Travis tossed around his bed, his movement a restless turning, beads of sweat making points on his forehead as his shut eyes were strained. He woke up in a start, like an utterly frightened man. His breathing returning to normal after some self-induced calming moments, he whispered again and again, "It was only dream." He looked around his room but couldn't discern the familiarity of his surroundings. "Just a dream," he tried again for the uptenth time to reassure himself controlling his jagged breaths.
But in his room there were no longer sooth walls or the morbid painting he had grown accustomed to seeing. It was like he had been teleported to a different place. A particular feeling of deja vu washed over him in sizzling waves. It was no longer a room but a road. He was not on soft mattress but on a hard cemented road. In front of the road sits an exquisitely furnished three bedroom terrace duplex, which is painted a colourful yellow and sides red. A place Travis remembers so vividly that his body jerked with the identical motion of a man cursed with epilepsy.
The origin of all his nightmares, his trauma, his pain; he was laying right in front of his father's house and it was not a question of non-existent things being conjured up. It was laid out in front of him. Travis looked on knowingly through hard eyes to the very place which defined his existence, which he had no reason to be back to.
Who else could it have been? Ever since the night at her room which Travis had come to the incontestible fact of it being a mistake, she hadn't stopped punishing him. Either for his actions or inactions or for holding that singular incontestible thought above all else. And this will be the third night. The same dream, the same nightmare that it no longer scared him, he now welcomed it and triumphantly overcame.
The house was the same as the past days, his childhood days; eloquent and pristine. The outdoor lights bright and encompassing over it's rich surroundings. The lawns were trimmed and held a healthy colour that showed it hadn't been abandoned for years but it had been–for years. He left. More like ran from here ages ago. it should be overgrown with weeds and gone past the stage of an abandoned building.
This was as vivid as the others, so real that he could placed his hand on the surface he was on and feel the coarseness and bumps accompanying the road.
He pulled himself up not by strength but spite. Pushed opened the dwarf gate that lead to his truth and filled with a religious pouring determination, walked towards the front door. "Jovic," he called out in indignation. He couldn't see her but he knew she was there. Her presence were like darts. "Come out. Come out now. Don't you think this have gone on long enough?"
"Go in, Travis," a voice whispered. And without no control of his bodily functions, his hands were twisting down on the handle.
"I will go in, the" he stated, with a calm demeanor. He could now face his father or the remnants of the ghost that slugs his scent through the house. He could face whatever that was waiting behind the door.
The door swung in slowly, it's handle making noise as it collided with the adjacent wall and then, there was only darkness, and silence. "I have defeated this," he exclaimed out in mocking laughter. "This no longer traumatize me."
The voice said close to his ears, "Is that so?"
He nodded, a confident antagonizing smile remained on his lips. "I should be thanking you."
A hand began forming in stages. From the grass and roots around, it sewed muscles and tendons. This hand made from seaweed and vines came beside Travis. In it's grassy hand, a phone with its touch on. It passed it, to which Travis as he'd done two nights in a row, took the phone touch, eager to get this over with. He proceeded to flash it inside the house. And all became white. There standing in the living room, breathing in and out at a fast pace that their face was redhot was him. Travis sees himself, very clear, very small, very strong. The fifteen year old version. Across this version of him, this very clear, very small strong self, was his father.
Travis looked on at this. Squaring both shoulders, he folded his hands and spread his legs, showing a defiance. He still had absolutely no control, but was now mentally stable to content with his past. Face it and bury it behind him
"Step in," the voice ordered in its whispery voice again. "It is your house isn't it? Step in and invite me like a gentleman."
Travis stepped in. "Come in," he said, let us both witness this illusion. This blackness in you, and comfort ourselves that I'm bigger than this. Bigger than you."
Jovic materialized beside him. There was something decidedly off about her. Her face besieged with a red glow. Like a gamer who has been at a single mission for long suddenly happening upon a new challenge. And the perfection of her face was making Travis hate himself.
"I don't think you are becoming arrogant."
Her eyes turned to the living room and when she turned to looked at Travis she had on a snigger filled with wicked things to come. The intensity of her stare slithered a chill down Travis spine and it had him shuddering for a moment there. "You will experience this pain and your foolishness, your impulsiveness will be taken down a notch."
And came the wind that pushed him from the rear, and there was no more point in his continuous resistance. So he stood before father and son, his back against the door, his front to his past.
Chest heaving, eyes wide, unblinking, bloodshot and mashed teeth. Travis looked very well like a mad man on a miniscule rampage. He stands on the house's plush rug trying to find more words to throw at him. Words to hurt him, to make his father feel his pain. This was the first time in fifteen years. The first time, he stood up for himself and looked his father down.