Benevolence

Chapter 4

He was trapped in an abyss of darkness trying desperately to reach the thread of light far off in the distance. He was terrified. This had never happened to him. He couldn't be stuck in his head. He knew that this would be classed as a mentally disturbed thing to do but he didn't have problems.

He was probably asleep and having a nightmare. There was no way he was stuck in his own head.

That was unheard of. Exerting as much strength as he could to reach out to the sliver of hope so far in reach he jumped, and caught hold of the string- it was actually an illuminated piece of string - and pulled himself out.

Everything was a colourful blur. Plastercine-like human shaped blobs were moving around him and buzzing in his ears. That was annoying. The buzzing seemed to grow louder as he looked around. The room hurt. It was too bright. He didn't like it at all.

There was something warm and sticky covering his hands. He still couldn't distinguish between the blobs and was really annoyed when they all seemed to be crowding around him.

Was this an ambush???

There were some in his face gesturing loudly, waving their hands in peculiar motions in front of him. He felt his glasses being pushed over his nose and the blurriness increased with the brightness.

Slowly things started coming into focus and the first thing he saw was the body. Oh god the body!

It was lying on its front breathing with harsh laboured breaths. Its front was covered with dark red blood pouring out of a deep gaping hole in its abdomen. It wouldn't stop coming out and he wondered why no one was helping it. He saw that its arms were a mauled and mangled mess of muscle tissues and flesh skewered with the bones jutting out raggedly. If he hadn't seen where they were placed he wouldn't even have recognized them as arms.

Whoever had worked on his legs and jaw though had made a pretty thorough job of it. They must have really not liked it at all. In fact no one would even wish this upon their worst enemy. His legs- probably as an inside sadistic joke- were twisted with the salmon pink calf muscles cut through from the knees to the ankles and turned inside out creating a pretty gruesome look. It made him want to vomit.

Why on earth was this horror in front of him? People were still buzzing in his ear getting louder and louder which really annoyed him but he kept his attention on the mess front of him. The bile wouldn't stay in his stomach and it came out as he looked at the victim's face-a colourful display of today's breakfast and dinner.

It was Theo.

Who would do this to the sweet sweet boy on the football team? The one everyone loves and adores. Who?

His jaw was.. .it was unhinged.

Literally, it was hanging from his face.

And it was awful.

His jaw looked as though it had been pulled with an iron grip hold and there was no fixing it. The area from the bottom set of teeth to his chin had been raggedly ripped from his face. It was hanging of his face by small bloody strips of muscles which were looking quite strained of holding it onto the rest of the jaw.

The rest of his face hadn't been as badly damaged as the rest of his being. No inch had been spared of a punch or two judging by the black and blue bruised colouring of his face. He was definitely going to end up with either a swollen eye or a black eye by tomorrow.

Why was his hand so sticky? He looked down and the sight which greeted him made him keel over dizzily.

No way. Absolutely not. He... no. No way. He would remember a ghastly deed like that if he had done it.

But he had been caught red-handed.

He had done the dreadful disfiguring of Theo even though he remembered nought of it.

He reached over to touch Theo just to know if it was real.

Maybe he had gone loopy and was hallucinating this.

He grabbed his hands and prayed for himself to dissolve away because his worst fears were confirmed.

It was real and he had done it.

He had been pushed back quite roughly by the people around him and their buzzing had stopped.

He could finally understand them. He didn't want to though. It made everything worse.

He wanted to cut himself away from this tragic moment. Like a balloon when cut from its string. High in the air, without a care in the word and completely free.

People in white uniforms began hauling Theo up onto a stretcher leaving behind a bloody imprint of his body to haunt him. He hoped he wouldn't die.

This felt as tragic as Romeo and Juliet except they killed themselves thinking that the other was dead. He had murdered Theo somehow in a terrifyingly brutal way.

The scariest thing was if he said he had no recollection of what he had done to him he would be seen as a liar and sent to the mental ward or prison.

He hoped they do that. It would keep the others around him safer from his subconscious acting against his knowledge. He probably was going mad because who does that anyway?

I'm sorry for the tear stains and shaky writing making it hard to read but writing this is painful and if it weren't for my brother's support I probably wouldn't have been able to do it. I remember now but I can't tell you yet. It will all make sense later though, as you read on. Nothing I said was exaggerated. It was as horrifying as I had described it to be. I will try to steady my hand during the later entries but try your best to understand. The pattern in which things play out is of the utmost importance.

His dad was on one side of him whilst Louis was on the other. Their presence reassured him a little but it did nothing to keep away the searing pain torturing his soul. Louis was trying to stay strong for him as he could see but his eyes betrayed his real feelings of shock, concern, distress and a bit of fear. It hurt him pretty badly to see Louis react in such a strong way but he expected worse since

HE.

HAD.

JUST.

KILLED.

