7-Year old Kyle was awakened in his bedroom in the middle of a stormy night by the sound of screaming and yelling. Kyle looked at his calendar and saw that the year-date was 2014. He recognized the screaming voice as his father's, then walked downstairs, into the living-room, and saw his father screaming at his 14-year old soaking wet brother, Michael, who has long orange hair that goes down to his neck and blue eyes.

Kyle hid behind the steps, peaking over to view the scene.

Kyle could tell that Michael was drunk due to his slurring speech and stumbling movements. He watched as his father yelled at Michael about staying out too late and coming home drunk at night in the middle of a storm, as well as criticize Michael about how he's so different from Kyle and how he would've never pulled such a stupid stunt.

"I swear, son. You drive me to this! Why can't ya just be like Kyle? He don't start this shit! He sits up there and minds his damn business! Does what the hell I say!"

Kyle couldn't help but feel a sharp twinge of guilt. Surely, Michael resented him deeply for the constant comparisons. Being hyped up by his father didn't help when he knew it was being used to hurt his brother. Resulting in Michael being such a bully towards Kyle.

Before long, Lance was tossing Michael to the floor and pummeling his fists into his teen body. To make matters worse, Lance was still ranting and raving about all the negative aspects he found in Kyle's brother. Just before he lifted up to kick him right in his side. Michael let out a hoarse cough in response, which made Kyle cringe.

"Think you're a damn rebel, huh? I'll show ya what ya get when you don't do what your daddy says!"

As he watched his brother take this abuse, he could only sit back and hide his face in the steps.

...

Kyle jolted awake in a basement bedroom. Sweat was pouring down his forehead. He felt hot, then looked down to see a white sheet covering his body that he hastily kicked away to try and cool down.

He briefly wondered how he got here, then assumed his father had taken him here after their bittersweet beer-drinking reuinion.

It must have been what caused his dream. But it felt more like a horrifying vivid memory replaying in his brain.

It only made him all the more unsettled. And went to show how far he was willing to go to reunite with his brother Michael. His father made him deeply uncomfortable, but he'd take any possible source of information he could get.

Perhaps if he was going to find his brother, he needed to get into his head. See how Michael's mind worked.

And meeting up with his father presented him with that perfect chance.

He swiped his cellphone off the dresser and was soon enough swept up in research. All about parents favoring a child over another. The research talked about how favoring one child over the other can have lasting consequences...for both the favorite child and the non-favorite child. First the research delved into the signs of child favoritism. Such as the parent favoring the child acting more like a friend than a parent, the parent paying more attention to the favorite child and ignoring the non-favorite child, the favoritism creating resentment in relationships with siblings, the favorite child feeling like they have to be good at everything to please the parent that is favoring them, and feeling like they have to love doing what the parent favoring them loves doing. Kyle then came across the motives as to why the parent favors one child over the other.

1: To live vigorously through the child.

2: To groom the child into being whatever they want them to.

3: To live a dream through the child they never got to live themselves.

4: To turn the child into them.

Kyle felt stunned after reading, as every word in the article was his father all over. Growing up, his father had always acted more like a friend instead of a parent when it came to him.

He wondered how fate had led him here. He wouldn't have considered how their father had effected his brother so much had he not re-lived exactly what his father was.

...

Kyle was hesitant to see his father after the horrid dream, but he couldn't lounge in bed forever.

Lance had been sitting and eating at breakfast. Kyle peered through the doorway, feeling that he had to rehearse what he'd say to his father. The awkward, distant aura had already been there. But now it felt multiplied.

"Hey, come join me." His father called out without even looking in Kyle's direction.

"Crap." Kyle muttered under his breath. He must've heard his footsteps.

At least he could eat now, he rationalized.

He stepped over and looked at the food. It looked too good to be homemade.

He ate up in silence with his father.

"Thanks." He muttered once the meal was finished. But he looked over at the man and felt anger boiling inside his system. He had already resented his father heavily, but it only intensified after the dream.

"How'd ya sleep?" Lance mumbled, beginning to finish own food.

"Not so good." Kyle admitted, ghosting his hands around his temples. "Nightmare. Headache." He mentioned. The hang-over wasn't terrible, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. He was just grateful to have some sort of tolerance.

"Oooh.." Lance cooed. "I got just the thing for that!" He cackled, leaning over to the mini-fridge to grab a beer and hand it to his son. "This always makes the pain go away." He chuckled. "People say it's not good for ya, but I don't know anyone who's happier when they're sober. Shit, the only thing that's not good for ya is not bein' happy!"

Kyle squinted. His father certainly had a thing for faux philosophy and pseudo rationalizations.

He was unsure if he should accept the beer. Seeing his father had him overflowing with emotion, but he needed to be more level headed now. And he didn't want the headache to get any worse.

Before Kyle could properly respond, his father continued to babble.

"You can have the basement bedroom. I'll sleep upstairs." Lance nodded, seeming a little.. jolly, almost.

Kyle furrowed his brows. "..Huh?"

"I'll drive into town later and get ya some clothes and shoes." His father continued.

Then, Kyle connected the dots. His father assumed that he had come here to live wit him.

"Uh.. look, pal." Kyle scoffed, letting out a chuckle that almost sounded taunting. Calling him "pal" instead of "dad" somehow empowered him. He decided he could only take so much of this man's nonsense. And after the nightmare, or the the memory, more accurately, he was ready to put his foot down at anything his dad said that would agitate him or get in his way.

