Young Writers Society

Chapter 5

My sister and I met a few days later in the treehouse to talk. I sat on the floor while my sister stared out the window. “I’m sorry we’ve been fighting so much lately,” I said. I looked down at my fingers fumbling about. My sister’s gaze didn't stray from the window, as if she didn’t hear me.

She put her hand on her chin and curled one finger up towards her lip. “What do you think of Father’s party?” she asked.

“I mean he practically said it himself,” I replied. “It’s more of a business opportunity than a birthday party, but you and I know that’s nothing new. To be honest it doesn't really bother me all that much.”

“Really?” she replied. Her eyebrows raised as far on her head as they would go. “It just doesn’t sit right with me.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Like, we told him what the kids at school do to us, yet he still goes and invites them all anyway,” she said, her eyes not wavering from the window.

“Well technically he invited their parents,” I corrected her. “Kids are kind of a packaged deal. Or maybe he wants us to make some friends, I don’t know.”

“Why are you defending him?” My sister snapped, suddenly looking away from the window, and directly at me.

“I’m not defending him,” I replied. “But it's like he said, he’s trying to provide for the family.”

“Well if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s not going to have a family to provide for.” I furrowed my brow, confused at my sister’s comment.

“That was rather ominus,” I told her. She ignored me and went back to looking out the window. We sat in silence for several seconds.

“Oh hey!” she finally said. “We haven’t even talked about your birthday!” She was suddenly full of energy and smiling ear to ear.

“What is there to talk about?” I asked.

“You haven’t told me what you want yet,” she said.

“You don’t have to get me anything,” I replied. “I just want everyone to have a good time at the party.” Her smile faded slightly.

“Well if you don’t tell me what you want, I’m going to have to surprise you,” she said.

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said, grinning. She turned away from the window again momentarily.

“What do you think the popular kids will get you?” she asked, with genuine curiosity in her voice.

“Well, if they do get me anything, which they probably won’t, knowing my luck they’ll all probably just shit into a box and put a bow on it.” We both broke out into a fit of laughter. The laughter dies down after a while and we go back to sitting in silence.

“There’s gotta be something wrong with us,” my sister said, finally breaking the long silence. I looked at her in conusion.

“What makes you say that,” I asked. She looks down at her feet.

“Look at us Percy. Look at everyone around us. Do you see how easy it is for them to talk to each other? Do you see how easy it is for them to make friends?”

“I thought you didn't care about any of that?” I asked.

“That’s what I’m saying!” she replied, rather animatedly. “I don’t care about any of that, and I know that you don’t either.” She paused for a moment. “Do you ever wonder if we’re supposed to?” Her voice is suddenly shaky, as if she is unsure of herself. “Maybe we’re supposed to care about all that stuff. All the drama, and trends, maybe we’re supposed to take part in it all.” I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts, unsure of what to say to calm her down.

“Would you be happier if we had more friends?” I asked. She thought about her answer for a few moments.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Maybe.”

“You know if you had friends, you would actually have to talk to them right?” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Ha Ha,” she said, sarcastically. She walked away from the window and sat down next to me. “Do you remember when we were young and used to play pretend?” She asked.

“Sure,” I answered. We had castles and lead armies in epic wars. It was all good fun.”

“Why did we ever stop?” She asked.

“Well we got older,” I replied. “Things in the real world started to matter a little bit more.”

“Mother told us to never stop imagining.” She had a twinkle in her eye.

“I don’t think she was actually serious,” I tried to explain. “You can’t just spend your life in some sort of fantasy land.”

“Well why not?” she asked. She looked at me quizzically. “What if our fantasy lands are happier than real life ever could be?”

“Brooklyn..” I started but she cut me off with her argument.

“In our minds we can be anything we want, do anything we want, talk to anyone we want.”

“But none of it would be real!” I argued. She looked at me unconvinced.

“It could be real to us,” she pleaded, her voice beginning to rise. I stopped arguing and scooted away from her a few feet.

“Are you feeling ok?” I asked. Her bright green eyes looked into mine for a few moments before looking down.

“I’m fine,” she replied, somewhat unconvincingly.

“Brook I know you’re lying. It’s me you can tell me whatever is on your mind.” She continued to look down at the ground. Brook,” I said again, with more force.

“I’ve been having some pretty weird dreams,” she said, hesitantly. She put her head down on her arms. I scooted closer and wrapped my arm around her.

“The chair dream again?” I asked. “The one with the door?” She pulled her head up and shook her head no.

“No not like that,” she replied. Her eyes began to water. “These dreams are… different. They’re really scary dreams.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Dreams where I’m hurting people,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. I started to get concerned.

“Do you want to tell me about them? Maybe how long you’ve been having them, or describe them or something?” She took a deep breath.

“They started a few months ago.” Tears began running down her face.

“Do you want to tell me about a specific dream?” I asked.

“This one is from a few months ago,” she started. I nodded in response. “I was walking down a hallway, not walking, chasing someone. She paused and took another deep breath. I continued to stare at her. “I had a large knife in my hand. The person I was chasing was scared. They were screaming and crying.”

“ Do you know who you were chasing,” I interrupted. She shook her head no. “Well do you remember if it was a boy or a girl?”

“It was a boy,” she replied. “A man really. He was older than us, an adult.”“ Go on,” I insisted.

“ I remember feeling this intense joy. I felt happier than I had ever felt in my entire life.” She chuckled for a moment. “All the while, his screams were growing louder. The louder he screamed the happier I became.”

“Jesus,” I muttered.

“Eventually the hallway ended. He crumpled to the floor in a sobbing mess.” She looked away from me and started looking straight ahead at nothing in particular. “I wanted to savor the moment. I wanted to make every second last.”

“Brook you’re starting to freak me out.” She ignored me and went on.

“I thought I would be sad if it ended too quickly. I didn’t want to be sad. I wanted to start with something small. I grabbed onto his hand and brought it up to my face to examine it. He had a lot of calluses. They disgust me, I thought. I wanted to remove them. I wanted to remove all of them. I took my knife…”

“Brook, I think I get it,” I interrupted. She ignored me again and continued to stare ahead.

“I ran the knife gently over the palms of his hands. He was exhausted from all the screaming and crying by this point. I told him not to worry, that it would all be over soon. I scrapped a few layers of skin off his hands, just enough to take off the callus. He began to bleed. His blood was oozing all over the place after just a few seconds. It got all over the knife, and it got all over me, but I didn’t mind. It made me even happier.”

“Brook, stop it, I get it,” I said again, this time louder.

“I deserve to be happy, I thought. I’m a good person. If this makes me happy then I should keep going. So I did. I took his rest of his calluses off as well, on both hands. You could hardly tell they were hands at this point because there was so much blood. By now the man had passed out, either from shock, or blood loss.

I grabbed onto both of her shoulders and shook her hard. “You need to stop,” I shouted. She looked me dead in the eyes, but continued to ignore me.

“Sometimes, I do know who I’m chasing. I think I might enjoy it even more when it’s someone familiar behind the screams. Just a week ago I dreamed about the kids at school.”

“Brook…” I managed to say, through heavy tears.

“Recently I’ve even dreamed about our family. Mother… Father… You.” Suddenly she stopped. She hugged me tightly and we both sat in the treehouse sobbing.