The devil opposite

I could still run before this bell rings again, but alas, I am short of breath. I know he’s not going to stop. Certainly, I could tell everything, but I am under oath; The day I open it, I will certainly be the lover of distant darkness. Mom tried to spare us, and it cost her ailment. She is condemned to look at us without being able to raise her little finger or say a word. Elena was eighteen years old last week. I know. In such a normal family, it is a joy to celebrate the eighteenth anniversary of your child. I’m afraid, and this fear is not mine. I wonder what can follow all his surprises, her emotions, her outings for Elena. I have to go away from here and bring it with me. How will Maman live without us, who are her feet and arms? Reverend Pierre plans to help me with mom. She can live better and recover if a miracle is quite possible in these partitions. Elena is the source of my concerns. She is always more confident, especially after her animations. Under permission, I will lead mom to the church for a prayer session, like every Saturday. Inwardly, I know that she will not come back within her walls.

I sold the jewelry that mom offered me to have crumbs aside. I know. It’s madness, but it was worth it. It sounds the four -hour bell. I take the bag where I put two to three clothes for each. Elena and I share the same room, so the task was easy to wake her up. It is always under the effect of sleep. I kept her by the arm, and together, we tore the dark without detour. I have always been my family’s tower, but today I think I am possessed. She wanted to stop, but I prevent her. We have to leave very far from here. Mom knows that we left. I know she won’t close. What time is it? I don’t know anymore. I wear a weight of seventy-nine kilograms and another bag in my left hand on my back.

The front plate indicates the exit from Brooklyn BR and Manhattan Civic Center. Elena asks too many questions.

- Can you tell me what we are doing here, Laura?

- We visit a friend. Take your pain in patience and happy to follow me.

- No ! I have to go home, Laura! Are you crazy? What will Charles say? And mom, did you think of her? I had to be in his room to help him take his bath.

- Elena, now, you shut up. Mom is with the sisters of the church.

I currently know that my sister wants me a lot to have brought her with me, but she ignores that it is for her good. Luke, a friend of college, left me an address from one of his friends in Manhattan. I managed to make up for a car that led us to the Pelham Bay Park metro. We have to go to McCaffrey short basketball, Manhattan, before sixteen o’clock. Luke’s friend must be there. The few dollars put aside allowed us to take some treats on the way. I will not say how many difficult nights we spent in the streets. The young man on the photo is the one I see on the ground. It’s John, he will help us find a place to live while waiting for me to be something. I fear Elena’s reaction. She can decide to make the task more difficult at any time. We finally arrived after a long end of the way. It is in the west, ninety-one-first street, right next to Trinity School. Seeing, I would say it is a hideout, but we have to live in it if we really want to our lives. Until then, Elena has not yet tried something that could affect my goal, but she no longer speaks to me. I admit that it touches me a lot, but I also prefer to be silent.

It was almost three weeks since we left the house without leaving new ones. I went out to get something to eat just in front of the school, and when I returned, Elena was no longer there. I crashed to find it, but without success. I went around the neighborhood and it is nowhere. I have to go home since I could not ask anyone without alerting the security of the neighborhood.

- Where were you? You gave me a hell of a grip, Elena!

- After having removed me from my very expensive, are you also going to prohibit me from getting out of the house?

- You don’t understand anything at all, my sister! I do all that for your good, but I see that you do not realize anything.

- Okay, there is no reason to panic, Laura. I’m sorry. I just went to get some air, but once outside, I understood that I hadn’t warned you. I also didn’t know that you were going to come back so quickly.

I believe her and I know she won’t do it anymore. I found myself a little job where I was. I must be there before sixteen o’clock tonight. Elena did not leave the house, she remained stuck to the newspapers. After lying down, I heard a beep. Maybe it was in the next room, so I ignored. Today, I have to go to the restaurant to finish my tasks. John went to the restaurant to take my news, we discussed a lot and I also told him about my situation. He will help me find another job that will require less effort than this one, with a new house where we will have everything at our disposal. I come back to bring the good news to Elena, but she was busy sending a text to a phone.

- What are you doing ?

- I take news from mom and Charles.

- Since when did you have this phone with you?

- Yesterday, Laura! What is this ? You no longer want to give or take news from mom and charles?

- Have you already sent a message to this number?

- Yes, Laura!

