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I never thought I’d set foot here again—not now, not in a hundred years. The air feels warped somehow, thin and strange. The last time I stood outside this house, it was the day I turned my back on everything I’d ever known. The day I’d quit Division 47, and my father, of all people, was the one to throw me out. He’d said I’d turned my back on the family legacy, turned my back on him.
He wasn’t wrong.
With my hands buried deep in my jacket’s pockets, I drift across the yard, examining the place I grew up, trying to reconcile the building before me with the one I grew up in. Time has not been kind. The boring beige paint that had defined the house peels away in long, brittle curls, exposing the weather-beaten siding beneath. Some boards have rotten straight through, eaten by years of rare but brutal desert downpours. Most of the windows are hidden behind haphazard sheets of plywood, hammered up by some poor soul after stray kids reduced the glass to glitter shards.
Can’t pretend I didn’t imagine doing that a thousand times myself.
I nudge a small stone with the toe of my sneaker, then crouch to pick it up. Why not? For old time’s sake.
The rock arcs cleanly through the air and collides with what used to be the living room window. The sharp, crystalline crash echoes across the empty yard, startling in its perfection. I pause, waiting—out of instinct—for the familiar sound of my father’s booming voice, ready to bark at me from somewhere inside. But only silence answers.
He’s not here; I’m the only person here. And with that realisation, I feel something cold and heavy in my chest sink.
My gaze drops to the foundation, the grey faces exposed after years without the shrubs that once hid them. My father claimed he never wanted those plants—said they were my mother’s idea—but even after she left, he tended them every weekend, pruning them into strict obedience. Now, only sun‑bleached skeletons remain, twisted and dry, like fossils of a life that stopped moving long before I ever left.
I keep circling toward the back door, giving the front steps a wide berth. They look like they’d crumble under a stiff breeze, the last scraps of white paint blasted away by years of sandstorms until only splintered, sun‑bleached wood remains.
My sneakers crunch over the packed dirt as I pass the obstacle course my father used to make us run every morning. Somehow, impossibly, it’s still standing—if you can call this “standing.” Wooden planks have peeled away from the wall in jagged, tooth‑like strips. The netting is mostly gone, just a few threads clinging to the frame and whispering in the morning breeze. The hurdles, once towering monsters in my childhood eyes, look small now—half‑buried in sand, sunken and defeated.
Funny how everything shrinks when you’re grown up.
I pause, eyeing the structure. I’d never really thought about the amount of maintenance it must have taken—how many hours my father poured into keeping his favourite torture device in perfect working order. Back then, it just existed, eternal and angry, like him.
The observation deck still looms above the house, tall enough to look over half of Strangetown. The desert wind hums through the support beams, a low, ghostly vibration that settles in my bones. How my father ever got planning permission for that thing is beyond me. But then again, he would’ve built it either way.
Who was ever going to tell General Buzz Grunt he couldn’t do something? Yeah. No one.
A bitter laugh slips out before I can stop it. My father would be furious if he saw the place now—his perfect, regimented domain reduced to a sagging relic.
But he’s not here anymore. Strangetown can rest a little easier now. Hell, maybe I can too.
When I finally reach the patio in the backyard, I spot the old swing set, its metal frame is nothing but rust now, the once‑bright paint flaked away like sunburnt skin. The seat is long gone—probably stolen by some bored kids looking for scrap or a thrill. What’s left sways slightly in the breeze, creaking a thin, tired note that feels like the ghost of childhood.
I don’t know how many nights I spent on that swing, sitting out in the cold desert air, staring up at the stars and wishing I could be anywhere but here. Back then, the creak of the chains was the closest thing I had to company. I used to push Buck on it too, see how high he could go before he got scared and bailed out. I was the one who taught him how to leap off mid‑swing—it’s how he broke his arm. I remember the crack, the scream, the panic.
I was sure Dad was going to kill me. Absolutely sure.
But now, now I can’t help but smile at the memory. Buck still has the scar, a thin pale line on his forearm. He tells people he got it crashing his bike or fighting a drifter—anything but the truth.
I turn toward the back door. A red piece of paper is taped crookedly to the wood, snapping in the wind like a warning flag. The metal steps groan under my weight as I climb them; they feel soft in all the wrong places. When I press the notice flat, it offers me nothing new.
