After what felt like hours speeding through the various roads of New York City, Claude finally entered the township of Scarsdale, where his mother lived. The journey back home turned out to be a breeze, as Claude was fortunate enough to be blessed with very mild traffic congestion.
He took advantage of this situation and blitzed through the freeways, treating it as his own autobahn. This way, he was able to draw distance between himself and the battlefield unfolding in the city. Best of all, the cops couldn't do a goddamn thing about it, as they were too busy heading down to New York to help defend it from those magical aliens. It was a luxury that only a few people would be blessed with in a situation like that, and Claude was happy to be one of them.
When he inevitably pulled up near his mother's driveway, he looked at the digital clock built into the dashboard of his car. The clock spelled out "2:15" via green LED lights, indirectly informing him that he took 16 minutes to drive back home—not bad for a 21-mile drive. Once Claude is done checking the time, he turns his head to his left and looks out the car window to see if his mother is present outside.
At first glance, there appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary. All Claude saw outside was a 2-story white suburban home, surrounded by a white picket fence and a well-trimmed lawn. Although his mother is nowhere to be found outside, he could assume that she is in the house, just busy packing up all their stuff so they can leave.
His sharp eyes, however, quickly picked up on some minor details that didn't add up. The once pristine glass windows of the home were tainted with cracks all over their transparent surface—cracks that were not present when Claude came back home last night or when he left for work early in the morning.
Furthermore, parts of the white picket fence surrounding the property have been broken down, as if something heavy or strong ran straight through it. Any parts that weren't damaged were now tilted, leaning towards the home that it surrounds. The same could be said about the mailbox and the dumpster.
And lastly, the curtains behind the windows were drawn to block out the view into the home. Although this might not seem strange at first, Claude knew his mother very well. She always had those curtains away from the window to ensure that her home interior was bathed in the sun's glorious natural light.
She didn't even allow Claude to draw those damn curtains in his own room when he was growing up. Why would she do it now, and what would be the point? Bella never, at least in Claude's 25 years on this earth, ever used those curtains for their utilitarian purpose. She only kept them around because she thought they looked nice. That's it.
In any normal set of circumstances, Claude would have assumed that the area got struck by a minor earthquake and left it at that. However, after witnessing what unfolded in New York City, these little details made Claude extremely suspicious. Sure, New York experienced a powerful earthquake, but it is definitely not powerful enough to cause this much damage here.
Plus, when Claude contacted Bella to inform her that he was coming home, she didn't seem to be aware of the earthquake. This means it was small enough for her to not care, or she didn't feel it at all. That tells him something; it tells him that the "earthquake" was probably localized in the New York area and didn't affect the township of Scarsdale. Otherwise, she'd be making frantic calls to him, making sure that he was alright.
Could there have been another earthquake, localized in this area specifically? There was an earthquake before that portal opened up in Central Park. Perhaps, he thought, the same thing happened here, only later?
It was certainly a plausible explanation. But if that's the case, there should be a large hole somewhere in his area, and there should be some demons walking and flying above. But as he looks around, he doesn't see any—not a single soul.
"Maybe they are inside their houses, looting for shit. She did say they came here to conquer..." Claude thought, thinking back to the speech that Demoness gave in Central Park.
"But if that is the case, then that means..." Claude's head automatically turns to the top bedroom window, where his mother sleeps.
"They might be trapped inside with them..." he concluded.
A sudden shiver strikes his spine as the realization that his mother might be trapped inside her own house with a bunch of blood lusting beasts hits him like a brick. He could feel his gut shrivel, and his heart beat rapidly. Fear and paranoia creep in, filling his head with crazy and horrific worst-case scenarios.
"What would they do to her if they found her? Would they kill her or torture her? Would they do something worse? Will they eat her? What if…" Thoughts like this raced inside his head before the victim of their potential escapades switched from his mother to himself.
For a moment, Claude finds himself paralyzed inside his car, unable to do anything. He had no idea what to do as his mind was overloading him with more and more gruesome and tragic timelines that could unfold. His head starts to spin in pain, and his stomach continues to shrivel more and more. An endless cycle of misery, all taking place within his own mind.
"Focus, Claude! Focus!" he tells himself.
"Take a deep breath! Clear your mind! You can't do anything like this!" His voice of reason speaks to him.
Claude takes up on the advice and opens his mouth to inhale the air-conditioned atmosphere around him. As he did so, the silly little voices of paranoia and fear running amok inside his head were thrown out of his mindscape. Now with a clear mind, he is able to evaluate his choices and plan his next move.
After thinking about it for a minute, he compiles two choices he could take here. Either he could speed away in his car right now and risk leaving his mother behind to the whims of the monsters, potentially inside their house. "Potentially," because Claude wasn't fully sure there were those demons inside their house.
Although he could give her a call and confirm the existence of these monsters, that might have the unintended consequence of attracting their attention to her if they were there, which was a risk Claude wasn't willing to take.
The second option is to get out of the car, go inside that house, and face whatever creatures wander the building. Best case scenario: there is nothing in there, and he can take his mother out of the house safely without a hassle. Worst-case scenario: he encounters a beast that overpowers him, and he meets a horrific and brutal end, just like that drunk man in the city.
