Chapter 1: Baby Brother
I was born into a poor family.
We were fortunate enough to have a roof over our heads and one meal per day. My father worked in the fields day in and day out to earn the little money we could to keep the family going. My mother stayed home to look after me, but I often saw strange men follow her into the bedroom while father was away.
When mother found out that she was pregnant, I remember her being afraid. She would pace the room and bite at her nails nervously. Whenever father tried to ask her what was wrong, she'd lie and tell him that it was nothing. I was six at the time, and being as naive as I was, I failed to understand why. I was going to be a big brother, and I was excited.
When my mother finally told my father that she was expecting, he acted very coldly towards her. She never told him about the other men that she'd bring into the house, and maybe that was for the best, but she was scolded harshly for it.
"It's difficult enough to make ends meet with one child!" He yelled, "I'll have to work twice as hard to feed another mouth!"
Mother locked herself in the bedroom and cried as my father stormed out of the house.
I would listen through the door and patiently wait for her sobs to die down before going inside and crawling into bed next to her. Having me there to hold seemed to bring her comfort.
"Don't worry, mommy," I told her, "I'll get a a job, too! Then daddy and I can work in the fields together! Then we can feed my little brother or sister, too!"
"You would do that?" She asked me, "You're such a good boy, Claude."
I stayed true to my word. The next day, I went out with my father to harvest wheat and I quickly found out that field work was not to my liking. Instead, I gained an apprenticeship at the local tailor shop. I was quite good at sewing and knitting, and the customers seemed to admire my skills with a needle and thread. But the few coins I earned there didn't feel like they were enough to please my father. In my youth, I enjoyed tap dancing, and I took that talent to the streets to entertain those who passed by.
I returned home every night bitterly exhausted, but I'd return home with pouches full of money. It was less of a strain to feed the three of us, and it didn't take long for father to grow fond of the idea of having a second child. It made me very happy, and I started to grow fond of the tiny person within my mother's growing bump.
"I'll protect you," I said, "No matter what, I'll protect you and keep you safe."
Even back then, it seems, I was a liar.
The day my mother gave birth, I swore it had to be the happiest day of my life. Though I didn't know it at the time, while I spent the whole day working and dancing, my father stayed at home with my mother, helping her deliver.
I remember walking through the door of our house and entering into a blissful atmosphere. I followed it to my parent's bedroom, where I could hear joyful whispers being exchanged between my mother and father. Their heads turned to me as I pushed the door open. A tiny infant with jet black hair, like that of my mother's, lay cradled in her arms, sound asleep.
"Come here, Claude," my mother called to me, "There's someone I'd like you to meet."
I settled myself beside her and looked into the tiny, sleeping bundle.
"This is your baby brother," she said, "His name is Sebastian."
Sebastian. My baby brother, Sebastian.
"He's so tiny," I commented, "is he really going to stay that small?"
My father chuckled, "No, he'll grow. As a matter of fact, he's probably around the same size as you were when you were born; maybe a bit smaller."
My mother passed him over to me. It was probably then that I first looked into his eyes. Those blueish grey orbs held something in them that didn't see again for a very long time.
Trust.
As my baby brother laid there, cradled in my arms and slowly drifted back off to sleep, he trusted me to continue holding him and keep him safe.
But not all babies' eyes stay that true, innocent blue. At some point they grow and their true colors start to show through. In the time that we lived in, people were very skeptical and paranoid; looking for any reason to accuse their neighbor of witchcraft or demonic possession, and the true color of Sebastian's eyes made people think something . . . truly unnerving.
For the longest time, we all thought they were a nice copper brown, like those of my father's father. It took the rest of the village pointing at him and screaming to realize they weren't brown, but red.
It was that one thing that made Sebastian go from being my baby brother to a monster.
