In The Woods ➳ H.S.

☙ o n e

"Christian?" I called out to my older brother, but received no response. "Christian!" I shouted even louder, no longer caring how the ill woman laid out before me would react—not that she could even if she dealt cards with the Devil.

I soon heard heavy footsteps as they came closer. I knew for sure that it was my brother's worn out boots that hit against the uncovered cemented floor.

I stared down at the woman in front of me. Her eyes were blue like mine, though her hair was golden and thinning quickly. Her skin was pale and now barely managed to stretch over her fragile bones. She was scarily thin, and her clothes hung on her body like old curtains over a dusty window.

She didn't move an inch, even as I scrutinized her entire body with my dull eyes—she never had, to start with. Never once moved in years now, not even the slightest twitch of a muscle.

Her eyes were fixed straight ahead of her, at the ceiling of our home made with roughly carved cement and hard brick. Her arms were laid out by her sides, and her legs were stretched the rest of the way on the uncomfortable straw mattress.

Although the woman was undoubtedly as good as dead, and there was no reason for us to keep her alive—feeding her food we could have saved for ourselves for the bitter days to follow—we did not stop taking care of her.

For how could we? She was our mother after all.

"You called, sister?" A voice rung from behind me.

I turned around to meet the tired blue eyes that belonged to no other than my brother. He was only twenty-three of age, but working mercilessly to be able to earn money for our family gave him the appearance of someone a whole century older.

There were dark bags of skin that rested beneath his eyes, wrinkles all over his worried face, and his arms were unevenly tanned from all the hours of slaving under the burning rays of the sun.

"Medicine. We need more of it, maybe this time around they will work." I said, my voice was flat despite my hopeful words. I was unable to act as if I still held onto the hope of my mother getting better. I, along with many others, had already given up on praying to the gods for the end of my mother's haunting condition.

Darkness was casted upon my brother's blue eyes, the emotion in them drained out quick just as the familiar frown settled on his lips and the crease formed between his brows. "Annalyn, we've already discussed this." He said in a stern tone.

Before I could reply to him, his eyes quickly glanced at our mother that laid helplessly on a worn out mat. It was odd seeing my own flesh and blood stare at a sick family member with absolutely no trace of sadness at all.

But who was I to speak? Odds are, that was the exact same way how I looked at the woman too.

We didn't know if our mother could hear our voices when we spoke, or see the aged concrete of the ceiling her blank eyes stared up at everyday—hell! We were not even perfectly sure if she still lived! It was just the slow up and down movements of her chest that told us she was still breathing, other than that, she was as good as dead.

"Outside." Christian muttered before he nodded his head to the side.

I understood his instructions, and uncrossed my legs from underneath me as I struggled to stand from the unforgiving coldness of the concrete I sat upon. I took a short moment to stretch my limbs because, inevitably, the muscles beneath the skin had started to tighten and twist after being frozen in that position for so long.

The moment I felt the blood rush back into my arms and legs, I followed my brother to the outside of my mother's chambers—if you could call it that. It was merely just another corner of our humble home, sectioned off by a tattered old cloth that roughly hanged from the ceiling in our attempt to provide her with privacy.