknob, swings open silently after a few seconds with a lock pick. Entre takes a quick glance at the street below before darting inside.

His boots don’t make a sound on the plush red carpet, but they do leave behind imprints caked with mud as Entre makes his way quickly downstairs. Burlap sack in hand, he passes picture frames hung on the wall, small shelves with trophies and other memorabilia. Part of him is curious to wonder about what kind of people lived here, but first things first: objectives. What did he need to get again? As many bottled waters as he could carry, matches, any kind of food, aspirin for Ted—

A flicker of movement by the door gives him pause. “What the…? Shit—“ Entre quietly curses before jumping into the doorway of what seems to be a bathroom. As soon as he had rounded the corner and stepped into the kitchen, a quick cursory glance revealed that no one was in this house, or had been in a while. He had started to move forward towards the pantry, but then he saw—

His nerves feel completely rattled. Maybe Swag, Rockstar, and One have the right idea going into this together, he silently muses. Maybe I’m starting to see things. He tightens his grip on the handle of his axe and quietly counts to three, before launching himself out of the doorway and onto linoleum, eyes wide open and scanning for a zombie to kill.

What he does see startles him even more than a zombie would have.

It’s a mirror.

Entre walks up to it slowly, his boots squeaking across the tile. He hasn’t seen a mirror in godknowshowlong, and now here is a full length one—the kind a person uses to check their appearance before going out the door and starting their day. It even has a little lamp hanging above the top frame.

But Entre isn’t worried about his appearance right now. No, he’s more focused on the person in the mirror, the one hanging back by the couch like he is.

From his boots to his untucked dress shirt, the casually loosened tie and the baseball cap, even the gaudy sunglasses perched on his nose—he looks like some insipid rebellious youth. Rebelling against the world of fashion, maybe. But then Entre’s eyes land on the pistol holstered against his thigh, the gas mask donned over cheeks smattered with freckles, and the bloodstained axe in his hand. A hand that seems to be shaking as Entre moves closer to the figure in the mirror.

He approaches too, and jumps like Entre does when the lamp over the mirror flickers on with his motion-sensed presence. His chest seems to be heaving—almost like he’s panting through that gas mask of his—and Entre thinks about how his own breathing’s gotten a bit heavy and maybe it’s because all those dark stains, some of it flaking off into copper dust particles that he can see in the light now, all those dark stains with their grasping fingerprints and swipes from when a zombie got too close, all those dark stains colouring his green gloves an ugly rusted brown—

(it’s all over him, from the smears on that pistol fired in desperation)

(to the red on his mask)

(even crusted in his hair)

—it’s all blood.

Entre stumbles back against the couch, bile rising in his throat, hot and burning and the very last thing he wants to do is bite back the vomit curdling in his stomach. He rips off his gas mask and shades and throws them off to the side, before collapsing on all fours as his stomach empties itself onto the squeaky linoleum tile. He holds his abdomen as if that’ll get it to stop, this nauseating sense of revelation that he has killed too many of those things to count. It doesn’t matter if they were zombies after his flesh; even if they aren’t human now, they were human once, and their blood stains his hands and his clothes and stains him right down to the very core, a part of his existence he wasn’t aware of but knows now is stained a dark, ugly red.

He doesn’t know how long he kneels there, heaving up the meagre bit of oatmeal he had for breakfast and what seems to be all the bile in his stomach. When he does try to get up, an overwhelming feeling of weakness overcomes his legs and he collapses once more in a puddle of his own stomach fluids. His throat feels thoroughly scalded, and it’s only when that dull burn moves into a dull ache that Entre steadies himself on the couch and picks up the burlap sack.

He moves through the kitchen with mindless efficiency, grabbing all the items on his mental checklist and then some. It’s only after he tosses a litre bottle of strawberry Pepsi, a rack of raw ribs on the way to rotting, and a pack of smokes into his sack that he allows himself to rinse out his mouth, swishing cool running water as far down his throat as he can without gagging before spitting it out again. He does this several times, before getting a clean glass and downing one full of water.

Entre doesn’t see a reason why not to leave through the front door; jumping down the ledge that he came in from with a sack of food doesn’t seem like the best idea. So he picks his way past the pool of bile, picks up his gas mask and sunglasses, before stepping over to the door.

After years of checking himself to make sure he looked his best before presenting himself to a public that wanted him and his thneeds, it’s hard to break habit—Entre finds his gaze sliding over to the full length mirror, making eye contact with his reflection.

His mouth is tense in a tight line; only minimal chapping, which is surprising considering that he has a habit of licking his lips out of nervousness. The gas mask has left an imprint on his cheeks. But his eyes are what he finds to have changed the most—the man in the mirror meets his own with steel blue. Entre thinks he saw them flicker with uncertainty and the pain that only comes after a heart-stopping epiphany, but they immediately set themselves to an impassive, almost haughty stare.

“Come on and try it,” the man’s eyes seem to be saying. “I dare you.”

Melvin, you could say, was my first "friend." He's one hell of a listener, heh. Not one for keeping up the conversation, though.

My time in the valley was nice, I'd like to say I had a friendly relationship with the animals, but I've just left them to their own lives now, they don't really need me. I didn't put much stock into friendships until I made my blog. I've met some people and alternate versions of myself that I would happily call my friends.

As for the "relationships" you probably mean.

Romance works for other people, yes. I say "romance is dumb", but I only mean for my own purpose and means. Some people are really made happy by romance.

But those people aren't me.

A romantic relationship, from what I know from most media and what my mom's told me, is two people that are there for each other, depending on each other through thick and thin. It's a complete and equal bond shared between two people.

