Tomorrow We Enter the Void

Introduction

If there's blood on my face it's the way that we all go. Do I scare you? - Ivory by Adam French 

It was warm outside. Not warm enough for Emmery to take off his hoodie. It was never quite warm enough for him to take off his hoodie. His boyfriend, Lucas, was sitting next to him, staring out at the pond. Lucas was wearing a baggy t-shirt and black jeans. The t-shirt had a picture of a rose on it. 

They were standing silently on the Gapstow Bridge in Central Park.  Neither of them especially liked this spot. They were babysitting Emmery’s little cousin, Amber. Well, technically Emmery was babysitting her. Lucas was just along for the ride. Amber had run down the bridge to feed the ducks. Lucas tried to make a joke about the weather. Emmery tried to laugh. 

Emmery walked down to Amber explaining that it was getting dark so they needed to head to the subway to catch a ride home. It was only 4:00 pm and she knew that, though she didn’t protest. Lucas followed and walked with them down the path, away from the pond. 

“You’re kinda short.” Lucas remarked to Emmery. 

“And you're kinda an asshole.” Emmery replied flatly. He wasn’t mad. 

Amber gasped, pointing to a nest of ducklings tucked under the shrubs that lined the path. A guy on a bike flew past on the path and Emmery yanked Amber out of the way. 

“So. Last day of summer.” Lucas pointed out. 

“How observational.” Emmery grabbed Lucas’s hand and almost recoiled at how cold it was. “Do you wanna do anything?” 

“Not really.” 

Amber ran ahead and did some cartwheels. 

“Hmm.” Emmery pretended to think. All his mind kept telling him was that Lucas’s hand was so cold he was probably dead. A corpse. Maybe Emmery was just holding hands with a corpse. 

“I actually might need to go back to school tonight.” Lucas was trying to avoid an argument that he thought was going to happen. It wouldn’t have.
Lucas lived in a dorm at the private boarding school where Emmery and Hadley, his other cousin, attended. It was a snobby place called Laurens Academy. It was primarily for rich kids, and poor kids that had extreme amounts of talent and luck. Lucas fell into the former, while Emmery was in the latter. 

Lucas lived in his dorm almost full time. When he wasn’t there he was at Emmery’s family mansion. Emmery’s family was not rich. The mansion was inherited from Emmery’s Great Grandpa. Of course, when the family moved in it became obvious early on that much of the mansion was falling apart. The family mostly just stayed away from the places where the floor had given out. That technique had been working pretty well so far. 

“Oh. That’s cool I guess.” Emmery responded after what, to the both of them, felt like a long time. “Do you maybe want to work on some lyrics or album covers while you're there?” Together, Emmery, Lucas, and Hadley made up the band Tomorrow We Enter the Void. They had started it as an edgy project for their social studies class, and had ended up becoming pretty famous, though none of them liked to think of it like that. They liked to think about it more as something that was a bit popular, but not famous. That was too much pressure. 

“Sure why not?”  Lucas replied. He didn’t seem at all excited. 

They walked down to the subway station and sat with Amber in between the two. She often liked to run off and bother strangers while they were out in public so they both kept a watchful eye on her. When they got to their stop they walked all the way to the strange, shrouded woodland area where Barren Grove, the family mansion, lay. While Amber ran ahead Lucas and Emmery hugged and Lucas walked back down the street, towards the subway. Emmery followed Amber slowly, not quite ready to be home. 

When he finally did make it inside, it was almost quiet, if not for the distant arguing that was happening somewhere in the house. That was usual for living with all of your extended family. Emmery slid off his worn converse and put them by the door. He walked across the huge foyer that a lot of people liked to call the grand entrance. Mostly wikipedia pages and things like that. It had large, marble columns and on the floor was a scene from some book. Emmery wasn’t sure which book, but it was a book. He knew that for sure. This was the only room in the house that was easy to breathe in. The rest was all cramped and messy. 

There were five hallways that branched off from the foyer and two spiral staircases that led to the upper levels. The staircase on the right led to the west wing, which no one had gone in for years, because it had no floor, and the right one led to the main kitchen, a couple little nooks, and one secret room where you had to flick a light switch on and off three times to get to. Emmery took the hallway closest to the main door. 

This hallway was a long stretch of doors. Some doors had brick walls behind them. The others opened into storage spaces. At the end of the hallway there was a maid staircase that led up to a small pantry with a small kitchen beyond. In the kitchen Emmery grabbed a pop tart and an apple. Through this kitchen there were two more hallways. One led to Amber’s room and one went straight to the foyer. The only way to access the rest of the bedrooms was to go through Amber’s room and then through her closet. 

Emmery knocked on her door and when she didn’t answer he went in and made his way through the closet. The closet led to a new hallway that had 20 windows lining the side with no doors. The only 20 windows in the house, to be clear. You could see the Long Island shoreline and beyond that, the entire skyline of New York City. He walked down the hallway and to his room, which was marked by a poster of Neil Cicierega. 

He had a pretty small room. His bed was pushed up against the left wall and he had a dresser in the back. His bed was one of those dorm room beds that had space for a desk on the bottom and the bed on top. He didn’t have a desk, just a guitar and lots of books. He had tried to hang fairy lights around the room, but hadn’t been tall enough to do it and didn’t want to put effort into it. Now, there were just badly applied strings of lights around the room. He liked to believe it gave the room a messy ambience (it didn’t). 

He sat down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. It was the last day of their summer break and everyone had their traditions to fulfill. This was his. Sitting on his bed, looking at the ceiling thinking about his extended family. Amber would be hidden away in her room doing gods know what. She was often an elusive being, like a cat. The adults of Barren Grove would separate into their own little groups to argue and watch TV. Hadley would probably be in their room as well, either painting or practicing guitar. Emmery thought about going to hang out with them, but then decided against it. He would rather be in the solitude of his own space wishing that light pollution hadn’t already taken his sky away. 

All the way over in Brooklyn, NY someone quite similar to Emmery Augustine Barren was also staring up at the ceiling. Her name was Romona Brown and she was looking at a much dingier ceiling. Her ceiling was covered with residue from the tape she’d used to try and stick pictures up there, but they had all fallen down. She was mourning for something that hadn’t happened yet. They often say that anticipation is worse than the actual event and she was feeling that now. Tomorrow she would have to brave the halls of a pretentious, new high school catering to the rich and brilliant. Tonight she could be alone with her thoughts pondering a new existence beyond this tiny world she hovered in.