Decadent

Chapter One: Frogs

    Pictures that I've taken of him are pinned on my yellow-stained walls. Pictures from when he was in elementary...till the age sixteen that he is now. He's almost seventeen...he's getting so handsome the older he gets. His short, light blonde hair...his pale skin and brown eyes.
    On my bare mattress is where I sit in my untidy room. Clothes are scattered everywhere, my closet is wide open, the ceiling fan hanging from my ceiling creaks every time it turns every so many times, cigarette butts lie on the floor. I don't smoke...I just use them to burn myself when I think about the things Remiel and I could do together. In my hands is a small picture of him wearing a black shirt. His eyes are narrowed and his thin lips form nothing but a straight line. You can tell that he's pissed...
    Remiel Knueppel is what it says underneath the picture. He has a brother...Octavius Knueppel...but he's nothing like my Remiel.
    “I understand what you're going through,” I whisper to the picture of Remiel. “I understand what it's like...that's why we're so alike. You get me. You understand me,” I whisper as my fingers caress Remiel's cold face in the yearbook picture that I had cut out. It's small...but I always keep this picture of Remiel in my wallet. When I go to the store...or the bathroom...anywhere...
    I can simply pull out my wallet...and he'll always be there with me.
    But a picture isn't enough. No...
    I can only imagine...what it'd be like having Remiel in my room...on my bed...I can only imagine what it'd be like actually being intimate with him.
    I can only imagine...
    Downstairs, I can hear the muffled shouting of a Remiel lookalike. He's nothing like Remiel. He may have the blonde hair, the brown eyes and the skin...but he isn't like the original Remiel.
    It's only a matter of time, though...I have his number...I see him almost every day...I talk to him almost every day...
    But the day...where I actually have him to myself...
    The thought of Remiel just stepping in my room excites me. Oh, when that day comes...and that day will come.

    I share a my bedroom with my stupid piece of shit brother. The dumb ass was residing downstairs, but recently, there was a pretty bad flood so water flooded his room. Now he's in mine until we figure out how to take the godawful smell out of the carpet. It's rather annoying sharing a room with him, too. I'm so organized, and I like everything to be in its place. But he doesn't care. He'll dump his underwear on the floor and not pick it up. It pisses me off. I'm rather OCD about it.
    He's younger than me by about two years, and my mother absolutely adores him. He's the innocent one that never gets in trouble, and I'm the older bad brother that gets everything blamed on.
    That's fine, though; I like being the bad guy. It's fun.
    Because most of the things that are blamed on me was actually my fault.
    Maybe I'm a little bit rotten...maybe I'm a little bit mean...but that's just it: I am mean or, at least, I like to think that I am.
    With a snicker, I sneak into the nicely cleaned kitchen downstairs with latex gloves and a small bag of three dead toads inside. It's still early in the morning, my parents are out, and it's just my brother, Octavius, and me all alone.
    The glossy wooden cabinet under the platinum sink has the blender that I plug up to the nearest outlet on the marble counter by the stove. I pull the lid off, then dump the freshly dead, swollen bodies of the toads inside the blender with a little bit of water. With the lid back on, I watch the blender blend in the toads' skins, guts, feces that were still in the intestines, and even little eggs, since one of them is female, all together into one...nasty-looking concoction. The blender didn't do such a good job since clumps of flesh rise to the surface.
    It'll have to do, though.
    I take the just the pitcher in my gloved hands upstairs into my bedroom where my brother snores away on the dirty mattress across from my bed. He sleeps on his back with his arms and legs stretched out, and his mouth is wide open. That's the cause of his snoring problem.
    I...just really hate my brother.
    My light brown eyes narrow as I pull the lid off the pitcher. The smell from my mixture completely assaults my nose- it's revolting.
    I'm stuck between waking Octavius up and then pour the concoction on him...or just pouring it on him.
    “What the hell? Does it matter,” I say to myself with a smile.
    It's gonna get on him anyways.
    The reason I'm doing this is simple: he's done something similar to this to me. Except the difference is: I was taking a shower when he put two live rats in the shower with me. This is just payback.
    Of course, my mother did nothing about it. That's fine, too. I can handle a month of being grounded. It's the only punishment she gives out, and it's getting old; it's not much of a punishment anymore.
    So without a moment of hesitation, I dump the concoction of toads blended together all over my sleeping little brother.

Octavius immediately wakes up, kicking his feet and gagging on the mixture since some of it got in his mouth. His face turns red as he rolls off his wet mattress, coughing and gagging.
    “What the hell, man?” he yells at me angrily as he glares at me with his darker-shade-of-brown eyes.
    “Oh, shut up. You deserve it,” I snap coldly as I look down at him.
    “You're still pissed about the rat thing?” he asks me in shock. “Rem, that was last weekend!”
    I look down at him like he was stupid. “Go cry about it, bitch. Don't act like that wouldn't piss you off either. You and I both know that you'd be pissed if someone put rats in the shower.”
    Octavius glowers darkly. “Great, now I need a shower. You happy now?”
    “I won't be happy till you're dead,” I reply without emotion.
    “I wonder what Mom will say about this?” Octavius sneers.
    Without a care, I shrug. “So? Tell her. All she's gonna do is ground me.” That's a pretty lame punishment for a guy that's gonna be seventeen next week. Mom might as well kick me out of the house. I'll just crash at my friend's house. His grandpa is always at the bar anyways.
    “Yeah, you say that now,” Octavius mutters. “What the hell did you pour on me?”
    “Fuck you,” I say before walking out of the bedroom and down the brown, carpeted stairs.
    In the kitchen, I clean my mess up just in time when my parents walk through the door smiling and laughing.
    Mom frowns slightly when she sees me drying off the blender with a dry rag and putting it back where it belongs. “What did you do?”
    “I had a dessert,” I say with a crooked smile as I look over at her.
    She scowls darkly as she brushes a blonde lock of her hair from her face. “Remiel, what did you do? You obviously did something. You never smile unless you've done something bad.”
    “Kiss my ass,” I mutter as I bundle the rag into a tight ball before shoving it against Mom's chest.
    “Hold up! Just who the hell are you speaking to? I'm your mother!” Mom booms as she follows me to the front door. “You're not allowed to cuss! I thought I told you this!”
    Dad hangs out in the living room watching football, pretending like he isn't hearing a damn thing. That's all he does: pretends.
    “I'm going to Garry's house,” I mutter as I open the door.
    “Oh no, you're not!” Mom yells angrily. Then she looks up at the ceiling. “Octavius!” she calls.
    Within minutes, Octavius was strutting downstairs with an oh-woe-is-me look on his face. Bits of toads flesh stick to his skin, and it's pretty noticeable. He smells horrible, too.
    “Hey, Mom,” he mumbles sadly.
    “Did...did Remiel do this to you? What...what the hell is this?” Mom asks in disgust.
    “Toads. I blended them together in the blender...then poured it on Octavius,” I tell Mom with a satisfied smile.
    Mom looks at me in horror. “Do you feel proud of yourself for doing this?”
    “Yeah,” I tell her like it was pretty obvious. When I turn to leave, Mom grabs me by my shoulder. “Let go of me,” I growl as I push her away from me.
    “Abel, deal with your son while I get the shower started for Octavius!” Mom barks at Dad.
    “I'm pretty sure Octavius can show himself to the bathroom,” I mutter bitterly. “You treat him like he's a damn baby.”
    Mom glares at Dad till he gets up and comes to the door. “Come on, Rem,” Dad says gently as he pushes me out the door when he opens it.
    “By the way, Remiel!” Mom yells from the doorway as Dad pulls me by the hood of my black jacket. “You're grounded!”