Chapter 1: Big Brother

Content warning: domestic violence, suicide

We all saw it, the blinding light from the sky, and just like that everyone just disappeared except me.

I remember my brother once told me about 'The story of the Apocalypse' when I was only eight and a half years old. It had a peaceful, tranquil beginning, a sudden disastrous, melancholic middle and an epic, exciting ending as an eight-year-old would expect. My brother explained to me how the world would end. How 'the Armageddon' would come and go and how one side was always destined to come out victorious, which I found a bit unfair. The events leading up to this phenomenon and how it transpired are written in code, inside a mysterious book called 'Life's End Begins' which was hidden inside a sunken ship guarded by aquaxies- sea fairies. My brother always promised me that we would one day go on an adventure together to hunt for the book. Whenever I would ask my parents about what my brother always told me, they would burst into laughter and remark, "Your brother has a ridiculous sense of imagination!" "He'd be making some money off that wild mind of his if only he was able to write.", my father would say with slight disappointment on his face while he stretched out his newspaper as if to get a better read. Yes, the tales my brother always shared with me sounded a bit too ludicrous to be real but I believed them to be very true. I mean, I was just a kid and kids believe just about anything right? Wrong. As a kid, I could never be easily convinced of anything. It took hard convincing for have me believe something. I would question and interrogate before I could conclude whether I would believe what I was told or not. My parents, tv shows and every other person I knew gave me insufficient explanation and information with regards to these characters and what they do. As for my brother's stories and characters thereof, I couldn't help but believe it all. Everything seemed so real, he an answer for every one of my questions. My brother could convince anyone of anything without any physical proof, he would put you right there where it all happens. One night during the winter of 2004, I had a dream or could be better described as a nightmare, considering it woke me up with with a wild warrior cry that frighteningly awoke my entire family, including a few of our neighbors I would find out the next morning. Everyone in the house, including my uncle Enoch- who was visiting as for the Christmas holidays from Perrymore, came storming into my room. By then I had just turned twelve during fall. When I narrated to my family the events of the dream, my mother calmly suggested that it was just a nightmare and that I should go right back to sleep. She was supported my dad's immediate nod of agreement right when he said as he so rarely does, "Your mother is right. It was just a nightmare. You'll forget about it in no time, just go get yourself a glass of milk and get back to sleep." But my uncle and brother had faces on which disclosed that a mere glass of milk won't help. They appeared as if they'd had a nightmare worse than mine. So I got up out of my bed and walked out room off to the kitchen to get myself a glass of milk as per my father's instruction. My mother's tired eyes followed me out as she let out a gradual sigh of relief. The rest of them save my mother, went on their way back to sleep. When returned to my room with a glass of warm milk, I found my mother still sitting arms crossed in rest on her lap the far edge of my bed. Like a nurse unhappy with her worked she waited for me to finish drinking the milk and then took the glass from me, put it next the lampstand, tucked me into bed, walked dreadfully towards the door and switched off the light and shut the door without saying a word, without a kiss on the forehead, nothing. I had seen in most movies how mothers tuck their kids into bed and lovingly stare at them with a smile as if they were beholding everything good about life but I never experienced that, my mother never gave me that. Why? I didn't know but couldn't stop to think that there was something wrong with me, that I had done something to really hurt her feelings. With teary eyes, I eventually fell asleep. No more nightmares. I guess my dad's prescription of a glass of milk was legit.

The next morning I up to the sound of arguing and ranting. My father was at it again. I crept slowly towards my parents' bedroom door and leaned against it to listen in. I heard complains from my dad about uncle Enoch and money but Jeremiah carried me away and ran with me downstairs before I could hear anything else. Jeremiah, my seventeen-year-old, short straight haired big brother, who was probably the most handsome guy in our neighborhood because almost every girl liked him as much as I'd hate to admit to his face. I always believed my brother was just extraordinary. He had something unique and different from all the other teenagers. I mean, he walked differently, spoke different and I could've sworn he even breathed differently. As if he had something in him or about him that no else did. There had to be something about him, I knew there just had to be something. He always if not ever wrote some stuff in his thick black journal book that he kept secret from everyone except his little brother. That morning he told me that he had an accident with mother and father when he was six and our parents took him to a hospital where he stayed for four whole months before he could return home. It seemed that he hadn't needed to stay at the hospital for so long, that my parents had just kept him there for all that time to avoid him. They, my parents, had never mentioned this to me and also never bothered to ask as my brother advised me to just trust him and not ask. He explained to me that in those four months, he had nightmares much similar to the one I had the previous night, every single night he had them. So those nightmares are what he writes about in his secret journal. He started writing about everything he saw because when he tried to tell everyone about it, no one would believe him. They just thought he was seeking attention. 

My brother never had friends, never played video games and never watched 'too much TV'. He spent most of his time reading or writing and there was this look of fulfillment whenever he'd finish reading or writing something.