“This building will be demolished on April 1st, 2026. Do NOT Enter.”
I snort. Figures. I’ve never been one to listen to orders—especially not from a sign. And there’s something poetic about my father’s house—General Buzz Grunt’s house—being demolished on Prank Day, of all things. The universe does have a sense of humour, even if he never did.
I fish out my old key and slide it into the lock, expecting resistance, a grind, something. But it turns smoothly, and the bolt clicks open like it’s been waiting for me.
Even after all these years, Dad never changed the locks.
The kitchen is still mostly intact—at least in shape, if not in spirit. The appliances are gone, leaving empty cavities where the fridge, stove, and sink once anchored the room. But the counters and cupboards remain, those heavy green monoliths standing like stubborn soldiers refusing to abandon their post. They’ve always felt imposing, a strange mix of domesticity and military precision. My mom liked them because they were green; she loved colour. When she lived here, she splashed the whole house with it—our rooms, the hallway, even the yard. She tried to make the place feel alive.
The counters are probably the only bit of her my father didn’t scrub out.
The walls are still painted that dusty, muted blue—an odd choice for a kitchen, but one that made sense in the desert light. There are faint rectangular ghosts on the wall where the mugs used to hang, each space a reminder of a morning routine now long dead. Beside those marks lingers the dark, uneven burn stain from the time I accidentally set a pan down on the counter straight from the hob.
My father had been furious. I can still hear the sharp edge of his voice, feel the weight of his glare. I didn’t know it would burn. I didn’t even think it was possible.
Dust has claimed everything now. A thick, gritty film covers the counters, gathering in the corners, clinging to every forgotten surface. Even with the windows boarded or unbroken, the desert always finds a way in. It’s the one thing you can count on in Strangetown: the sand never really leaves you alone.
I slide my palm along the countertop as I walk, feeling the roughness of time beneath my fingers. The gesture is half‑habit, half‑ritual, like I’m trying to trace the shape of the memories still clinging to the room.
Before I move deeper into the house, I stand there for a moment, letting old thoughts wash over me—things I haven’t allowed myself to remember in years.
Funny how a place can forget you, even when you never really forgot it.
Buck was probably too young to remember any of it, but I know Tank does. Our mom used to make us pancakes every morning, like clockwork. We’d stumble downstairs in our pyjamas, still rubbing sleep from our eyes, and find her standing at the hob humming to herself. Her blonde hair always caught the morning sunlight, turning it into a soft halo as she poured the batter or flipped a pancake with a practised flick of her wrist.
She’d sing, too—those cheesy ’80s songs she loved. Some I recognise now, and some I still can’t track down, no matter how deep I dig through old playlists trying to chase the lyrics. She’d pretend she didn’t notice us at first, drawing out the moment, then she’d spin around with that huge, dazzling smile and belt out her ridiculous “good morning” song just for us.
She was beautiful when she smiled. I used to think my mom was the most beautiful woman in the world. I still miss her.
I pause at the end of the counter and turn back toward the back door. And suddenly, I can see us there on the floor—two little boys surrounded by plastic army men. Tank, all six years of him, is clutching the toy tank with fierce possession because, of course, he was; he’d been named after one. Little me is sprawled beside him, happy to command the tiny soldiers instead, making ridiculous gun‑firing noises and aiming their stiff plastic rifles at Tank’s prized vehicle.
Mom stands at the sink, her hands moving rhythmically through the evening’s dishes. I can almost smell the leftover macaroni mingling with the faint sweetness of her floral perfume, drifting softly through the warm kitchen air.
It feels close enough to touch. Like if I reached out, I’d meet my mom’s hand.
The atmosphere shifts the moment my father comes home. He walks straight through me—like I’m the ghost here—and the younger versions of Tank and me snap to attention. Two small boys, ages six and five, studying his face like it’s a storm front, trying to predict whether it’s going to break bad.
I watch Mom’s shoulders tense as he steps behind her. He places a hand on the small of her back and kisses her cheek. She smiles, but it’s the kind that never reaches the eyes. They speak in quiet voices, so quiet that even now I can’t make out a single word.
Funny how some memories stay silent, even when everything else comes rushing back.
