The Bad Thing That Happened

"You don't understand. Something bad is going to happen and we can't stick around to see it." These were the words my brother spoke every day at dinner, and every day my father said the same thing to him.
"You're just being paranoid again. Nothing bad is going to happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever." And then the food would be served and that would be the end of that. My brother was sent to therapy but it never changed. And I liked it that way.

One day, my brother didn't say it. In fact, he didn't show up at dinner at all. Two things had broken that night, the glass of his window and his connection with our family. My dad, out of habit, repeated his daily phrase before he snapped back to his senses. Something bad had happened. My brother was gone. But I could tell that wasn't it. It was something worse. Much worse.

The day's strange turn of events were enough to confuse the genius I believed my father to be, but I felt nothing. Cold, empty inside. It was as if my brother was the thin string keeping me hanging over the cauldron of emotionless, cruel being, but it had snapped. Everything was too much, too much colour, too much darkness, too much happiness.

My head was spinning, but yet I felt perfectly still. My world was gone, but I was not falling. I was in the caves of madness, but I was in paradise. My brother had left, something bad was about to happen. My brother had left, all was well. I was going insane, I longed for blood.

But then I met you. You were sitting outside a small diner when I first saw you. You had forgotten to take your sticker off, displayed 'best child at group therapy' to the world. I decided that was a good idea and I went myself. It was torture, so I longed to see you again and take away your pain. There was only one way to do this: I wanted to kill you. This still wasn't it, my brother had not foretold this.

So you can sit there, in the therapist's office. You can pick up that deserted book from the table when he is gone. You can open it and read about how in danger your life was. This was all to be expected, of course. In fact, that's why I wrote it. Was this the bad thing my brother foretold? The answer is a mix between yes and no. What do you think? Nothing terrible has happened yet, has it? Has your end been planned, or are you safe from monstrosity, for now, anyways?

In fact, nothing bad has happened. Well, until now. You want the truth? I'm not real. My brother isn't real either. This is just a blank book, it's all in your head. Well, it was...