Grey entered the building hurriedly, slamming the door shut to keep the dreaded storm out.
He was greeted by the same old rundown apartment he was used to. The ground floor was empty as even the security seemed to have taken a break. He quickly reached the stairs as he was heading for his parent's apartment.
His family lived on the third floor of the apartment. Although their room wasn't the worst of rooms in the apartment, it was still pretty terrible as those living on the middle floors were neither protected from the leaking ceilings nor the poor floor of the apartment.
Grey finally stopped at room 303, he could already hear the sound of cooking coming from the inside. The door opened to reveal a worn down sitting room with only a table, a couch, and a small warmer on the wall. A haggard middle-aged man was sitting on the couch, watching the news from an old-gen hologram projector on the table. He was interrupted by the sound of the door opening.
"Oh, you're back little rascal." The man looked at Grey while scratching his scruffy beard.
" Yep, how you doing old man? Hope you didn't miss me too much." Grey replied the old man.
" As if. Go meet your mom, she said she has something she wants to tell you." the man said nonchalantly, before turning back to the hologram projector.
" Tsk...alright."
Grey removed his shoes before entering the apartment, dropped his bag at the entrance, and finally headed for the kitchen.
By the time he reached the kitchen, he felt something strange. He couldn't hear the sound of cooking anymore, he turned around to look at the sitting room behind him. The projector was still playing but the man who he had just spoken to wasn't there again.
' hmmm, strange'
Grey turned back to the kitchen door, then opened it carefully.
It was completely dark behind the kitchen door apart from a single candle, with a brittle flame swaying delicately in the musty apartment air.
Grey slowly approached the candle with the creaky floorboards of the apartment resounding his every step. As he got closer, he could observe the candle a little better. It was on a platform placed on a table. The dim light of the candle was barely able to illuminate the outline of the platform it stood on.
On closer inspection, the platform seemed white. It had a circular shape with small multicolored dots on it. If anyone asked Grey, he'd say it looked more like a.....
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!"
Grey fell to the ground due to shock, as the lights finally came on revealing the culprits responsible for this unholy surprise.
" Hahaha, how's that for an old man, punk." Said the middle-aged man Grey met before in the living room. The man grinned happily as he relished the results of almost a month's worth of planning.
' Tsk. I should have known it was him.'
Grey thought as he looked at the second culprit.
" ha..ahem.mmm, Honey don't you think we could have a little easier on him." A woman said to the middle-aged man, as she desperately tried to stop laughing.
" Mommm, I can't believe you joined him too," Grey said, as he looked at her with a wronged expression.
" You had it coming, kid." The middle-aged man retorted for the woman.
" Alright, stop fighting you two."
" Tsk. Alright," they replied in unison.
" And Ash please help Grey up." She looked at Grey who was still sitting on the floor.
"Ok." the man sighed lethargically as he helped Grey stand up.
Grey stood up still feeling betrayed as he finally had a chance to glance at what the candle was.
' Turned out it was a candle on a cake.'
' figures.'
Grey sighed internally.
He shifted his view to the couple he was fortunate or rather unfortunate to call his parents. Ash and Denise, both of which were originally orphans from the slums but still managed to climb the practically unscalable social ladder into the second ring of Bastion. Grey was the only child of the couple, hence he enjoyed quite a lot of their 'affection' or rather attention.
" Alright kiddo, I admit I didn't play too fair this time but ya had it coming." Ash patted Grey's shoulder.
" Boys, you can continue your little games later. Right now, we have a birthday to celebrate." Denise stepped in before Grey could retort his dad.
" Alright, mom." Grey moved to pick up the one layer cake in front of him, as he and his parents made their way to the front of a slightly cracked full body mirror.
He took a glance at the cake before he got there. The cake had a single flickering candle on it, with crude writing of " Grey at 17" were pretty much all the words the cake could contain.
As They finally reached the mirror that rested on the living room wall, Grey got the chance to look at himself after quite a while. He didn't have many distinctive features about himself, the only special features he might have had were the dark black hair he inherited from his mother and ashy grey eyes from his father. Strangely today, his hair seemed a little...lighter in color. His eyes were probably just seeing things. All in all, he looked just above average.
" Hey kid, how long are gonna spend admiring yourself? Some of us have things to do." Ash grunted.
" Alright, alright. So what do I do now." Grey looked at Ash through the mirror.
"Blow out your candles and make a wish," Denise said, gently rubbing her son's hair.
"Ok," Grey said in almost a whispering tone.
At this point, he stopped his usual rascal-like attitude. Grey was quite mature for someone his age, he had seen quite a lot of things in the short time he had spent on this planet.
The cruelty of Bastion, the suffering of the weak, hunger, homelessness, disease, and death. These were words he was very familiar with. And without his parents, there would be nothing stopping him from experiencing the full force of those words, unlike his unfortunate neighbors that stayed merely a stone's throw away from their house. So he was going to wish for something for them, to thank them for everything.
" I wish...." Grey slowly raised his head to say his wish, but as he looked in the mirror.
His eyes widened and the cake in his hands slowly dropped and hit the floor.