My father grabs the leftovers from the oven without acknowledging any of us and disappears into the dining room—alone, as always. Mom stays rooted to the sink, staring down into the soap bubbles, her lips pressed into a thin line.
Then she turns to us with that practised softness and tells us it’s bathtime. Tank bolts upright, the toy tank still clutched in his hand, and darts toward the stairs like the floor is on fire. Little me stays behind, sitting on the wood, confusion furrowing his tiny face as he looks from her to the doorway where our father vanished.
Something in my chest twists sharply as I watch him—watch myself. The innocence in his eyes. My eyes. The helplessness he doesn’t yet have a name for.
Mom dries her hands on a dish towel, then swoops down and lifts him—me—off the floor. She taps the end of his nose with one warm, playful finger, and the confusion breaks into a small, shy smile.
Watcher above, he had no idea.
They walk straight through me as they leave the kitchen, fading back into memory as the room returns to its dusty, silent present.
In the hallway, I’m greeted by five choices. Two doors leading back out into the desert air; a narrow passage toward the downstairs bathroom and my father’s old room; the living room yawning open to my left; and the staircase rising into the shadows above. Just like the kitchen, the hardwood floors are caked in a thick layer of dust and sand, as though the whole house has been slowly dissolving back into the desert. And everywhere I look, there are ghost marks of a life that used to be here.
Light rectangles stain the walls—patches where picture frames once hung, their outlines preserved like faded fossils in the dusty blue paint. Some were family photos, the few we had. The ones with Mom disappeared first, replaced with portraits of just us boys after she left. Others were my father’s medals and commendations, displayed proudly for the rare visitor who dared to step into his domain.
He needed people to know who he was the moment they walked in—needed the house to speak the words he never did.
The occasional floorboard groans beneath my feet as I make my way toward the spot where he used to hang his jacket after coming home from work. The screws are long gone, but the holes remain—two dark, empty pits in the drywall, staring back at me like the eyes of something hollowed out.
Funny, the things a place remembers, even when you don’t want it to.
I hear my father’s footsteps before I see him—the steady, disciplined cadence I’d recognise anywhere. Instinct makes me turn, though he isn’t looking at me. Not the me standing here now.
He’s looking at the fourteen‑year‑old version of me.
There I am: stuck awkwardly between boy and teenager, hair grown just long enough to irritate him, but not long enough to make any kind of statement. A messy brown fringe brushes the tops of my ears. The beginnings of acne scattered across my cheeks. A soft roundness still clinging to my jaw. Barely over five feet tall, waiting for a growth spurt that felt like it would never come.
Watcher above, I was small.
My father closes the distance quickly, fury radiating off him in sharp, familiar waves. He’s waving a crumpled piece of paper—the report card—in my younger self’s face.
“Did you think you could hide this from me?!” he barks.
I can practically feel the eye‑roll my teenage self gives him. The attitude is almost impressive.
“Answer me, Rippert.”
Fourteen‑year‑old me folds his arms, defiant. “You went through my things?”
My father blinks, momentarily thrown off. “That’s not an answer.”
I don’t answer. Neither version of me does.
He snaps the report card with the back of his hand, the paper making a sharp, accusing crack. “What is this? What are you playing at?”
“Nothing,” my younger self mutters.
“Nothing? Nothing?!” he explodes. “You’re failing every class! How do you fail art? All you have to do is draw something!”
My teenage self shrugs. “It’s nothing. I’ll sort it out next year.”
My father’s mouth hangs open for a beat, then closes again like a stunned fish. My younger self stares back, brows furrowed, jaw clenched in that stubborn way I know too well.
Looking at him now, no wonder Dad wanted to shake some sense into me. I was a mess. I didn’t care about anything. Puberty hit me like a truck full of apathy.
“You’re not fixing this next year!” my father snaps. “You’re fixing this right now! Your teachers have labelled you as ‘disruptive.’ Where’s your school bag?”
“I’m not getting my school bag!” my younger self finally shouts.
And there it is—the moment. I remember it as clearly as if I were shoved back inside that too-small, too‑angry body. The first time I ever shouted back.
I watch the expressions play out like a script burned into my bones: my younger self’s eyes widening in horror as the words escape, my father’s incredulous, rising fury and the electric, nauseating fear rolling through fourteen‑year‑old me.
I thought he was going to hit me. I was sure of it.
