Kenopsia

(N.) The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but is now quite and abandoned.

~

Flash Thompson's P.O.V
Flash was more disheartened at not finding The man in the corner then he let on. Some of the smartest people in the world were working on this and they still found nothing.

To rub more salt in the wound, Flash was 63% sure he had seen Gerald before. It was probably stupid though, he had been staring at his face all day and his brain was probably messing with him.

Flash pulled out his phone, no notifications. He clicked on YouTube and scrolled through the comments of the video. Most of them were praising Spiderman for saving the store.

Two days ago, Flash was one of those people who obsessed over every video Spiderman was even mentioned in. And now he was sitting in the same room as Spiderman. Scratch that. He was Spiderman.

But Flash would give anything for stuff to go back to normal.

Actually, that was a lie. Although, he was in Peter's body and constantly worrying that Gerald was going to appear out of thin air and kill him, Flash was happier then he had been in years. He finally had friends.

He had only known everyone for a day and a half but they had gotten along well. And Flash really enjoyed hanging out with them.

A memory of when he remembered being happy emerged without his permission. Two months ago when his parents decided to last give a shit.

After about a week, they went on a business trip for a month without warning. Well Flash guessed it was a business trip. They never actually bothered to tell him.

He thought back to that day.

-•{×Flashback×}•-
|
The Thompson Household
Sunday
7:02AM
|

Flash's alarm on his new phone rang shrilly waking him up. He groaned and rolled over. He felt around his bedside table to find his phone with no luck.

Grudgingly, he got up and searched his desk. He found it underneath a limited edition poster his parents got him the day before. He turned the alarm off and checked his notifications.

[Somebody liked your post]
[Somebody replied to your comment]
[Somebody sent a message to "The Spiderman fanclub" group chat]

But no texts from his friends in real life. He hadn't been to school for a week and not one of them texted to check if he was ok.

Flash got dressed quickly and went downstairs. He entered the kitchen expecting to see his parents smiling faces but the kitchen was empty.

Deep down Flash knew what was happening but he tried to stay optimistic, giving his parents the benefit of the doubt.

Flash spent the next 20 minutes searching every room in the house to no avail.

After every empty room Flash got more and more angry.

How could they do this to him again? Why? They didn't even give any warning.

Flash paced up and down the landing, lost in his own, bitter thoughts. Only stopped when he almost walked into the door at the end of the landing.

Flash stopped and stared at it. He was allowed to go anywhere in the house except this room.

His parents study.

Once his Dad slapped him across the face for trying to get in. Since then Flash had just learned to block out the door. Pretend it wasn't there, just like his parents did to him. . .

Flash raced to his room and grabbed a paperclip. He learned how to pick locks a year ago, the last time his parents went on a business trip without telling him. He used the skill to commit petty crimes, stealing bikes, breaking into people's sheds. He wasn't proud of it, but you can't change the past. 

"Mum, Dad. I'm breaking into your office!" Flash called to the empty house. Unsurprisingly the house didn't tell him to stop so Flash turned the doorknob and opened the door.

It was the sort of office you would expect two, wealthy lawyers to have. Bookshelves lined the walls and a long wooden desk sat in front of the frosted window. It was covered in paper and random post it notes.

Flash wasn't sure what he was expecting but he thought it would be more exciting then this.

Flash looked at some of the papers they all looked official and boring so he didn't bother reading them.

He walked to the other side of the desk and sat down in one of the office chairs. Flash looked in the desk draws.

At the bottom of one was a locked box he picked the lock. Inside were a bundle of handwritten letters. He pulled them out and started reading.

|

Mr + Mrs Thompson,

Great work on your last business trip. It was very. . . Beneficial to our case.

I have something big planned in the coming months and I think your skills will prove extremely useful.

Monica kindly offered to host out next little meeting. Make sure you're on time. I need help with another legal matter and I wish to start as soon as possible.