I can't give that.

It'd be completely one-sided for the other person and that wouldn't be fair at all, not to mention, I don't think I need someone else. I've gotten this far by my own hand, I don't really need support or whatever.

And anyone who would say "I wouldn't need you to be there for me! i just want to have you!", I have to ask "Why?" Have you spent any time with me aside from professional and business? Do you know how I really am? Or are you just into me for my looks? My talents? My money?

That's awful shallow of you and even if I was interested, I wouldn't be interested in something based off that.

I'm also not interested in kids. Pretty sure I already answered that? Or maybe that's an ask I can't find right now...

But yeah, not interested, don't have the time. I'll give it another thought maybe in several years or so, but for now? Yeah, no.

Like I said in that last post, they did most of the outside stuff, because they've always been more outside guys. If they weren't doing chores, they were still outside. My mom had to give in and school them on the porch because otherwise they didn't pay her any mind.

Growing up with twin brothers wasn't so bad. They usually act as one person, but they do have their individual charms too.

We were close, without really being close, y'know? Like I love them and all, but we never really connect on anything more than being blood-related. Kinda like my aunt, uncle, and I. Out of all my family, I was always closest to my mom, I think.

As for the "abuse" I think you're getting at. My brothers and my Aunt were rough with me, yeah, but I wouldn't call it "abuse!"

According to my mom, being tall and thin ran on my dad's side. It wasn't that I never ate. I always had plenty to eat at home! I just don't gain weight as easily as other people. High metabolism, I think it's called.

If it was really just a lack of food, don't you think I would weigh more now? Heheh.

And I wasn't beat up either. Well, yeah, there were a few local bullies, but my brothers actually stood up for me a lot.

I don't know much about my dad. He left before I could really remember stuff. I've seen a picture or two of him, but that's about it. That's a sore subject for my mom, she doesn't like talking about it much.

Now, don't go pitying me for growing up without a dad! Haha! It wasn't all that bad! Sometimes I was a little jealous of other kids who had one, but really, how did I know what I was missing out on when I never really experienced it? It's not as sad as it sounds, I promise.

Anyways, um, at first we didn't live with my Aunt and Uncle. For a while it was just me and Momma, until my brothers were born of course. We don't have the same dad though, he was a later guy she got with that...didn't work out either. She went through a couple of dates that way. Heh, my mom's a special kind of personality. If you can't jive with her...things get rough quickly.

Well, Mom tried the single-mom-on-her-own thing. She tried to be independent and do stuff by herself, which I commend her for, but you can only get so far by yourself when you're used to being pampered. (My grandparents were pretty well off in their hay-day.)

My brothers coming around just pushed the envelope a little more and luckily my aunt and uncle were willing to take my mom in their house, which my Uncle actually inherited from my grandparents.

I never went to school, I kinda started late and Mom didn't want me going into the system that late. Plus, she wanted to raise me on her own. She had big plans for me from the start! I'm happy to say I feel like I've lived up to better than her expectations, though.

She originally wanted me to be something like a doctor, or a lawyer. So she bought me toys and books that she felt could lead me in those directions early on, I guess.

I never really wanted to learn boring stuff from books though. It was hard to focus and pay attention on boring things like that. I did like the little doctor sets she got for me, but I preferred the building blocks and Legos, heh.

My mom got kinda fed up early on, though. And left the learning to me, instead she tried to get me interested in sports. She always sort of had that in mind. I guess, she was going for a Quarterback/Neurological surgeon? Haha.

She actually tried to get my brothers into the sports scene since I was such a flop. My Thneed took off before anything happened with that, though. So I don't know if that's still a plan for them or not.

I was difficult when it came to learning things, but when I saw how sad it made my Mom, I tried to learn stuff on my own. I read through my homeschooling books early and did my homework without her telling me to, trying to get her to be happy. She seemed pleased, but it wasn't really what I wanted myself.

So, that's around the time I started inventing stuff. I already had before, but the older I got, the more serious I got with my dream. I wasn't into book and I wasn't into sports, but I did like making things! I learned from my studies that a lot of people got somewhere with great inventions! I wanted to be like them.

I've already made a post about the progress of my inventions, though. Heh.

My mom never really warmed up to the idea of getting somewhere based entirely on "luck" (she called it). She wanted me to get successful by doing something that was sure to land me somewhere. I know she meant well, but that's not really what I wanted! I wanted to do something for me, by me, that the world would remember me for! I wanted to land in history books, make an impact!

I think I'm well on my way there, if I say so myself.

Other than schooling myself, I taught myself little hobbies. Guitar among them. I considered being a rock star when I was younger, heheh.

But my mom hated that idea more than my invention plan.

I spent most of my days inside, mostly in my room in the attic. I liked it up there. Lots of alone time and plenty of room to work on things! I really like to multi-task, y'see.

Eventually, my brothers did most of the chores, but I did a lot of them in the beginning. Not that my mom, aunt, and uncle didn't help. They did a lot of work too, but the smaller stuff was left to us. Since we're "young" and all...and boys.

I did most of the inside stuff. I washed dishes and cleaned up. I also cooked breakfast for the whole family. We all took turns cooking lunch and dinner though. Well...my brothers lost their privileges after the kitchen almost burnt down a few times...

Sometimes I had to pick up my brother's slack on the farm, or if anyone was sick, I was the first guy to replace their work, my mom said I had a lot of free time since I wasn't as focused on my studies as she wished. Also something about hard work helping your brain grow or...something...

I played now and then, I just didn't really like being outside and rowdy like most of the other kids are, I guess. I preferred to be inside, work on stuff. Read books and the like.