"I didn't come here to shack up with you or be your drinking buddy. I came here to see if you know where Mikey is. Got kinda carried away with the drinks last night, but that's my goal here." Kyle said sternly.

Lance was visibly confused. "Michael ain't livin' with your mother? I assumed he would be. Playin' video games all day. He was never "The Good Son", ya know." Lance chuckled and nudged Kyle. As if Kyle would appreciate the insult to his long lost brother. "Rebellious. A bad seed, so to speak. You're the prodigy and last hope for the family." Lance turned more serious towards the end of his ramblings, nodding at him and staring right into Kyle's eyes as if to hammer home the message.

"I should've known you'd start bad-mouthing Mikey." Kyle squinted.

Lance pursed his lips, looking around and squinting. "Well, I.." He laughed, shaking his head and looking at the table and back at Kyle. "You two are so different from each other. Like night and day!"

"Don't you know what happened?" Kyle asked, tired of the comparisons. He was growing ancy hearing all of this now.

Lance squinted again, shaking his head.

"Of course you wouldn't know!" Kyle suddenly spat, getting louder. "You don't know because you weren't there!" Kyle exclaimed as he stood up from the table, as if to physically stand up to his father along with his words. "After you left, Mom got involved with a guy who hated me! And you weren't there to defend me! Praise me and hype me up like you always would! You left me and Mikey alone! And you treated him like garbage! Mikey left for college after graduating and me and mom haven't heard from him since! That's why I was around here! I'm on a trip to find him! To have a real relationship with him! Because thanks to you, we never had a real relationship! Because you always exluded him from everything we would do! Always told him how much better I was!"

His father just seemed bemused, then chuckled. "Alright.. alright. Family drama, it happens after re-connections." He chuckled, nodding more as if he was still listening to what Kyle had to say.

Kyle grew outraged. This wasn't the reaction he wanted. He wanted his dad to feel like trash. To feel the way he made Mikey feel.

"Dad. Tell me about myself. Tell me what I like to do." Kyle said, after taking a deep breath and lowering his voice, fists clenched and trembling.

Lance just shrugged, seeming confused. "Uh, well, ya like huntin'.. swimmin'... baseball, basketball, football, soccer, all th-"

"No! Those are the things you love! I never did what I actually wanted to do because I spent my life trying to please you!" Kyle yelled. "The great thing about you leaving is that I got to do things for myself. Figure out what I wanted. Find myself. I make music now. I have a band. That's my passion."

As Kyle spoke, Lance seemed to be growing outraged.

"What?!" Lance spat. "You lied to me?" He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "You're supposed to be the good one. The good one to carry on the family legacy!"

"No, that's what you wanted me to be! I never wanted that for myself!" Kyle screamed and waved his hands around in anger.

Lance gave him a stern and angry look. He no longer seemed joyous, he was now giving Kyle the same familiar look.. the look he'd always give Michael when they were children.

"Now you listen here.." Lance pointed at him, trembling as if the news had disturbed him and shook him to his core. "I didn't spend years raisin' you to do all that stuff for you to just.. waste you time bein' a singer or travelin' or... lookin' for your brother. He picked on you sense he was 4!"

"He was a bully, yeah! Because he resented me because of you! You turned him into a bully. He treated me like trash because he hated me. Because you made him! How else would he feel about the person he's constantly compared to?!" He exclaimed in anger. It felt incredible for Kyle to finally be letting this out. "You messed him up! Just like you messed me up! Trying to live successfully through me, since your own life has been a failure! So look at me now, dad! Am I perfect now? Am I the perfect child you raised me to be?" He gestured to himself. "No, I'm not! I'm messed up.." Kyle's voice broke and tears formed. "BECAUSE OF YOU! YOU DID THIS TO ME, YOU MADE ME THIS WAY! SOMEONE WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO LOVE AND BE THERE FOR ME! NOT SCAR ME AND REPAY ME BY WALKING OUT ON ME!"

Kyle's face was red now, a few tears leaking down him. He was all up in dad's face now, giving him a piece of his mind.

"YA KNOW WHAT? I DON'T HAVE TO HEAR THIS! YOU SHOULDA STAYED GONE, BOY!"

In outrage, Lance shot up and angrily tossed the table to the other side of the room. It crashed into the side and Kyle reeled back, stunned.

"JUST LIKE YOUR DAMN BROTHER!"

Before he could do anything, Lance pounced on Kyle and began pummeling his fists into his ches in the way he used to do to Michael.

"Ah, ah, stop! Stop! STOP!" Kyle growled out. He couldn't allow this. This abuse. His heart was racing. His father was older, but still very strong.

He was most surprised when Lance suddenly gripped his hands around Kyle's throat and squeezed.

Good god, his father was going to murder him!

He created him, and now he was going to end him. Full circle.

But not if Kyle had anything to say about it.

Kyle remembered where that cursed mini fridge was. With all those stupid beers his father loved so much.

Lance had maybe chosen the wrong area to try to kill his son. Because Kyle yanked the fridge open and was prepared to smash the bottle over his father's head.

But instead, Lance grabbed the bottle.

"I see what you're doing!" Lance smacked Kyle right across the face. "Die like a man. Use your hands like this!"

It was as if his father was giving him one last lesson before he killed him.

Kyle could feel his breath about to give out. Soon enough, he wasn't aware of his surroundings.