Sincerely, Me

|

That was weird Flash thought, he flicked through the rest of the letters and they were all signed Sincerely, Me

Flash guessed they were from a client or friend of his parents.

Flash had never liked his parents friends/clients (he never actually found out which they were.) There was just a weird atmosphere whenever he was in the room with them.

He put the letters down on the table and spun around in the chair.

A picture on the wall caught his eye. His parents and 3 other people he didn't recognise stood in a line.

They all wore black clothes and their smiles looked more like smirks. His parents looked a lot younger. Flash lifted the frame off the wall.

He took the photo out of it's frame and flipped it over

"Harrison, Rosie, John, Monica and Gerald, 2010"

2010 was the year Thysía died.

Harrison and Rosie are his parents names but who are John, Monica and Gerald? And why was Flash never allowed in this room? There wasn't anything very suspicious about it. As far as he could see it was just an office.

Flash put the photo in the frame then put it back on the wall.

He looked at all the bookshelves. He had never seen either of his parents read before. Well he had never seen very much of his parents so that didn't say anything.

Flash opened up a filing cabinet and flipped through the contents. Most were files from law cases. When he tried to close the draw it got caught.

Flash felt underneath to try and close it. He found 3 files stuck to the bottom.

Confused, Flash opened them.

Three names stood out to him.

John McNamara

Monica Valentine

Gerald Shortway

The names of the people in the picture.

But why were their files hidden?
Why did they even have files?
What's going on?

Flash put them back. He wasn't completely sure why, but he had the feeling he didn't want to read them.

*

On a tall piece of furniture there was a jewelry box Thysía had made when she was small.

Flash felt a wave of sadness was over him. He remembered his sister spending hours glueing sequins to that little box.

He stood on his tip toes and reached the box down.

He opened it slowly inside a piece of paper.

The note read:

^*~¶¢}¥   5|®33|   £®∆π#

Ok, that was weird.

Flash could think of two explanations.

1) it was a code
2) Thysía drew some symbols when she made the box and nobody had taken it out.

Flash decided it was the second option. The handwriting was awful and Thysía always loved drawing. . .

Absent mindedly, Flash put everything back were it came from but not before he took a photo of the slip of paper.

If his sister had drawn that he wanted to have a reminder of it and Flash didn't know if he would have an opportunity to break in here again

And if it was a code. . . it was probably best if there was another copy that wasn't locked in a office.

It hit Flash harder then ever that he didn't know his parents at all. And that he was complely alone in this world.

*

His eyes fell upon Thysía's last school picture. His eyes darted around the room. Suddenly he noticed lots of things that reminded him of his sister. Little things she had made. Pictures she had drawn.

His breaths became quicker. His heart rate increased. It was almost to much

He had failed her.

She sacrificed herself and what had he done to repay her?

Nothing. that was what. 

Flash fell to his knees, except he wasn't Flash he was Eugene. A scared little boy who should have been hit by the car instead.

A monster who diserved to die.

It was his fault.

If he hadn't been in the middle of the road in the first place.

She would be here.

If he hadn't frozen.

She would be here.

If he hadn't insisted on going to the cinema for his birthday.

She would be here.

He wanted to take her place but it was to late. Eight years to late.

-•{×Flashback Over×}•-

Flash sat bolt upright.

He understood why he didn't remember this happening. Whenever he had a panic attack, especially one about his sister he would repress the hell out of it. He couldn't be seen to be weak. So he just put the memory in a dark place in his mind and locked it in a attempted to forget anything happened.

He would sometimes forget whole days. Well not forget, as such but repressed and pushed to the back of Flash's mind.

Flash pulled out his phone and scrolled through his camera. The coded note photo was still there.

He contemplated what to do next.

Then he looked over at the sleeping form of Peter.

"Peter wake up" Flash hissed in his ear.

"Wha-?" Peter rolled over.

"I found him."

"Wait really? How?"

"Well, I kinda did."

~

Omg that took so long to write, its over 1700 words and it's a mess 😂