<span style="color: #FF0000">His mother had eventually made her way from the bathroom, mumbling almost incoherently about an upset stomach as she shadowed past him. It was a blatant lie, for many reasons he could name, first being that he had heard her quite audibly, the other being that his mother wasn't the type of woman to tell anyone about something like that on a normal basis. He said nothing, allowing her to believe that he took her words to be the truth as he moved past the dining room and down the hall. He followed the familiar walls and floor as he walked, almost seeming to bask in the peaceful silence left in the wake of his father's death. He couldn't name a time where he could walk through this house and not be on his guard, wary that at any moment his father would pop out, ready to bark and growl at him like a rabid dog, eager to go for his throat over the slightest thing, whether it be of fault of his own or not, it didn't matter to General Colin Masters a bit.<br/><br/>In a way he was even relieved that he had found peace in the house, though he still felt little peace within himself. He was managing to walk from room to room, waking up in his old room, and even managing to walk in the front door without being convinced that his father in physical or ethereal form would pop from a dark corner, waiting for him in the shadows. The shadows stayed dark, holding nothing but whatever had already been there, and the silence was the quiet after the storm, not the precursor to another. It was something he had always known and expected, the finality of death of the old man. It was inevitable with the amount of anger he portrayed on a daily basis, along with the drinking and the smoking, the stress and all manner of things. In the end it was surprising that he had even made it to 50, holding out as long as he did only showed just how stubborn the old man had really been.<br/><br/>In the end it didn't matter how much sleep he would be allowed, he still awoke everyday at 4:30 in the morning, like clockwork he was up and ready within five minutes of that, if not a shorter time. Whenever he was home there was never an option to relax, even on base when he was allowed to be a bit more lax in things than a typical grunt recruit, he never worked that way. It was sheer habit for him anymore, and he was just that, one large habit, wishing to be broken but lacking the imagination to do anything really about it in the end. So he lived his life to the same schedule, doing the same things in the same way, always wondering what else there was to do at the back of his mind. He was brilliant and inventive in battle, but other than causing blood and death, he was quite limited. He wasn't pleased with this fact so much as he had accepted it a long time ago, not that he had any choice than that in the first place.<br/><br/>He made it to his room without incident as he had expected, grabbing his coat out of the closet and slipping it over his frame. He had to run to the store, if he didn't he was sure his mother would slowly starve herself. The thought of her dying in such a way didn't bring any real reaction out of him, he was only doing it out of habit, the duty beat into him at a young age. He glanced around the bare and lifeless room that hadn't changed in all the time he had spent here, being 10 years ago, a week after his father had retired. Though that hadn't exactly stopped the training, the brutal tasks and everything else that came with being the son of a man like his father.<br/><br/>He stood there for a moment longer before finally pulling himself from the room and back down the hall, making sure to close the door behind him gently. When he made it back to the dining room he could clearly see his mother who was cleaning, almost robotic. He watched her for a moment as she moved from one end of the kitchen to another, seeming to be lost and unsure what to do. He remarked that he was on his way to the local supercenter nearby to get a few things for the house, asking just as robotic as her if she wanted anything special. She only shook her head, mumbling that she was fine and that he should get going and that he was a good boy for being here.<br/><br/>He nodded curtly, as if given an order, or merely just brushing off her words as what they were, hollow responses brought on by a frail mind unable to work on it's own. He slipped out of the house after that, making his way to the bike parked along the driveway. It was perhaps the only thing that he had gone out of his way to really show any amount of independence. The one time that his money was not socked away in an account for later, god knows what, or spent on something necessary. The custom built, premier sports bike that glistened in it's fresh paint job of red, black and silver. He situated his coat around himself, flipping and sliding the helmet down onto himself as he gunned the engine to life.<br/><br/>He backed out of the driveway and with that was off down the still sleepy but slowly waking streets of the world around him.<br/><br/></span>