When Home is Gone

By Julia Skinner

Jaq Orleans no longer had a home to go back to. The war was over, the graves dug and covered, the medals all hung. After six years of fighting against the evil trying to invade their nation, his people had won. They’d finally won. But still, Jaq stood alone in a light-filled house feeling as if he’d lost. As if, somehow, somewhere amidst the chaos of battle, he’d failed.

Everything was still here, from the wood carvings on the shelves in his living room, to the willow tree in the front yard. Even his town was the same. Jaq frowned at the fireplace in the corner. The wood was stacked neatly beside it… He’d done that, hadn’t he? Right before leaving?

The walls of his house were a deep red, planks smooth from years of wear. He ran a shaky hand along them as he rounded the room. They were nothing like the rotting tents the soldiers had lived in. They were perfect. And… and yet, he saw cracks. Splintering, jagged cracks crisscrossing everywhere he looked. As if this place—this perfect house—was a glass thing someone had dropped and shattered and abandoned in a heap of brokenness.

But then, that’s how everything looked nowadays.

Broken.

Cracked.

A grave of “used-to-be’s”.

He paused by one of the shelves. The carvings on it stood in exact unison, one after another, like marching soldiers. Back then he hadn’t known armies were actually chaos, not order, not perfection.

A chisel and a delicate, half-finished carving of a flower lay beside the others. He’d been carving it the day the call for war was given. One of its petals was chipped off. He had meant to throw it away.

Jaq picked up the abandoned carving and chisel, holding them up. Suddenly there was a young man—one with his eyes and face—standing in his shadow, holding up his own carving to the light.

“Perfect,” the young man breathed, grinning, eyes dancing. The smile wasn’t weary like Jaq’s always was, and he stood softly, as if he hadn’t ever braced himself to be impaled by a spear, as if…

Jaq clenched his carving, closing his eyes to the faded memory. “I just want to go home,” he whispered. He wanted to carve, and laugh, and proclaim the world perfect.

But home was gone. 

He’d left it behind long ago.

Jaq stumbled away from the shelf to the iridescent lightstone embedded in the far wall. He tapped it with trembling fingers—even though it wasn’t needed, the room already glowed with the warm light of the suns. He just… he needed to see something. The lightstone thrummed to life, brightening its marbled amber glass. But nothing changed. Everything still looked distinctly wrong.

When had his home become so alien?

And when had he started picturing the Between’s cursed battleground whenever he thought of home?

Trembling, Jaq lowered himself to the floor. It wasn’t cold and ashy and dried in blood like the ground out in the Between. It was clean and smelled faintly of pine, with intricate swirls of varying shades deep within its wood. There were no gusty winds, no dank smell of death, no smoke flushing the good air from his lungs. Just a still nothingness he no longer fit into.

This used to be home, he thought numbly. Looking at the cracks, he could barely remember the man who used to live in these rooms—the young man who had laughed, and proclaimed the world perfect, who’d gotten out of bed without hearing every inch of his body crack and pop.

He wasn’t that man anymore.

They say war does something to a person: the killing, the exhaustion, the endless rations and clipped commands. Jaq ran a hand through his fraying hair, tired, and… and so confused. A young man—who could barely be called a soldier—had stumbled into war and held up a light, somehow believing he’d be okay. Yet somewhere among the wreckage and screams and darkness, that young man was lost.

In his place stood a man they called Captain.

Sir.

Hero.

A man who knew how to find a weakness and exploit it, a man who saw cracks in everything he looked at. A man who… who was broken.

They took his armor, hung his scythe in the armory, and told him to go home. Told him it was over. All of it was finally over. A desperate part of him had thought that he could wash himself off, turn on the lights, and go back to normal—back to home.

Jaq rubbed a finger on the edge of his carving’s broken petal.

But we won, he thought. We won.

He studied his hand, with its calloused skin and tangled, winding cracks no one else seemed to be able to see.  Closing it into a fist around the broken carving, he silently promised: if the darkness came again, if enemies rose, if the fear came back and the ash stirred the air, he’d be there.

Jaq lifted the broken, unfinished carving to the light and managed a small smile.

He’d keep his people safe.  Always.

Trembling, he began to carve.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julia Skinner is a seventeen year old writer, blogger, and ice cream enthusiast. When she’s not working on one of her (many) Sci-Fi Fantasy novels, she can be found playing video games, happy-ranting about one of Brandon Sanderson’s books, or wondering just how many germs are on the door handle. Julia strives to bring glory to her Savior, Jesus Christ, and if any good comes from her journey, it’s because of Him.

---

More Stories | Author Website | Instagram | Twitter