With these choices in mind, Claude thought hard about each decision and weighed the odds. If Claude heads inside that house and encounters a demon like Sylvia from Central Park, what is he supposed to do? He doesn't have a gun or any sort of weapon to defend himself. He is just a normal guy, with nothing really special about him.
Meanwhile, his opponent could possess strange magical abilities that bend the rules of reality to their will! Although these abilities might not be as powerful as Sylvia's, considering that she referred to herself as an elite general, the odds would still not be in Claude's favor. In most cases, Claude would likely die a nasty and painful death the moment he encounters a creature like that!
The right choice seemed obvious. If Claude had any desire or will to live, he should flee the scene right now and leave his mother behind. There was no way he could take a demon head-on, let alone multiple. Besides, he had just escaped the clutches of one murderous and powerful demoness. Why should he throw himself at another one and risk killing himself?
The right choice is obvious, and yet Claude hesitated. Part of his conscience screamed at him, telling him to drive away. There was nothing he could do. He was no match for whatever was inside, and he shouldn't risk it. His head was beginning to get loud gain, tempting him to leave the area.
He felt that he was convinced. There was nothing here to do. Even if his mother was alive, chances are the demons are going to get to her eventually. Every second here would be wasted, and could be spent to guarantee his safety.
Claude grabs the leaver, ready to shift gear. But as he holds the stick, something stops him from moving his arm, something from the back of his mind, forced to remain dormant for all this time. It asked him if this really was the right choice?
"Yes, it is," the voice of reason told him.
"We know what we are, and we know we can't take them. We know we are weak, and there is nothing we can do about it!" another voice adds.
"There is no point staying here. Nothing good can come out of this. Just leave, leave and never come back!"
More doubting voices chimed in, urging him to make the choice. Under this enormous mental weight, Claude lets go of the gear and presses the start button, turning the car off immediately. He then takes a deep breath, erasing the countless voices from his mindscape once again.
He rests his back on the car seat and looks upward at the roof of the vehicle. He starts slowly recollecting pieces of words to use in a sentence and then joins them together. Once the sentence was ready, he sent it over to his mouth and asked himself a question.
"God, why am I so pathetic?" The sentence reverberates throughout the cabin and rings inside his ear. It was a simple question that brought him trotting down memory lane to find out an answer for himself.
Claude could still vividly remember his golden childhood years. Life used to be so simple back then. He would wake up, go to school, play, and interact with his friends before inevitably coming back home to play some video games. His mother would cook him a dinner, akin to a 5-star meal one can get at a restaurant, before being sent to bed.
It was simple and orderly. Claude was happy and fulfilled back then, and everything ran like clockwork. Sure, it was not all sunshine and rainbows, but it was filled with a tantalizing number of happy memories.
But then, as he grew older, things started to change. His old friends at school grew distant, while his own schoolwork started to falter. His heart, once filled with joy and life, was punctured with a tiny pit of darkness and despair that, over the years, soon grew and consumed him.
He tried his best to fill this pit one way or another. At first, he tried to fill it with his work by taking on a nice job, one that he thought would contribute a lot to society and give him meaning. But when that didn't work, he tried to distract himself by collecting video game consoles and old games, hoping that would do the trick.
It worked for a little while, until it didn't. Each and every new strategy he implemented only seemed to temporarily displace his growing dissatisfaction with his life. And sooner or later, the endless void that was buried deep inside his soul would end up consuming it whole, stripping any form of joy or meaning out of it.
As he tries to pinpoint an answer to his question, he is hit with a wave of clarity. He began to notice a pattern of behavior within himself, one that defined his actions for his entire life up to this point. Although his environment, body, and struggles changed, his underlying way of dealing with them had stayed the same.
Every time he faced a challenge that required a bit of bravery, he ran away. Every time a new opportunity arose that he could have taken advantage of, he squandered it and threw it away! And in the end, what did it get him? What does he have after everything was said and done?
"Nothing…" he spoke out.
"I have nothing left…" he finishes.
Claude, at that moment, realized what was wrong. He had acted as cowardly man who feared change, feared failure, and feared anything that involved some kind of risk, but somehow expected things to change.
Although he doesn't know why he turned out like this, he realizes that he had trapped himself in a bubble to try and escape this grim reality. And when that bubble got destroyed in a glorious blaze, he moved back to the old bubble, built inside his mother's home.
But now, with the demon army invading New York City, Claude had no choice but to leave this bubble behind. He can continue to run away, but what good will that lead him? Running away here would just continue to perpetuate his depressive and pathetic existence; more time for him to linger with his failures.
With this information in mind, Claude acted without hesitation. He opens the car door, gets out of the vehicle, and starts walking towards the front door. His mother was in there somewhere, and he is going to do his darn best to get her out!
As he took a step closer to the front door, he felt a little voice whispering in his ear, telling him to turn back and head to the car, to run away like he had done so many times before. It was his fear talking, nudging him to comply. This time, however, was different.
Although deep down, he was still scared of what beasts he might encounter on the other side of that door, he realized he would rather die proving he was capable of change than live the rest of his life never having tried.