My father stares him—me—down, grey eyes flicking over my greasy hair, my slouched posture, the defiance trembling beneath the fear. I can almost see the gears turning, rattling through potential punishments.
“Ten laps,” he eventually mutters.
“What?!”
“Ten laps,” he repeats, firmer. “Outside. Now.”
He grabs my arm and starts dragging my younger self toward the front door.
“What?! No!” my teenage self cries. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry!”
“You can apologise later,” my father says flatly, shoving the report card into his trouser pocket before he reaches for the doorknob.
And just like that, the memory barrels past me, leaving the hallway colder than before.
Shaking off the fading sound of my teenage self crying, I head upstairs. Nearly every step groans beneath my weight, each creak echoing through the emptiness like the house is complaining about being disturbed after so many silent years. Just like downstairs, the walls are bare—eerily bare—showing no sign that a family ever lived here. The photos and certificates that once lined these walls never made it this far up. The paint is smooth, unbroken, untouched by even a single nail.
It’s like the second floor forgot us even faster than we forgot it.
To my right is Buck’s old room; to my left, my own, and beyond that, the rest of the shadowed hallway leading deeper into the second floor. After seeing my teenage self stand up to my father for the first time—however disastrously—it feels right to step into the room where that defiant kid grew up.
Inside, my room is exactly how I left it: stripped bare, empty, hollow. The air feels colder here, as though the house has already begun letting go of whatever scraps of memory it had left. A few band‑logo stickers still cling stubbornly to the walls—sun‑bleached, curling at the corners, but refusing to fall. I never bothered peeling them off when I left, and I’m surprised my father didn’t scrape them away the second I was gone.
They stand out against the fading paint like tiny, rebellious ghosts.
Figures. Those stupid stickers might outlive the entire house. Probably will survive the demolition too.
I stand where the foot of my bed used to be and stare at one of the stubborn old stickers still clinging to the wall—a black square with bold white lettering: SOAD. The edges are curled and sun‑bleached, but it’s still defiant, still loud. I used to think listening to them made me rebellious, like choosing Rage Against the Machine and System of a Down over the bubblegum pop and gangster rap everyone else blasted somehow made me untouchable.
The Watcher, I thought I was so cool.
I blink—and suddenly the room isn’t empty anymore. My bed snaps back into existence, rumpled blankets and all, with the nightstand and bedside light with the lampshade leaning at its usual crooked angle and the old dresser tucked into the corner like it never left. “Bulls on Parade” blasts from the contraband stereo I wasn’t supposed to have, the tinny speakers shaking with the bass.
My fifteen‑year‑old self is jumping on the bed, head‑banging like he’s trying to detach his own skull, shouting the lyrics at the top of his lungs. If I had to guess, I’d say this was one of those rare days when my father wasn’t home. No way he’d have let the song get past the first riff before ripping the plug out of the wall.
At fifteen, my growth spurt had finally decided to show up. I’m a little taller, lankier, all elbows and knees. Acne is in full bloom across my cheeks, and my hair has finally crawled its way down to my jaw—where it would stay for the next two decades, no matter how much it pissed my father off.
“They rally ‘round the family!” my younger self screams, voice cracking. “With a pocket full of shells!”
The bedroom door bursts open, and for a split second, my gut tightens—I expect my father storming in, ready to tear the stereo out of the wall. But I was right. This memory isn’t about him.
It’s about Tank.
Sixteen‑year‑old Tank fills the doorway as if he owns it. Even as a teenager, he was taller than I am now, all long limbs and barely‑contained intensity. His signature camouflage face paint smudges across his skin, the bumps of his acne looking angrier under the streaks of green and brown. I always thought he looked just like our father back then—buzzcut, clenched jaw, that permanent scowl carved across his face.
But seeing him now, with grown‑up eyes, I spot the pieces of Mom I hadn't noticed before. The Vandermorgan nose she used to joke about was sharp and distinct, and her eyes—the same shape, the same blue colour, tucked into that hard expression. Even as a teenager, he had that wiry, ready‑to‑fight strength, the kind of kid who looked like he could bench‑press a truck if you asked him to.
How did I never see her in him before?
Tank barges straight through me like I’m smoke and yanks the stereo’s plug from the wall. The music dies in an abrupt, ugly choke of silence. My younger self freezes mid‑jump, hair wild, chest heaving, and looks up at him with pure outrage.
