C.R.A.N.E (Strange Editing WiP)

Chapter Twenty Five: Capture

"Hasn't everyone after all of this?" I replied.

"True. But it seems like you lost someone before all of this?"

"Well, before and during. My wife...passed away before all of this. And my daughter was taken by C.R.A.N.E recently. That's why I started travelling."

"Oh, i'm sorry." He sympathetically said. "I have lost someone dearest to me too."

"May I ask who?"

"My boyfriend."

I thought I misheard that last line, but I was later positive that he said what I thought he said.

"Boyfriend? So that's means you're..."

"Bi." he quickly added. "I haven't told anyone in the group yet. I just...want to keep it to myself for now."

"That's your call. I won't judge you in any way." I said, he immediately made Apollo extremely happy. "But why only tell me?"

"Well, you're just very easy to talk to. And you are the leader, right?"

"Please don't call me that. I'm not in charge, we work together and we all plan things out together."

"...whatever you say."

Apollo looked back at the photo and had a down look.

"No one leaves this world unscarred. Why did he have to go through so much?" He mumbled.

"If you don't mind me asking..." I said.

He looked at me with a small smile, put the photo away and positioned himself in my direction. He let out big sigh and revealed his boyfriend's tragedy.

"Jonathan and I met at the air force when we both joined in the same year. We were great buddies; we had similar interests and hobbies but we were complete opposites. He was the more quiet, reasonable type while I was the extrovert who was very social and chatty. Anyway, we had a great time hanging out, and before we knew it we were best friends. We became close, but he said that something just didn't feel right. We didn't feel like that we were close enough. So, I found out that he liked me, that he was gay, which was quite a big thing in the air force community. The air force formally looked down upon homosexuals, so he didn't tell anyone except me. Back then I didn't know that I had interests with guys, but later on I realised that I both liked males and females. Later members found out that we were together, and surprisingly they were extremely supportive. So we didn't have to be shameful about us."

"And you shouldn't be shameful anywhere you go."

"Well, that's where problems started to occur." His voice immediately changed to a dark undertone.

"Back at his home, his neighborhood was against it. And rumours quickly spread around his town. When he went to the petrol station he was charged more, when he took the bus no one dared to sit next to him and back then the whole neighborhood would have a christmas party every year and when they found out that he was gay he was never invited ever again."

"That's absolutely disgusting."

"But that wasn't the worse part..."

He suddenly stopped and clenched his fists. He began to tremble.

"One night he was walking alone in the streets because we wanted to take a breather. He walked past an alleyway and he was jumped by a gang. They beat him up to a pulp, insulting him and laughing at him struggling. Then they...raped and killed him."

Those last words struck me. It struck me hard. I thought back to the day I saved Rylie from Nick. If I wasn't there or if I didn't arrive on time, she would've probably had the same fate.