That morning. The morning that my uncle said goodbye to me for the last time was the morning that the birds chirped louder than I had ever heard them. One explanation I thought the birds were louder than normal is that morning we ate breakfast with a stretch of taunting silence. My uncle wasn't there to ask unending questions, tell his undoubtedly funny jokes that even my father would sometimes laugh, he wasn't there to share stories of his travels when he was young and working for the military as he always shared every morning at breakfast. When everyone was done with breakfast, my mom cleared the table as my father stood up to say he was headed to work. To that my mother responded with a low mumble, "Since when do you work on Saturdays?", an awkward silence followed for a few seconds until my father almost tore the roof apart with an uproar, "Who pays the bills around here, hoe?". My mother then responded with a shiver of regret, "You do." My father stormed out towards the front door and smashed it in as he headed out. Seconds I could hear tire violently screeching out. My father was gone. 

Jeremiah stood up to confront my mother, "So you still let him talk to you like that?", for his efforts, Jeremiah got a slap across the face and told to shut up and go to his room. I was still fixed in my chair, distraught, with nothing to say or do, a million memories of similar incidents with my family rushing back into my head like headaches. I couldn't stand up or say anything, I couldn't cry like I usually do. I was frozen to the core as if someone had just died. Jeremiah shook his head and slowly started towards the stairs, he looked back at my mother and calmly with teary eyes said, "I love you, mom." And then he went his way up the stairs to his room. I think it was the first time I had ever heard Jeremiah call our mother, 'mom'. We had always used 'mother' when addressing her. She showed no response at all to what Jeremiah had just said except a cold stare and a quick deep breath before she started clearing the table. When she was done, she took out from her apron pocket a cigarette box and took out what looked to be her last from the box. She lit the cigarette, sit back on her chair and proceeded to smoke in front of me. I then summed up enough strength to ask if I may be excused. She didn't have to say anything for me know that I didn't have to ask. As I stood from my chair, she stated with exhaustion, "Put a pillow over your head if you going to cry. Don't let me hear you. I'd like to not be bothered anymore for the rest of the day, okay?". "Yes, ma'am." I stammered the words with my back towards her and tears started down my face. I stormed to my room, threw my body on top of my bed and started telling myself how much I hate my mother, how much I hate my father, how much I hate myself. Until I thought of what Jeremiah did after mother slapped him and sent him to his room. Not what he did in particular, but what he said. He said to my mother that he loved her and that reminded me of what uncle Enoch always taught us about hate, when he said hate is the ugliest most deadly monster created by people when they receive it from others and then turns them into the ugliest most deadly monsters when they embrace it and have it for themselves as well.

A brief silent and somber moment of peace passed as the sound of our front door being thrown wide open broke the silence, letting in a cold breeze coupled with an unwanted chill up my spine. It was my father. From my room I could hear his heavy footsteps against the wooden floor approaching the staircase, "Leah!" A roar barricaded itself up to the stairs. I immediately grabbed hold onto the thickest pillow I could find in my room and prepared for what was coming, a full on battle of shouts and slapping that always ended up with my mom on the floor, getting kicked to half dead. The pillow was to attempt to block out the sound but this time the shouting was louder, the slapping was harder and the kicking even more deadly. As much as I tried to press my tear stained around my head, every sound pierced through like a strong wind. I waited and waited, I endured the harsh noise, for it to end to end but instead my constant shivering was brought to a hold by an abrupt foreign sound, I had never heard this one before, so loud, so quick, so piercing it brought a painful chill on my spine. Despite the chill I conjured up the confidence to get off my bed and go investigate the eerieness of the situation. My brother's panting and quick but heavy footsteps was the next thing I heard as I approached my door. Upon hearing that, a change of pace in my movement preceded, I rushed in the direction of the staircase, my heart throbbing hard and fast. At the edge of the staircase a sight I had never seen before, my brother, completely zombified and morbid as if he had just beheld the face of Satan. I then tilted my head to where my brother's eyes were fixed, to make myself aware of the sight that made my brother cold.

There was the most horrific sight a child my age, or anyone for that matter could face. Father stood holding what looked to be a pistol in his hand and at his was the hell my eyes had never known, my mind couldn't processes, my heart wouldn't accept. My mother laying in an ocean of blood saturating her belly and the floor below.

The earlier chill on my spine turned to a full body freeze, everything around me seemed to stop. My whole world was in grey, slow, dark, silent, lost. Complete shock. Now my heart's throbbing stopped. I felt lifeless, I couldn't breathe, I wasn't breathing. I was dead, a corpse, my spirit had escaped my body. I couldn't fathom the sight of the woman who gave life to my flesh and bones, laying lifeless in her own blood. That was it. The end. The end of the world, the end of my world. That was, the apocalypse.

I never thought I'd there'd be a post apocalyptic event until the very gates of Hades opened before my eyes. My father signalled to the frozen bodies of his sons to return to our rooms then pointed the pistol directly to the side of his head, at that sight, Jeremiah with lightning speed grabbed me tightly to himself, hiding my eyes from the sight simultaneously blocking my ears to the sound as he knew what was coming. Another one of those quick, loud, eerie foreign sounds. Even though my brother held a firm grip, I could still hear it, even the unknown sound of a body slowly collapsing to the ground.

Mother and father, laying dead on the cold floor.

What was left of my life, in the tight grip of big brother.