Chapter Two
Around 2 AM, Andy pulled his motorcycle back into his driveway. He lifted up the seat to take out the folder his mother had given him. The tab was labeled Anya Molina.
Andy went into his apartment, locking the deadbolt behind him, and sat on his sofa. He was so nervous that his hands were shaking visibly as he held the folder above the coffee table. He took a deep breath and opened the folder.
The first page was an image of a woman - no, not a woman… it was her. The woman from his dream. His mother.
He spent a few moments studying her features, trying to convince himself that it is not true - that he is not adopted and that this is not his mother. But it was useless, because his eyes were the exact same emerald, their hair the same texture. They both had an olive complexion. The parents that he had known his whole life, Shearl and Harrison Clearwater, were pale in comparison but he had never really noticed until now. He had always just assumed it was from playing outside as a kid, riding his bicycle and skateboard around the block… but now, 15 years later, he is still the same shade of olive, however his lifestyle is best described as a recluse.
Andy shook his head, to try and rid himself of the strange feeling that he does not know who he is at all. He flipped the page. The next page was of a medical office cover sheet, followed by a stack of medical records.
In the next few hours, Andy learned that his mother was born in Sacramento, California, on August 14th of 1970. She graduated from high school at 18 and went to school to become a hairdresser. She also worked as a waitress while studying. She started having “visions” around this time, of a faceless shadow figure stalking her on her walks home at night from her local trade school.
Anya Molina was hospitalized after being hit by a special needs bus while running down the road, screaming that something was following her. All of the bystanders claimed that there was nothing at all following her and that she had suddenly lost her mind. She wasn’t physically injured despite the minor concussion, and was hospitalized in a mental facility for 48 hours following the incident.
When Anya was released, she quit school and started spending as much time at home as she could, to avoid running into the “shadow man” (as she called it). Eventually, however, even home was not safe for her, as the “shadow man” found her there, too, and consumed her nights.
Anya met a man named Thomas Bullard around this time. He was a customer who had come into the diner where she worked and was immediately smitten with her: she had felt the same and they quickly fell in love. However, Anya kept her shadow stalker a secret from Thomas. Soon, she became pregnant with a baby boy that they named Charlie.
After Charlie was born, Anya and Thomas moved in together in a two-bedroom duplex in McCloud, California. Shortly thereafter, Thomas learned of the shadow figure that had been haunting Anya for the last several years. He was skeptical of her and did not believe that it was real. Thomas was the type of man that had a “see it to believe it” attitude and assumed that Anya had some sort of mental disorder.
One day, Anya took Charlie on a walk to get some ice cream and had what bystanders assumed to be a mental breakdown in the middle of the road. The incident report states that Anya was sitting in the middle of the road screaming “GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO AWAY!” at the top of her lungs, while clutching her son close.
Anya was quickly extracted from the street and transported to a mental facility where she was held for 48 hours pending a mental evaluation. Charlie was held by social services for 48 hours as well, as they were unable to get in touch with his father. And another 48 hours went by, and another… and his father never showed. Anya was declared mentally insane and was to be held by the mental institution indefinitely. Charlie was placed into foster care, at the age of 1.
Andy suddenly realized with acute certainty that he was Charlie.
He sat in silence for a long time, marveling at this fact.
Then he began to feel angry: at his father, for disappearing and abandoning his family. At his mother, for letting herself get locked away like that, and at the system, for failing her and failing him.
Andy continued reading the pages in the file. They detailed her life in the mental institution. She was described as being completely sane one day and insane the next. She had mood swings and would often go from smiling and laughing to wielding the closest inanimate object as a weapon and screaming bloody murder. She was often sedated, brought to her room and strapped down to keep her from hurting the orderlies.
The next page caused Andy to jump back with a soft gasp as he squeezed his eyes shut. It was an image of Anya, his birth mother, sprawled on the ground in an inhuman shape, her eyes wide with horror. Andy took a moment to gather his bearings. He expected himself to start crying or something, and realized that it may be his mother, but he has no memory of her and no emotional connection. He picked up the folder again and studied the image more. It started to sting inside, with the realization dawning on him that all in one day, he learned that he was adopted, learned who his biological mother is, and also that she is dead. He felt heavy, like the weight of all of the world rested on his back.
He noticed that there were no puddles of blood around Anya’s body. She did not seem to be injured in any way. Her body was just contorted in a way that seemed painful and almost impossible. He flipped the page. The next page was a death certificate, detailing the way she died.
The details were few and far between, as it seemed the coroner was unable to determine a cause of death. She had not been physically injured in any way. Her blood results showed no toxins, no drugs, nothing to indicate that she had been poisoned or overdosed. All that they knew was that she died, alone and afraid, in the middle of the night on a long dirt road.
She had escaped from the asylum and the documentation says that she jumped from a second story window that had not been boarded up and landed in the bushes. It was midnight when she escaped and the bushes softened the sound of her fall, so no one in the asylum heard a thing. At bed check the next morning, Anya was long gone. It was three days later that her body was discovered on a dirt road that is rarely traveled.
Andy closed the folder and sat back on the sofa. Everything felt surreal to him. He had an extremely hard time believing everything that he had just learned. There was no way it all could be true. But in his heart, he knew that it was. It was no coincidence that he dreamed of this woman, or that this woman was also being followed by a shadow figure. He started to ponder if it was a genetic mental disability causing him to see this figure.
He did not want to believe that it was real, or that it could hurt him, or touch him. But as Andy lay in his bed at night to sleep, it was all he could think about. The image of his deceased mother sprawled wide-eyed and open-mouthed on the dirt road stuck in his head. How did she die then, if it did not kill her? And would it, eventually, kill him?
Comments (0)
See all