Von didn't remember running.
His legs moved on instinct, through the forest, over fences, across broken roads, and over barren fields. The ache in his lungs did not halt him. The freezing rain did not halt him. The guilt did not cease shrieking in his ears.
"Seek help."
"Don't let them disappear."
"Run."
But when he ran, he didn't run toward help.
He ran home.
It was hardly a house anymore.
The old two-bedroom on the edge of town stood exactly as he'd left it—windows cracked, porch lights dead, door crooked on its hinges.
The lights were on inside.
Von stood in the rain, heart pounding. His body screamed for him to turn around.
He went in regardless.
The air reeked of cigarette smoke and bargain-basement whiskey.
Nothing had changed.
Same broken table. The same silent TV flickering on static. The same heavy footsteps were behind him as he closed the door and tried not to cry.
"Look what the cat dragged in," his father snarled from the living room.
Von didn't answer.
He simply stood there, dripping, bruised, and trembling.
His father got up slowly, red-rimmed and bleary-eyed. The bottle he held wobbled.
"You vanish for three years. No calls. No word. I figured you finally had the guts to die."
Von's breath caught. His legs went weak.
"Guess not," his father grumbled, brushing by him and closing the door behind him.
He turned. "You're back to leech off me? Huh? Come beg for food? Or just felt like haunting me like your damn mother?"
Von tried to speak, but nothing came out.
A fist struck him across the face.
The floor hit him hard.
His ears rang.
His father loomed over him, his face contorted in rage.
"You think you're different now?" he sneered. "You think you're superior to me because you developed one of those freak powers?"
Von clutched his side. He didn't fight back.
Because deep down. He didn't think he deserved to.
Later, when his father finally passed out on the couch amidst a heap of bottles, Von sat huddled on the floor of his childhood bedroom.
The walls still had posters up from when he was ten.
The closet door was broken.
There was a crack in the ceiling he would follow when his mother sang him to sleep.
Now, the only sound was his breath shaking in the dark.
He believed he had gotten away.
He believed he had a friend.
He felt he was turning into something else.
But now, all of it was gone. And he was back where he began. Perhaps even worse.