Fear Me

Chapter 1

                There are stories that we want to tell, and stories that we must tell, no matter how much it pains us. The following account is what I experienced growing up and it is not part of the memories I like to revisit, but it is an obligation to my brothers that I disclose the malpractices of our tormentor. .

It was what it always had been; a dark room at the base of a house. Small, grimy windows attempted to light the room from each width. The lengths were just bear, gray, dust covered walls (every inch of the space was covered in a thick layer of powdery dust). The old staircase creaked under each footstep and there was a heavy, locked wooden door at the top. It opened once a day to allow food to cascade from our jailer onto the steps and cement before it.

The special of the day, of yesterday and of tomorrow, has always and will always be bread. It was generally a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. We were lucky when a can of soup, or vegetables was thrown down with the supplies as well.

The four of us generally slept huddled together in one corner. We had among us three blankets and two sets of clothes each. A small bathroom on one end provided us fresh water throughout the day which would occasionally quell the hunger. And on the other end of the only space I had ever known sat a bookshelf. It was stacked with books from the bottom up.

The mystery of why a bookshelf, of all things, was left in our basement had fascinated me for as long as I could remember. I began skimming through the books at an early age. At first, the lines would swim on the page, but miraculously I began to read. It took me years to perfect the skill, but with nothing else to do all day long, I busied myself with learning. I was the first, and only one, of my three older brothers to learn how to read.

At first the tales of families and sunshine and bodies of water that stretched farther than the eye could see seemed unrealistic, impossible even. At the time I was much too young to comprehend all of this knew information, but as years passed and I began to listen more closely to the stories Luke would tell Jake, I finally understood that there was an entire world on the outside.

I had always lived in the basement, Luke would explain. The only time in my life I had seen the world outside was in the first week of my birth. My birthday marked my mother's death day. Luke described it as an unforeseen complication. Before then, Luke would continue, we had been a happy family. We had done all those things in the books. The day my mother died however, marked a changing point in the way my father acted. He packed our things and moved all of us from our suburban home to one secluded in the country. Since then, the four of us have been stuck here for thirteen years.

Luke was five years old when this happened. He has a lot of memories of what a normal life was like. Jake, who is only two years younger can occasionally grasp something, but it never lasts for long. He often begs Luke to relay a story so he can try to remember pieces of his past. As for Ricky and I, neither of us remember much of anything. Ricky is barely a year older than I am and he was much too young.

After learning all of this about my past, the mystery of the bookshelf began to unravel. On the inside cover of every book was a short note, scrawled in the same neat handwriting. It was always addressed from my mother to my father. I began to cherish each book more, knowing a piece of the life that could have been was inside each one.

I would often stay up late, staring at the ceiling, day dreaming about all the wonderful experiences there were outside of the basement. It was much better than the awful things that haunted me in my real dreams. I could hear Jake coughing on the other side of our makeshift bed and I briefly wondered if he was awake too. One of us was often sickly and considering our living conditions I'm not surprised. Jake had had a nasty cough for a few weeks now and Ricky and I were starting to come down with it too. Of course this sent Luke into worry-mode even though he knew there was nothing he could do to help ease out pain.

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