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Alex finds his mother in the kitchen, complete with a large copper key sticking out the nape of her back. The key protrudes through a hole in her olive-green sweater; it looks like a rust-red butterfly and it's about the size of Alex's arms outstretched.

Why the hell is there a key in his mother's back?

His Mom's bent over the sink, unmoving, her hands in the water clutching a pot. She looks like a waxwork replica of his mother, or -- he thinks with a chill -- a well preserved corpse.

Alex tries to swallow his fear but it won't go down.

"Mom?"

No reply. How long's she been like this?

He dips his hand into the water and finds it's ice-cold. He raises his mother's hands out of the liquid and places them on the draining board. They're red and raw.

Out the window, a bird is paused in the sky, framed against a silver cloud the shape of a question mark. Alex squints at the bird. It seems to have a key in its back too, although it's difficult to be certain from this distance.

*This isn't the real world*. He knows it. It can't be. He's woken up in some terrible nightmare where everything is a run-down automaton. And yet he knows it is real, in its own way. This is where he exists now. Where they all do.

He thinks of going to find his dad. Dad would know what to do and might be able to get them out of this. Except, for some reason, he can't think where his father might be. When he tries to remember a black fog that tastes of acid rises in his mind.

He places both his hands on the copper key and begins to wind his mother back to life. As the key cranks his mother begins to move. Her hands splash back into the water. She scrubs at the pot, although it already looked clean to Alex.

He stops turning the key, has barely wound it yet. "Mom... Are you okay?"

She turns to look at him. Shakes her head. Then returns to the washing.

Her hands are blood-read from the scrubbing. As if she's been doing it hours, days even.

"Something bad's happened, Mom," Alex says. "I'm sure of it. This world isn't right."

"I know, sweetie. But if you let us both wind down, then it'll be much easier for us to cope with."

It's with a burst of gut-wrenching fear that he places a searching hand behind his own back. That he finds the key.

The morning comes back to him in a burst of black and white, how weak he felt as he wound himself up for another mechanical-day, another repetitious slice of despair. Every day has been getting harder, slower, to wind himself up. He's not sure how much longer he can keep doing it for.

His father died three weeks ago. Unexpectedly. A heart condition that should have been found years ago, but wasn't.

His death transformed both Alex and his mother into this. It changed the world around them, even -- everything became cold and mechanical, always running down and out of steam.

He's been fighting it as hard as he could. He wants it to change, to get better, and deep down he knows the only way for that to happen is if they continue with their lives. Is if they keep winding themselves up and slowly, slowly trudge forward.

But maybe his mother's right. Maybe they should let themselves wind-down permanently. That way, the pain would have nothing to latch onto. They could embrace -- as his mother is trying to -- a state of unemotion. Of not-existing. Of being in the world, but not being part of it.

His mother's cleaning motions slow down. He's not wound her enough to keep her going. He hears her sigh with relief at the oblivion she's sinking, slipping back into.

"No, Mom," Alex says, grabbing the key and winding again. "No. You can't."

"Let me sleep," she says. Her voice pleading, begging.

"We have to face it," Alex says. "We both do -- together. I wind you, you wind me. We both keep going, okay?"

"Why?" she says, her voice slow, her energy depleting.

Alex feels selfish saying it, but the words swell up and spill out like a black ocean wave. "Because I *need* you. I've lost him and now I really fucking need you." Alex is crying but keeps turning the key until he's too tired to wind any longer.

For a while, there's nothing. No washing. No talking. A silence sits deeply between them.

Alex has run out of energy, he realises. He's spent it all on his emotions and the winding and talking, and now he stands staring at his mother, his eyes still damp, his body unresponsive.

This is it, he thinks. This is it for the rest of both their existences. Stuck here, in this desperate moment.

And then, unexpectedly, his mother beings to move. His mom is trembling as she turns away from the sink, as if Alex's wound her too much, made her jittery in her motions.

His mother hugs him. Pulls him into her chest.

"I'm sorry," she says. She kisses his head and Alex cries. "I'm sorry."

It'll get better, he wants to say but his voice is empty.

Alex feels his Mom's hands reach around him. He feels the winding of his own key resonate through his entire being.

We can do this, he thinks. If we keep winding up each other, keep each other going, we can get through this.

---

Submitted by Rupertfroggington on Fri, Jun 03, 2022 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

You woke up in an entirely fake world. It’s an endless doll-house plastic facsimile powered by miles of clockwork gears and levers that go straight down into darkness. You did not get here yourself, and you have no idea how to leave.