A.

PERSON.

Dad, who on the other hand wasn't as good as Louis at keeping his emotions intact, was sobbing silently, his tears cascading like rushing torrents down his face and his eyes swirling with numerous emotions.

He was confused, shocked, upset, angry, worried, concerned, broken and very scared. Not for himself though.

But for him.

He saw that they saw him watching them and they both pulled him to his feet walking away towards the exit from the bystanders.

His brother and Tasha stood extremely pale and shaken with mum who looked like she was going to pass out. They followed them out into the playground where Dad took him to a secluded corner and kept a tight grip on his shoulders with a very professional and serious look in his eyes.

“That was quite a shocking thing to witness back there in the toilets and I have absolutely no idea what to say to you. I don't understand what on earth led you onto committing such a terrible crime and it is partly my fault. As your father I should have spent more time with you and gotten to know you. My being away nearly all the time must have had a toll on you and it saddens me to know that you had problems that I never knew about. I wish you could have shared with me what led you to commit such a monstrous deed because I would have helped to the best of my ability had you come to me like your siblings did. Now however, I need you to tell me everything related to that incident because only then will we be able to help you.”

He was confused, “Help me?”

His dad took a deep breath and looked away as though ashamed to explain further, “We really have no choice and I understand why completely. I'm glad it wasn't anything worse than it already is but I must ask you to not fight against it. It's for your own good and it will help you a lot. I know that we can get through this but firstly you must go through with everything we ask of you alright?”

His head was pounding and he could feel himself panicking. His dad never got this stressed out and agitated which meant that whatever was going to happen to him wouldn't be pleasant. He pictured all the many possible terrible things that could happen to him. Prison was on top. Sure he was way too young but that would probably be overlooked since he was a killer. Then came juvenile, which was terrifying to think of since he had read up on how sadistic and psychotic their residents were. Or maybe the madhouse, where he would be confined securely in an empty lonely room. If he wasn't mad now he would definitely be during his stay there.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by his dad, who had squeezed his shoulder. Shaking his head he looked up at him and said, “Sorry I wasn't listening. Could you repeat that?” The look his dad gave him then, brimming with pain made him feel really guilty and because of what he was putting him through.

His dad looked up at the greying sky and sighed, “It's either juvenile or extensive therapy but that is only after they listen to what you have to say next week at court.”

His father was looking at him cautiously waiting for his response but he didn't have anything to say to him. This was not how he wanted one of his few conversations with his father to go and it hurt to hear his idol get upset because of him.

So like the coward he was he ran. Past his family. Past the crowds that had formed. Past the gate. Past the fish and chips store around the corner of his house. Past his house. Through the wooden picket fence leading to the park.

And sank to his knees by the river.

The memories of Theo's body plagued him with a detailed and magnified analysis of everything he had done to Theo. He couldn't even work out why. This definitely wasn't because of the humiliation. But maybe it was. Maybe he had lost control.

Why couldn't he remember it though?

Gasping he clutched at his chest which felt as though someone was trying to tear his heart out. His hands were shaking and he stared with wide eyes at the scarlet mess splattered across his hands. There was some maroon crusting under his fingernails as well.

With a crazed look in his eyes he began washing his hands in the water; trying to get the stains of off his hands. It took a while till the blood was rinsed off but he could never wash away the deep stain now corroded onto his heart.

He had to see Theo. He had to get him to tell him exactly what had happened. He just couldn't understand why he couldn't remember it. He did try though. He tried so hard to remember it.

Maybe it would help if he cleared his mind. It was scattered all over the place and it took him a few hours to collect himself. He went to his happy place but there also he was joined by the body. After casting it out of his head he meditated over what had happened.

He made a mental checklist:

• I don't remember how on earth I killed him.

• My hands were stained which makes me the killer

• So are my pants

• The muscles in my hands are taut which occurs after I do something physically challenging.

• I had been hit too.

• I must have really gotten mad due to the amount of damage inflicted upon him.

• It was probably over fast since there were people around.

• And since it was in a public area.

That was it.

He had nothing else to add on.

He had no idea how long he had been there but it had started to rain. His body was aching all over screaming for a massage or a nice hot soak yet he didn't move.

He deserved this. He was an awful person.

His brother found him curled up in a ball shivering from the cold with a blank look over his face. His eyes looked empty through his brother's own. He now understood that the eyes were definitely the windows to the soul since his soul felt pretty desolate and empty too.

“Come on,” he said dully standing behind him with his arms folded, “dinner's ready.”

He blinked. Dinner. What a normal thing to have at the moment when the world had turned upside down. That's the reason he got up from his fetal position. He was going to have dinner. Not with his family though. Alone.

Just like yesterday. Yesterday when he had been innocent. Yesterday when his record hadn't been scarred and torn apart. When he hadn't ruined his best friend.

Yesterday.