When Mickey was eighteen, he joined the military. Call it anger, call it depression, but he was ready to die for his country. Maybe just die.

Regardless, he didn't. Instead, his entire squad did, and he had been held hostage for seven months. When they finally raided the base he had been kept at, he was half alive. Half real, singing with a hoarse and broken voice to a god who no longer cared.

And after several weeks in the military hospital, they honourably discharged him and sent him on his way.

And from there, the drugs and alcohol took over. Every night, every day. The only numb to the pain, to the memories. The nightmares that felt so real he woke up screaming.

The city ate him up and spat him back out, and after a long stint in rehab, his parents brought him home.

Home.

Bsck to the small town he had fought with claws to escape.

The truck rattled down the dirt road, his father at the wheel and his mother in the passenger seat, eyes flickering to the rear view mirror every so often. Just to check on her boy.

Mickey was no longer her boy, though. He was angry, bitter with the world. Wishing he were gone.

The farmhouse pulled into view, and so did the memories. Mickey did not speak as he got out of the truck,

The screen door slammed as his boots hit the wooden floor of that house he loved and hated so much. Eyes stared at the halls, full of love and memories that Mickey no longer felt a part of.

His younger sister, Paige, stepped out from the living room. She was only fifteen, a kid. She looked at her brother, unsure how to respond. How to greet him. A small smile grew on her face, and a hand came up in wave.

Mickey detoured from his main path to wrap an arm around her. Kissed the top of her head, before he went back to the stairs, climbed them until he got to the hall where his childhood room lay.

And when Mickey shut that bedroom door, he did not come out for five days.