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[INDENT][sub][COLOR=SILVER][I][U]St. Louis, Missouri - December 7[sup]th[/sup], 2016[/U][/I][/COLOR][/sub]

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The cold weather in these times had been no comfort to Immanuel as his boots stepped down upon the snow-filled yard of the Golsons. There was no departure party, not a single soul from within the Golson house dared see the boy off back onto his journey with the system. Yet, in such a moment, he was greeted with the same sight his eyes had bore witness to dozens of times. That lady, God, that fucking lady. A woman whose mouth spouted naught but futile promises of a hint, a small crack in the rock in which a beam of light was supposed to shine through, of a normal life for him, and erroneous claims that each house devoid of a single ounce of compassion would be better than the rest. 

Immanuel gripped his possessions tighter than he had before as he approached the gray Civic he had known so well. He skipped past whatever planned words Lorraine had to spew into his mind, opening the Civic door for what he knew wouldn’t be the last time, shoving but only a single bookbag laden with all his possessions in the seat next to his own. An all too familiar experience as he watched the likes of his social worker cross around the car to enter the driver's seat. His head pressed against frosted glass, his last sight of the home in which he had just exited obscured by fog that covered the window as his breath laid upon it. He hadn’t but the slimmest chance of hope they’d keep him while he lived within those walls. A family but so different from the ones he had lived with before, ones so normal that in his mind it only made sense they wouldn’t want to keep an outlier, a disturbance to the cushy lives they thrived in. He was privy to the arguments they spewed under the cover of moonlight over his place in the home. A unanimous agreement that the teen was not the child they were looking for. Maybe if he was happier, maybe if he talked more, maybe if he didn’t push them away, maybe if he fit within their rose-tinted view of life he would still have a warm bed to lie his head at night.

[color=#e88654]”For what it’s worth, Immanuel, I’m sorry.”[/color] Lorraine’s voice broke through the wall of silence that had been erected between them throughout the length of the car ride. Noise for unwilling ears, Immanuel’s mouth stayed closed as he heard her speak. He didn’t want to hear her pitty-laced voice within his mind, he had no desire nor yearning for the sympathy she threw his way. She had only been one in a line of caseworkers assigned to him and yet the experience had been the same each and every time. He’d be placed in a home, they’d find some reason or another to drop him, and then he’d be dragged off to another home for the cycle to repeat again.

[color=#e88654]”Are you hungry? I’m not sure if you had lunch yet, but I am starving. There’s this good dinner near the office where we could pick up something if you want?”[/color]

[color=A24857]”Sounds good.”[/color]

The ride continued on in the absence of words from both of them as the last words were uttered from Immanuel’s mouth. Although his gripes with the woman never evaporated, deep within his mind, he did acknowledge that she tried. That through her actions may have been in vain, she had been the only one who had truly fought for him, the only one who battled against inefficiencies and fallibilities of the Missouri Department of Social Services for his sake. And as the Civic turned into a parking spot in the out-of-place-looking diner, Lorraine turned her head back to look at the boy behind her. 

[color=#e88654]”I know I preach a lot of big talk to you, Immanuel, and I know a lot of the time my words don’t always seem to come true. But, I made a promise to you, a promise that I will help you for as long as I am your case worker. And kid, I don’t plan on giving up on you. There is a home out there for you, I know it.”[/color]

Naught but a scoff left Immanuel’s lips as he stared at the woman before him, the words dropped out of his mouth as the boy looked away to unbuckle his seatbelt.

[color=#A24857]”You’re a funny lady.”[/color]

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[hr][CENTER][img]https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/g4z9cgxmer7.jpg[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=SILVER][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [I]The Beach - Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean[/I][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=SILVER][b]Human #5.021:[/b][/COLOR] [I][url=https://youtu.be/GgpxVJXGNhg?si=sx1tGbqygacg7LX8]Home[/url][/I][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][INDENT][sub][color=SILVER][B]Interaction(s):[/B][/COLOR] [I]Ecplise[/I][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][COLOR=SILVER][b]Previously:[/b][/COLOR] [I][url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5564782]Hard Times[/url][/I][/right][/SUP]
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Home? Immanuel was the last one who should spout words about a home.

