The Hole

Chapter 1

October 10, 2009

Me and my brother Quince were playing on the floor of our closet sized room in the duplex our parents were renting for the month, until we went on the hunt for new drugs again, when him and I heard a loud bang. I looked at my brother who wore a terrified expression as I said "closet, now" in a silent whisper as to make sure our drunken father wouldn't hear.

With me being the eldest by only a year, I had to protect my 8-year-old brother from all the harm our addicted parents endured on each other and sometimes us. I followed Quin into the closet and closed the door shut as quietly as I could. Though, this duplex is very, very old and very, very cheap so the door, of course, made a tiny squeak as the edge met the cracked wall.

I looked at my brother with a questioning look, silently asking if he was okay, and he nodded. We waited for our father to stop yelling at our mother; who was most likely less sober than him but from a different substance. I held my brother tight as I closed my eyes, trying to drown out the sound.

I thought of her; my best friend. She was always there for me, even if her folks didn't approve of us, thinking we were "deranged". We had made plan on escaping our traitorous worlds when we were 14. Possibly hitchhike to Florida and get a job at a super market called Publix. Quin, her, and I would sleep in an abandoned something and eat with the money strangers would give us; because, who would turn down a child?

As I started to think more of her sparkling baby blue eyes and her adorable little freckles, I was interrupted when my bedroom door slammed open, rattling the whole house. "I know you're in here you little rat!" my father slurred as he slowly walked closer and closer to the closet doors, his menacing steps thumping onto the wooden floor, when they finally stopped and started turning, as if he was peering around the room from his spot.

My little brother let out a silent whine, making me look at my hand which was death gripping his arm, making it turn to a slight shade of blue. He looked up at me, tears in his eyes, and I took my hand off his arm and snaked it into his hair, rubbing his head like our grandma would do when we visited once a month.

When I looked through one of the cracks in the closet door, all I saw was that smile, his greasy yellows glaring at me and those green eyes seemed to turn crimson as my only father opened the door, staring daggers into my brother. The drunk monster threw my brother out of my lap and into the wall. I yelled out, not really knowing what I was saying as I watched my brother being beaten to death.

I was stunned. I didn't know what to do. What could I do? I couldn't rip the man off, pull my brother from his grasp, or even call the cops, so I just kept screaming, "don't hurt him! Don't hurt him!" my chest clenching with fear as those menacing eyes looked back at me, and when they did, he was still smiling.

He then ignored me, and kept on hitting Quin who was wailing on the floor between hiccups of blood coming out of his mouth. He was going to die, I just knew it. But I couldn't let that happen, not to him. His life before mine, always, that's what my mom used to say. I ran to the kitchen, not minding the meth or the ecstasy.

I looked at the wooden knife block and grabbed the biggest one I could find. I ran back to the room, and without hesitation, I stabbed him. In the back, and kept on going. Again, again, again, I kept on driving the blade into his back and didn't feel any remorse, just relief. With his blood on my hands and blade, I dropped to the floor next to my bleeding brother, trying to help him, when we both heard sirens. I didn't move though, I didn't know to.

I thought the monster was gone and that they were coming to take his reeking corpse to the morgue, but as the sirens came closer, I noticed that my mother had called them. I listened to her on the phone outside the room, moving closer. "please sir, please! I'm scared, he has my son, the boy has my son! Wh-what do I do? Uhhuh. Ya. No, you don't understand, he's dangerous."

I looked back and saw she moved herself to the open door, her pale face and brown eyes looking at me, shocked and scared. I just looked at her and looked back at my brother. "I love you, Quin, okay, don't forget me. You're the only one left that will remember, the only one left who will care." My brother looked back at me, worry in his mossy green eyes, "what do you mean?"

"We might not see each other for a really, really long time."

"What, why? I thought he was gone. Is he not dead, did you miss?"

"No, he's dead, but that makes me the new monster, okay? So, I need you to promise me that you will never forget me, that you'll tell my story and never stop fighting for our freedom, and don't let anyone get in your way, got it?"

He nodded at me, "okay, Rome. Lo-" he was cut off by the sound of the front door breaking open and the police running inside, looking at the scene surprised before cuffing me and putting Quin onto a stretcher. I looked at him one last time before being put in the back of the police car and rushing off to who knows where.

October 11, 2009

I was sitting in the cell, with a couple other men and my head down, when I heard my name being called, "Rome Cornelius Caesar?" I stood up and walked over to the cell and put my hands through the gap in the bars. The officer cuffed me and opened the cell, guiding me out and into the psych ward. Yesterday, I overheard a couple guards outside my cell say how my mother accused me of having schizophrenia and thought my brother was in fact my brother, who according to her wasn't really my brother, and killed my father because I said the man in my head told me to.

I reluctantly let them take me to a padded cell and sat in the middle of the room, looking at my surroundings. The man walked out and another came in with a fake, bright smile, "Hello, Rome! How are we today?"

I replied, " good, I guess. How about you?"

"I'm good, now I have some questions for you," he paused, as if he was waiting for an answer, but when he saw I wasn't going to respond he continued, "What is the name of your friend?"

"what do you mean?"

"well, the one you talk to, the one who talked to you yesterday."

"I'm sorry sir, but I don't have a friend in my head. I killed that man because he was hurting my bro- friend... and I needed to help him before he was killed." I thought that lying and saying Quin wasn't my brother would help my case, but as I said that, his crooked smile became a frown. A dark one.

I looked at him with questionable eyes as he got up and opened the padded door, leading to the outside, and turned his head to the right, "I think this one needs to me transported to the hole ASAP. There's no helping him, he's too far gone."

With that, I has picked up and taken to the basement, where I could see metal doors on each side of the walls of a corridor that went on for what it seemed like miles. There were numbers on each door, 0123, 0124, 0125, 0126 and so on. Me and the two guards escorting me stopped at door 0136, they opened the door to let me through, but all I saw inside was darkness. I was scared to walk into the room, so the two men pushed me through the doorway, into darkness. And when I looked back, the door to freedom had shut and the light had been left on the other side.

_______

Hello! I'm sorry that this chapter was a little short, I'm just getting into the swing of things. I hope you liked the chapter though, i feel like the ones to come maybe be a little slow, but things are always a little slow in the first few chapters. 

Make sure to comment! I'll read them all!!