“What are you doing?!” my younger self snaps, voice cracking.
“Turning this bullshit off!” Tank fires back, already grabbing for the cord again as if shutting it up once wasn’t satisfying enough.
“That’s my stereo. You can’t do that!”
“I just did!”
“Plug it back in!” My younger self barks at him.
Tank ignores the demand. He pushes past my teenage self and unlatches one of the windows. As he shoves it open, a gust of hot desert air rushes in, rattling the blinds. Fifteen‑year‑old me watches him with dawning horror, trying to piece together what’s about to happen.
If I’d realised a split second earlier.
Young me launches off the bed and slams into Tank with all his scrawny might, knocking Tank off balance. Tank stumbles but recovers quickly, shoving him—me—back so hard he hits the floor with a grunt.
Before my teenage self can scramble up, Tank already has his hands on the stereo.
“Tank—don’t—” I whisper uselessly.
And then it happens.
The stereo vanishes from his grip, sailing out the open window. It hits the dirt below with a violent crunch that makes my stomach twist. Even now, watching it as an adult, it feels like someone punched me in the ribs.
He destroyed it. My one escape. My one piece of freedom in this house.
The Watcher, that fucking hurt. Even the second time.
I turn to look at my teenage self, his eyes are glossy, nostrils flaring, jaw trembling as he pushes himself off the floor. Tears spill over before he can stop them.
“You asshole!” he screams, voice cracking with fury and heartbreak.
“You’re the asshole for listening to that bullshit!” Tank shouts back, towering over him.
Without hesitation—without thought—my younger self hurls himself at his older brother. They crash to the floor in a tangled mess of limbs and rage.
Our first fight. The first real one, anyway.
I didn’t understand any of it back then. I thought that with the new teenage testosterone pumping through me, I’d finally take Tank down. I forgot—stupidly—that he had teenage testosterone too. And muscle. And height. And that permanent coiled‑spring anger humming under his skin.
I didn’t know it yet, but every time Tank and I came to blows, I would always lose.
I watch the two of us roll across the dusty floor, trading punches like two strangers instead of brothers. The thuds, the yells, the scramble of feet and fists—it all feels too real, too close.
Watcher, help us. We were just kids. Angry, stupid kids.
And the house remembers every second of it.
I head back downstairs, each step feeling heavier than the last. Coming back to this house was a horrible misjudgement on my part. I don’t know why I’ve done this to myself. It’s like the place sifted through every memory I’ve ever had and decided to parade the worst ones in front of me, to make sure I never walk away with anything resembling fondness.
Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe this house wants me to remember it honestly.
When I reach the foot of the stairs, I drift into what used to be our living room. The rock I threw earlier sits patiently in the middle of the floor like some guilty offering, surrounded by glittering shards of broken glass. The walls are pale ghosts of themselves—darkened silhouettes marking where the couch and armchairs used to sit, a gaping rectangular void where the bookshelf once presided over our lives.
I used to rot away on that sofa for hours after Tank tossed my stereo out the window, numbing whatever feelings I had left with the flickering TV. Buck and I watched that stupid sitcom about six friends in the city—my father hated it with a passion. Sometimes when I embarrass myself, I still swear I can hear that canned laugh track echo in the back of my head.
I stand in the middle of the empty room, waiting for another memory to ambush me like all the others, waiting for the furniture to reappear, for voices to rise from the dust, for footsteps to creak across the floorboards. But nothing comes.
I close my eyes. Open them again.
Still nothing.
The room stays dead. Silent. Unwilling to give me anything more.
I let out a slow, tired sigh. The house may have offered all it can. Maybe it’s finally done with me.
But then—without warning—the lighting in the room shifts. A strange dimness settles over everything. I turn back, and the living room is no longer empty.
All the furniture has returned to its rightful places.
The old bookcase stands tall again, overflowing with my father’s endless collection of books about war, space, and thick biographies of people he admired but never resembled. The stereo sits tucked neatly into the corner, cassette tapes and CDs stacked with military precision on the shelves beneath it. Everything looks exactly as it once did—except the chairs.
They’re wrong.
