Silence

By: Red Tinted Waves


Many can ask where was I. when I started out in this hell, well here's your answer. I was at home, I had decided to stay home that day since I didn't feel well, and I had forgotten to Mrs. Orelanski's essay. I remember Mama bein' disappointed in me, yet still let me stay home; and James, my older brother, complaining that she never let him stay home. The day seemed normal, Mama went to the store to get some medicine and James went to school, he was a junior in high school. I was watching TV while the world went to shit.

Mama came in a frantic hurry, followed by James. She turned the channel so that we were now watching the news, I didn't like the news, they were stuffy and boring and all they reported was death and robberies. We silently watched as the newscaster sweated and breathed heavily. He was reporting bad news, as usual, but this time Mama was nervous biting her plump lip, and James holding his arms to himself. At the time I didn't understand what was going on, but now I do.

We were holed up in our house for days, Mama didn't let use leave. Well, she didn't let me leave; James did, but only for securing the house and hunting. It was a week till the power went out, and that's when things got bad. One day James came home covered in blood, Mama was frantic; he tried to reassure her that it was only because he had to put down a rabid animal, I knew he said that so he wouldn't scare me. When James left to go upstairs, Mama gathered me in a hug, our hair clashing. Mama and James had looked nothing like me; they both had tan skin and black hair. While Papa and I had light skin and near white blond hair, I remember when I was little I had asked James why that was and he said 'cause Papa was from Europe and Mama was native American and something about genes.

"It's going to be okay Elah, James is just…" she trailed off, looking up toward the stair well. James came back down, this time he was clean and no blood was on him. I liked James better clean, when he used to come home from soccer practice he would be dirty and try to hug me. I didn't like that. James walked over to us and hugged Mama, then me. I don't think he noticed, but I knew he had a bandage on his side, and I knew he was trying to hide from Mama. Later that night after Mama went to bed, I went into James' room. I asked him if he was alright.

"You know?" I nodded; he didn't want me to know. He sighed and ran a tanned hand through his dark hair. "You can't tell Mom, OK Elah? You can't tell her." He was so serious, I said yes and he got up from his bed and crouched down to my side, he was always really tall. James carefully wrapped his strong arms around me and told me thank you, over and over again. But something was going to go wrong I could feel it.


Red: OK so we decided to post this as an insight to Ellie and Leo's past and mind set. It will not be updated as often as "Voices" but that is to be expected. It will also work as both of their journals for later on in the story.