For most of his life, he had no concept of a home. His home was the bag that he slung across his back every time he swapped fosters, his home stood within the words of his journal locked for only his eyes to bear witness. His home lay within himself, for the most part. In the years prior that sentiment held no truer, but during the days present he couldn’t help but realize his home was more. His home wasn’t a place, it bore no allegiance to a flag nor the land in which he stood upon, it was more than that upon which he owned, and it took form in those in which he came to hold bonds stronger than that of surface words and artificial emotions. The two in which he sat beside today, the nine others in which he sat beside prior. They were his home. 

It wasn’t P.R.C.U. 

The two souls who saw it fit to take in a child whose heart had become jaded and malformed through years under the wicked hands of homes the system deemed eligible to care for the likes of a child. And the young woman fresh out of university who put her all into getting Immanuel out of the system when he was but a wee boy and when his other caseworkers didn’t. They were his home. 

It wasn’t St. Louis either. 

Eclipse was his home. The Blaylocks were his home. 

Yet in such a moment his mind could not find the connection to the essence of either. Both Cleo and Lucas were off in their own worlds despite being right on Earth beside him, and even Immanuel couldn’t help but feel as though his own feet were off the ground. As if he was free-floating in a vacuum not bound by anything, his mind ran amuck as the words of those few remaining souls of Blackjack, broken down to their last wits and spirit, filled his cranium along with sounds of nature’s movement beneath the likes of a pitiful group that they stood as.  Harper, the one he had come to know soon after she had spoken about his own words, only seemed to express a lamentation of a home. A home that had changed for her, and one he assumed had changed for the rest. One which had come to ruin, now beneath the unforgiving grip of the Canadian government, and the covetous nature of the Foundation, which seemed to grasp onto as many students as they could. 

He listened to all. The impartial listener. Cleo spoke next, her words unsure hidden behind that of a forlorn whisper out into the air. The talk of choices beyond the bounds of this night filled his ears like no other. The sound of feet shifting upon the likes of unsteady sand as two walked away, brother taking a shot at brother, the approach of another of which he had no knowledge of, the talk of the dead and lost of a week prior and bygone days spewed like vile forth from the mouth of one who he could tell hosted an eternal flame of rage within his soul during this very moment. Both of his senses saw the breakdown of Cleo and her retreat away. Now was the perfect time to leave, Immanuel knew he held no merit to be involved in the degradation of this conversation. For a night entrenched in the ideal of being a final, a last remembrance of their time upon these shores and the hours within the halls of the place behind them had devolved to that malice against one’s own comrade. If the true concept of a home is where you are surrounded by the people by which you hold closest, Blackjack had seemed to have lost theirs the night of the dance, only reinforced by voices of now. Fragmented, disjointed, on the eve of their twilight.

It was getting loud, too loud. It was at this moment he could see why Cleo left, he couldn’t imagine the angst and resentment that radiated out into the area. Before Immanuel had the chance to fully gather all that he had left, felt his body lifted up by that of Lucas’ arm. 

[color=a86f32]“Can I miss your home too? Mine are full of ghosts now.”[/color]

[color=A24857]”My home will always be open to you, Lucas.”[/color] Immanuel slipped his hand down to pick up the weight of his bag, a feeling laced with familiarity washed over his body as the bag slipped around his shoulder, but this time there was no gray Civic waiting on the street to pick him up. [color=A24857]”She doesn’t look like she’s doing too hot though.”[/color] Immanuel muttered, his eyes shifted in the direction of Cleo as he witnessed her all by her lonesome. While he got but the faintest idea of what she could’ve felt, he couldn’t begin to imagine the emotions of all those at once bombarding her in tandem with her own. A night unsuited to be their last, to be anyone’s last was a thought that floated across his mindscape as he trekked his way across the shoreline with Lucas beside him.

For as short as the night was, Immanuel could tell it was going to be a long one. 

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