They look softer now, warmer. There’s a faded blanket draped over the back of the couch, and a couple of throw pillows arranged as if someone cared enough to make the place comfortable. The sun has vanished. It’s night.
Oh no. Not this one. I don’t want to see this. I can’t relive it.
I glance instinctively up the staircase—and there we are. Tank and I, small enough to hide behind the railings, peering down into the living room with wide, anxious eyes. Tank is nine. I’m eight. Little me looks like I’ve been crying; little Tank wipes his nose with the back of his hand and sniffs, trying to look tougher than he feels.
Then Mom bursts out of the downstairs bedroom, a small suitcase clutched in her hand. There’s a fire behind her eyes—anger, fear, resolve all tangled together. My father follows a couple of steps behind her. He doesn’t look angry. He looks hurt, devastated even, but not angry.
It’s unsettling seeing him like that. The great General Buzz Grunt was reduced to a man who doesn’t know what to do with his own hands.
He reaches out to grab my mom’s arm, but she whirls around and swats his hand away with a trembling fury.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare touch me!” she shouts, her voice cracking.
My father freezes, then lets his arm fall uselessly to his side.
“Lyla, please,” he pleads, and the sound of him pleading knocks the wind out of me. “You can’t do this. You can’t just go.”
It’s strange—almost surreal—to see him beg. I’d nearly forgotten he was capable of it. His grey eyes shine with a gloss he refuses to let fall. He never cried. Not once. Not in front of us.
My mom takes a shaky breath. “Watch me.”
My father steps toward her again, hesitant, uncertain, and she doesn’t move away this time. Her shoulders are trembling. His voice is barely holding itself together.
“Lyla, please, I’m sorry. I—I didn’t mean it,” he stammers. “I would never. You know I would never.”
“Really?!” Mom’s voice cracks like a whip across the room as she points straight through me toward the kitchen. “Because that—that in there—says otherwise.”
I glance up at little me and little Tank crouched at the top of the stairs; their small faces pinched with confusion. They look at each other, not understanding the words but feeling the tension thick enough to choke on. I remember this night—how the shouting woke me up, how I sprinted to Tank’s room in a blind panic, and how Tank whispered that we should check if everything downstairs was okay.
I have a spoiler for you, little guys. It was absolutely not okay downstairs.
My father throws his hands up helplessly, his voice cracking with desperation. “Where are you going to go?”
“I don’t know. Probably Jenny’s,” Mom says, certainty in her voice.
My father’s jaw works like he’s chewing through his own panic, searching for another question, any question, to stall her. Mom stands planted, suitcase in hand, waiting for him to break. She knows she won't make it through the front door unless he exhausts every last pathetic delay he can think of.
“What about the boys?” he finally asks, his voice small.
“I’m coming back for them,” Mom says firmly. “I’m not dragging them out of their beds in the middle of the night.”
Oh, Mom, if you’d only looked up, you would’ve seen that two of us were already awake. Already watching.
“Look up,” I whisper, even though she can’t hear me. “Come on… look up.”
For a heartbeat, she almost does. Her gaze flicks toward the stairs, toward the shadows where two tiny faces peek between the railings.
And then—
“When are you coming back?” my father interrupts, slicing the moment clean in half.
Mom’s eyes snap back to him. “No, Eugene.” Her voice hardens. “I’m coming back for the boys, and then we’re leaving. For good.”
She tries to turn toward the door again, but he follows her, reaching out. When he catches her wrist, she recoils as if he burns her, pressing her back against the wood of the front door. Her blue eyes widen—fear, fury, heartbreak all tangled together.
“Lyla,” my father whispers, voice trembling at the edges. “We can fix this.”
“Fix this? Fix this?” she repeats, her voice rising as she gestures frantically between them. “I’ve spent years trying to fix this, and you’ve turned me down at every turn. I can’t do it anymore.”
My father has no answer. He stands there, hollowed out, watching her straighten herself with a dignity he can’t touch.
“I’ve had it with the long days and the excuses and the lies,” she says, each word landing like a blow. “I’ve been raising three boys alone for years, as far as you’re concerned. I’m sure we’ll do just fine without you.”
Before he can form the next plea, a car horn blares from outside—one sharp, unmistakable honk. Both their heads turn toward the window.
Mom inhales deeply, bracing herself.
