Title: Waiting
Author: Elle Doki

Voices echo around in his head in the blackness, creating a swirl of a nightmare.

“He did it!” came a woman’s scream. “I know he did it! He always was guilty!”

“He never did anything!” shouted a man. “He’s too kind and nice!”

“You’re blinded by his quietness! He’s fooled you! He’s a monster!”

“Don’t talk like that about your son!”

“He’s not my child!” she screamed louder. Then it changed to a panic, “No child of mine could kill a cat like that!”

“No child of mine!”

“He is your child!”

“I don’t want him! Get him away from me!”

A soft gentle voice, nervous and scared, broke through the shouting. “Please, mommy… Daddy… Stop fighting.” But his voice was barely a whisper. “Please. Mommy… I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. Mommy… Daddy.”

All the shouts and screams of the two voices drowned out the soft little voice. You could barely hear his little cries and begs for forgiveness and love.

“Please?”

Startled awake by a cellphone ringing, a young man jumped up from his bed. He rubbed his forehead, touseling his blond locks from his metal blue eyes. “What a nightmare…” He sighed, reaching over to the phone. “Hello?” he asked as he lifted it to his ear.

“Tomono!” came the scream of his mother, the last thing he wanted to hear after such a dream. “Tomono! Lunna brought home some drunk ruffian! I can’t get him out of the house! He’s got purple-tinted hair and eyes and is just--- he’s a monster!”

More awake because it concerned his little twin sister, Tomono nodded. “All right. I’ll be there in a second. Keep him out of her room.”

After hanging up and reassuring his mother- who only looked to him since his father died- Tomono got dressed. He shook off the nightmare and uncomfortable thoughts and feelings as he pulled on his jacket and left his apartment.

He nodded to the framed picture of a handsome brunette hanging on the wall, “I wish you were here, Dad.”

Tomono gathered his courage and hurried out of the apartment and down the city blocks. Lunna, Lunna, Lunna went through his mind like a mantra. He was trying to ignore the fact that he’d have to face his mother again. He hadn’t seen her since the funeral only a few days prior, and wasn’t really ready to deal with her mental abuse on him again so soon. However, Lunna was his little sister and meant everything to the twenty-one-year-old.

Soon, he arrived at the large apartment building and went up. He knocked on the door with the nameplate “Ishida”. Immediately his mother, a tired-looking blond woman with her hair tied into a bun, opened the door.

“Tomono!” she screamed, trying to sound happy and relieved her son had arrived to chase out the young man.

Tomono forced a comforting smile and walked into the hallway. Without taking off his shoes, Tomono walked into the living room to see his little sister sitting far to comfortably with a young man who was older than both of them.

“Hey!” he said angrily. “What are you doing, Lunna!”

Lunna, a petite girl with bright blue eyes with long lashes and light brown hair in two pig-tails curled like a lolita, looked over to her brother. “Tomono!” she said in shock. “What are you doing here?”

“Mom called me.” Tomono said, walking over to her and the guy in jeans and a white button-up. “You’ve gotta leave.”

The other chuckled, “Why~ What for~? Lunna invited me to meet her mom!”

“Yeah he’s not doing anything wrong!” Lunna tried.

Tomono had seen enough encounters of drunks at his college, and as such he knew that this man being a drunk wasn’t good. And being with Lunna, well it just made him all the more annoyed.

Several minutes passed of unreasoning talk, then finally Tomono punched the other man in the jaw and kicked and shoved him out of the apartment, slamming the door shut.