- Why did you do this? You could ask for my opinion, Elena! Do you know what you just did? I was doing everything to protect you from him, so that you are not like me, so that you have a better life and not the one I hang out all the time with me, so that you can walk with your head high without ever looking behind, over your shoulder, so that you can respect you, Elena.

- You pretend to protect me, but what are you protecting me? You never told me anything since we left the house, Laura, and what do you want me to do?

- I will tell you on the way, but for the moment, let’s go from here before he comes.

It was already too late, he was waiting for us on the other side of the street. He was standing in front of the door and waited for me to open to bring us back to the dungeon. He was really furious. Elena, ignoring everything, felt my fear and decided to stay close to me in the car that led us to my certain death. Each police check, he launched this deadly look towards me before the approach. We spent the time of the trip nestled against each other, without wanting to relax.

I remember the day mom knew for me, sitting in the dark under the stairs, she had a face soaked in tears and could not stop crying. He had closed the doors, the windows. You could try to alert passers -by if you didn’t have your feet tied up and your mouth full of kitchen rags. That evening, mom lost the use of her feet, and her words were a farewell.

Here we are in front of the house, Charles brought Elena first and came back to get me.

- Do you realize what you did, Laura? Your stupidity will cost a young man’s life. Not just one, but two young men. You’re going to pay me that, Laura, and your mother too.

While smiling, he pulled me to the hut at the other end of the garden. I await the tears of a person in terms of climb, but with the black that floods the room, I cannot recognize it. He turns to the car and returns with another person. This silhouette in front of the entrance is John. If he knew for John, then Luke is not far away. Now I know that at the other end of the room are Luke and John in front, who cry. Two innocent young men who will die by my fault tonight.

In the middle of the cabin is a small lamp which can only light the inside and, even from the outside, we see nothing. They are in a forced position, I had this rage in me to destroy everything, to give him the currency of his pieces by cutting him song by piece without ever stopping. He is in the middle, with this suitcase he used that day when mom had his accident. He is also dressed as a butcher, almost two barrels he moved in the middle of the room. He can play with our life as he sees fit. He took Luke by the collar of his shirt and dragged him to the first barrel.

- Oh no! Why did you do this? I am the only culprit!

He gave her a very violent blow behind his head. It’s over. I think Luke is dead since he says nothing or move. The patient killed my only friend before my eyes. I’m trying to control myself, but I can’t do it anymore. I shouted hard, I felt like everyone heard me, but not everyone can hear me, everyone saw me, but not everyone saw me. The world was slowing down to me. I still don’t think he killed him. He has just put Luke in the barrel, fill it with concrete and close it next. I was making a nightmare that refuses to leave me even when you wake up. I have this bizarre taste in my mouth. John was struggling to get up, but he was already standing in front of him. This time, he used the syringe.

- Do you know what’s going on, Laura?

He still smiles, God, he smiles while a man agonizes in his hands.

- You are a monster, a heartless monster, you are the devil!

- Yes, my darling, and I am because of you, because of her, your mom and your cursed father. As long as I am of this world, no one will touch you! You hear me, I don’t say anyone because you are my property.

When I realize that he has just killed two young men right before my eyes, the bodies in barrels filled with concrete and buried under the hut, he left to get mom. I managed to free my hands from these natural strings, Elena is locked in mom’s room and the rescue key is next to the third vase.

- Please, Laura, tell me what’s wrong! I want to know the truth. Why did you get this fright when he came to pick us up at the hideout in Manhattan? Please, I’m afraid.

- I will tell you everything, Elena, but for the moment, let’s leave the house. He is on the way to bring mom back.

- You know Elena, I love you a lot and when I see you, you have the beautiful eyes of dad and that pretty smile of mom who always gives you the innocent look. On the eve of my birthday, he came to my room with gifts, I thought he wanted to give them to me and leave, but instead he turned to lock the door behind him, I really didn’t know his intentions Elena. He went on the bed and started by tabling me, time to shout, he prevented me from it. This night was the longest in my whole life. He raped me. He never stopped afterwards, he came almost every night. On the day, I tried to tell mom about it, she had her first accident. He told me that if I always wanted to have it near me, to keep my silence. I got afraid and I didn’t say any more anyone to anyone. Since that night, everything has changed in my life, I have lost respect for my body and every time I see a man, I have only one desire, that of jumping on him. I lost confidence in them, but Luke proved the opposite to me, he showed me that I could have a life and that I could be as respected as the others. Now he died through my fault. Mom knew afterwards and it cost her her current state, added Laura

- Do you mean that he killed two people and that he is also responsible for the mom’s accident? Why didn’t you tell me anything Laura?