“Goodbye, Eugene,” she says softly, and with that, she opens the front door.
I turn my eyes back up the staircase. Little me and little Tank are still crouched behind the railing, small and silent and scared. We didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time we ever saw our mom.
I close my eyes, waiting—no, praying—for the living room to reset. To dissolve back into a blank, hollow space with nothing but the rock and the broken glass glittering in the dust. I want the memory to drain away like water through a crack in the floor.
When I open them, my father is still standing in front of the door, frozen in place, paralysed by what just happened. His shoulders are stiff, his hands limp at his sides, his whole body caught somewhere between disbelief and collapse.
I don’t remember this part.
I look back toward the staircase. Little Tank is creeping down the steps, quiet as a whisper, glancing over his shoulder as if silently urging little me to follow. And little me does—hesitant, tear‑streaked, clinging to the bannister like it might steady the world.
The two boys edge forward and peer over the railing. My father still hasn’t noticed them. He wouldn’t think to look—he thinks we’re asleep, tucked safely away upstairs, oblivious.
He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. Still not crying.
Then he moves—slowly, heavily—and lowers himself onto the couch. His elbows dig into his knees as he puts his head in his hands. The mighty General Grunt folded in on himself like a man crushed under the weight of something he can’t command or discipline into submission.
“What…?” I whisper, confused. I don’t remember him like this.
Little Tank slips fully off the stairs then, bare feet padding softly across the hardwood. Little me follows close behind, afraid to be left alone, afraid of the silence, afraid of everything.
They approach him carefully, tiny footsteps he somehow still doesn’t hear.
“Dad?” Tank whispers.
My father lifts his head. Slowly. His eyes are red, raw around the edges. He’s not crying, not really, but a single tear clings stubbornly to his cheek before falling.
“Boys?” His voice cracks. “What are you doing up?”
“We heard shouting,” little me mumbles, rubbing at his face.
“We wanted to make sure everything was okay,” Tank adds, trying to sound brave.
My father takes a long moment, breathes deeply, then nods to himself as if remembering how to be someone’s father again. He clears his throat, straightens a little.
“Well… that was very brave of you,” he says. And for the first time in my life, his voice almost sounds warm.
He rises to his feet. “C’mon, let’s get you two back to bed.”
I watch as he scoops them up—one on each arm—like they weigh nothing to him. Two little boys tucked against a man who suddenly looks so tired, so human.
They disappear up the stairs together.
The house falls silent again—eerily, completely. I lower myself onto the floor where the couch used to be, knees drawn up, elbows resting against them. The hardwood is cold beneath me, the cold that sinks slowly into your bones. I try to steady my breathing, but every exhale comes out shaky, every inhale trembles on its way in, like my lungs have forgotten how to work properly.
I stare into the hollow space in front of me, waiting for something—anything—to materialise, waiting for a smaller, younger version of myself to come bursting through the front door with scraped knees and a reckless grin. Waiting for Tank to stomp in from the dining room, calling me an idiot, or Buck stumbling down the stairs, asking for my help. Waiting for the echo of my father’s footsteps, or his voice snapping my name like a whip, furious that I dared to quit Division 47.
But nothing happens.
No echoes. No ghosts. No flicker of my mom’s smile or the warmth of her perfume drifting through the air. Just silence—and the faint, faraway hum of a car rolling down the road outside, indifferent to the ruins of my past.
“Why did I come here?” I whisper aloud, the emptiness swallowing my voice whole.
I rest my head back against the wall and stare up at the white ceiling. The scuff mark from when I hurled one of Tank’s trainers at it in a fit of teenage rage is still there, a faint grey bruise on the paint. Another thing my father never bothered to scrub out, despite spending years erasing every other trace of us.
Why that survived, I’ll never understand.
I swallow hard, memories piling thick and unwelcome. So much has happened since I walked out of this house. There was the trial—Watcher, what a circus that was—standing in front of a room full of strangers, trying to convince them my father wasn’t a complete asshole while they asked question after question designed to prove that he was. Apparently, I did a great job. Just not great enough to keep him out of jail for “Dereliction of Duty.” But still—great job, Ripp. Gold star.
A tired laugh slips out of me before I can stop it.
I picture Johnny Smith being officially labelled “lost military equipment.” That idiot would have loved that. He’d never shut up about it.
