Gory, Gory.

Prolouge

What's it like to not have siblings?

How does one grow up in a house with no one else to grow up beside them?

Josephine Sutton grew up in a loud house, the good kind of loud. The kind of loud that let you know it wasn't just a building being occupied, but a home that had enough joy residing inside its walls that there was a reason to be loud.

Growing up in rural Georgia meant growing up with miles and miles of wild land, land her two older brothers, Sam and Nicholas, made sure she became familiar with. Josephine wasn't stupid; she knew that the land wasn't wild anymore. Somewhere, there was a person who owned the fields her brothers and she stomped around in. She liked to think of him as a tall man in a big fancy suit, the kind of man who had so much money he would forget he owned this land and never come back for it. Then Josephine, Sam, and Nicholas would be free to run through the wide pastures and the arching trees every day.

But she wasn't stupid enough to believe that either.

Growing up in rural Georgia also meant the Suttons were poor. More often than not, the siblings would crowd around the dinner table, watching as their mother tried desperately to stretch a single can of green beans out between the three of them. Yes, the Suttons were poor in financial terms, never having a dime to trade or a full meal to eat. But they were a very rich family in every other sense.

Josephine's mother would smile at her and humor the young girl with old stories. Her father was always eager to teach his children a new skill. There were trees to climb and creeks to cross and a bed to come home to at the end of every day.

And Josephine had her brothers.

Oh, where would she be without her dear brothers?

On her tenth birthday, Josephine's father presented her with the best present she had ever received. Her very own room.

Their home was small, and the young, bright-eyed girl had shared a room with her brothers since she was born. So for two years, her father spent all his free time building her very own.

They couldn't afford to buy lumber or even the nails to hold it together. Her father spent months cutting down, shaping, and sanding the slabs of wood that would be the walls to her new bedroom. He collected nails that he found on the ground or pulled out of old, useless projects. Josephine's mother spent weeks decorating it. Repurposing old furniture and sewing together bed sheets with scrap fabric.

It was the best bedroom the young girl had ever laid her eyes on, crying tears of joy when she first truly saw it.

Unfortunately, young Josephine had some stupid, stupid fears. Fears like the dark and the boogeyman. Fears she never had to confront by herself before.

Her new room had no windows, not like her old one, where moonlight would spill in and light up any dark corners. And she was alone, alone and scared. The ten-year-old couldn't help but cry the first night she had to sleep in the room by herself.

Maybe they heard her, or maybe they could just feel her discomfort through the house, but it wasn't long before her two older brothers were easing their way into the dark room.

Neither of them said anything as Sam slipped into the bed with Josephine and Nicholas laid on the ground next to her, since the bed was too small to fit all three of them. Nick had reached up to grab her hand, squeezing it carefully every time his little sister even sniffled. Sam laid behind her, softly rubbing her back until she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

The boys didn't bring light into the room. The corners were still pitch black, and Josephine's fears still lurked in the darkest parts of them. But they did bring warmth; they laid with her while she cried and offered no words, nothing but their presence.