- You would have been in danger if I told you Elena! And yes, he just killed Luke and John in front of me just because they helped me and shelter from his claws. Elena, he is a patient and the manager of the explosion in the papa laboratory, he told me that he had gone to finish what he had started in the hospital that day. Can you tell me who was this person admitted to the emergency room after the explosion?

- I remember Laura, it was Dad, but when we arrived, they led him to the morgue. He was already dead before we had information on the laboratory accident.

- Call 111 and don’t move from here, I come back Elena.

I moved Elena from the house when she came back with mom. I returned to take some things, someone has just crossed the living room door, time to go hide behind Elena’s bed, he came at a dog speed while leaving mom in his seat in front of the entrance to the living room. He pulled me by the feet and then held me with my hair.

- Listen carefully, young insolent, you’re going to take the phone and ask your sister to go home now, otherwise I will make a massacre.

- She will not come here, Charles! Not here!

- Okay, it’s understood. You liked it silly.

While smiling, he hit my head against the bedside table and then projected me on the back. I received the wall in the face. Blood keeps running out of my head, and he always continues to kick in my belly, on my head and everywhere. He is not a human, currently, he laughs while hurting me. I tried to get up, but he helped me put myself on my feet to be able to continue with punches. Here I am throwing again against the mirror, this time, I feel glass bursts in the palm of my hands. Just when I got up, I grabbed a glass shine that I used to deform her face.

- I’m going to kill you, Laura, and your mom afterwards. That’s it, my hen, lessons, lessons as fast as you can, darling. I’m just behind you, and what do you know? I’m going to keep you awake so you can see how your sister will be, but too bad she can’t play like you, you do.

While he was talking with this pair of scissors in his hand, I ran to the kitchen while bending my face with my own blood. I found it better in the kitchen: hot water that I spilled in his face. He still wants to hug me to better make me motionless. I grab his finger between my teeth, and the desire to tear it away from him did not leave me. I think I cut her right thumb. He torn my thigh with a scissor, and the blood spurted everywhere in the room. This time, I'm going to stay there, I think. Suddenly, a rage goes up in me, this rage to kill, the desire to send it rot in hell. This sudden force allowed me to push it very far from me. When backing up, he came across the pair of scissors he held in his own hands, and which sink very delicately into his left eye. Getting up remains his last concern. While he was screaming in pain because of his eye and tried to straighten, with his round back, I threw him again a knife in his right eye. The latter was so deep that he said a single word anymore. But I didn’t stop giving her other blows. I bathed in my blood and in hers. The police are now coming.

- What am I doing in a bed? Why am I surrounded by staff dressed in white? Everything is white around me, and myself in white too. A beep per second! What is this distant sound and voice that keeps repeating “Laura”? Who is Laura? This voice, this name seem familiar to me.

I open my eyes very slowly, but I always see everything in white. A super big and blurred head is tilted in my direction, her lips move without leaving her, then a few seconds later, a noise is heard. Now I see that this head was only that of Elena, filled with tears.

- Laura! Laura! Look at me please! It’s over now, Laura.

- Elena, where is a mom? Where is it?

She’s right next to the bed. I go back to tears again, knowing that if I am still alive, it is because he is no longer. Together, we have shed tears of joy. According to Elena, today is my sixth day of intensive care. I always have this strong migraine and the pain in my whole body, the Blues on both sides. Another good news: mom is better, she can work and speak now that Charles’ injections no longer have an effect in her.

A month later, we learned everything about him through the criminal police. Luke and John’s parents have passed and we have discussed a lot, but I cannot say it, everything is fine. The funeral has passed. Once born, we must all die one day or another, but faced with death, we do not all have the same weight in our hearts. Some have their hearts as heavy as a mountain, others have it as light as a pen. For this very long journey that life offers us, have a light heart. It’s sad that the world continues without these two. We will be able to leave the city now that mom has sold the house. The new mom’s new house is very beautiful, and we like it here, far from the eyes of the neighborhood. I will give you more news next time.

Laura, 20 years old

Elena, 18

Mom, 39, widow

Charles, 35 years old

Luke, 19 years old

John, 19 years old