If anyone even knew where he was, anyway. He’d probably also love knowing his family is finally free of Division 47. Jill and Buck found their way back to each other—they even have a kid now. I figured Johnny would’ve shown up for the wedding or the birth of his nephew, but I guess he’s busy doing, well, whatever the hell Johnny does these days.
My little brother and his little sister. We used to tease them endlessly about it. I never thought they’d actually end up together in the end.
Tank didn’t seem remotely bothered by becoming an uncle. He took it in stride, the same way he takes most things: quietly, like he’s been expecting them all along.
Now that I think about it, what is he up to these days?
A heaviness settles in my chest—part guilt, part something else.
I should call him. Maybe it’s time we stop pretending the past is some unscalable mountain.
I exhale slowly, staring up at that scuff mark like it might hold the answers I’ve spent years avoiding. The silence feels different now—not hostile, not accusing. Just waiting.
And then something clicks.
These memories—vivid, gut‑punching, unfiltered—the house didn’t show them to punish me. They weren’t some haunted‑house cruelties designed to break me down. The house dragged everything forward because it wanted something else. It wanted honesty. Gratitude. Completion.
My brow furrows as the truth rolls over me.
There were some horrible times in these walls—the arguing, the fighting, the drills before dawn that left my muscles screaming. The atmosphere was so thick with tension that it felt like you could slice it and bleed.
But there were good moments, too, weren’t there? More than I’ve let myself admit.
The pancakes Mom used to make. The stupid roughhousing with my brothers. The afternoons when music drowned out everything else, even if only for a minute.
Hell, even when my father got angry and shouted, it was because he cared in his own rigid, half‑broken, semi‑abusive way. Twisted love is still love, even when it’s cracked straight down the middle.
And maybe I needed to see it all again.
Maybe I needed the reminder that, yeah, being a teenager under my father’s rule sucked big time, but there were little moments where I actually got to be normal. And those little moments aren’t trapped in this house.
They’re trapped in me.
I recoil instinctively, scrunching my nose as if I’ve just caught a whiff of something rancid. Watcher above, that sounded corny. Embarrassingly, painfully corny. Peak millennial cringe.
Still, despite myself, I feel something in my chest loosen, like a knot that’s finally, mercifully untying. A slow release of tension I didn’t realise I’d been carrying since the day I walked out of this place.
A breath I didn’t know I’d been holding finally slips free.
Before I walk out the back door for the last time, I return to my room and peel the SOAD sticker off the wall. It comes away stubbornly, taking a curl of dusty blue paint with it; a little scar of rebellion clinging to the house. I wrap the sticker around the rock I threw in the living room earlier, feeling its weight settle into my palm, strange and grounding. A weird keepsake, maybe. But it’s mine. I slip it into the pocket of my jacket like a secret I’m finally ready to keep.
As I pull the back door closed, I pause to stare at the red demolition notice taped crookedly to the wood. The paper snaps and flutters in the breeze like it's eager to be free, too. Taking one last breath, I slide my key into the lock and tug the doorknob upward until the bolt clicks—one final, decisive sound that echoes far too loudly in the space.
I turn the key over in my hand as I make my way around to the front of the house. It feels heavier than metal should—warm from my grip, warmed by memories I don’t want and can’t quite shake. My fingers curl around it.
And then, without thinking, I twist my body and hurl the key out into the open desert. It arcs into the distance and disappears somewhere among the sand and sun‑bleached nothing. I don’t see where it lands.
But I feel lighter immediately, as if something unclenched in my chest—like someone finally lifted a boulder off my shoulders after years of pretending it wasn’t there.
I keep walking, not looking back, stepping off the paved stones and across the compacted sand, cutting through the yard just like I used to when I was a kid sneaking out for air.
At the edge of the property line, I turn around.
I don’t see the peeling paint or the sagging roof. I don’t see the boarded windows or the rotten stairs. I see the faint silhouette of the house I grew up in—the one full of noise and fighting and pancakes and chaos and love, however twisted.
I lift both middle fingers toward the building.
“See ya never, 51 Road to Nowhere,” I call out, as if the house might toss something snarky back. “This is Ripp Grunt, over and out.”
Then I turn away and keep walking down the street, the desert wind brushing past like a quiet, overdue goodbye.