Hello! So, here's the third chapter. Sorry about it taking me a while to upload it. I kept forgetting. ^_^'
Hey! ^_^ How's everyone? Good, I hope. Okay, I have the third chapter of Before Heroism for you guys! I really hope you like it!
Chapter Three
"C'mon, Sam. We need to get going." I can't wait to get outta here. I've only been here for one night, and it's already horrible. My little brother nods at me, and we're about to walk out the door, but Frank grabs the handle of my backpack.
"Get me a Mountain Dew, kid! I need my caffeine!" Aw, jeez… He's too demanding… This has to be the… Well, I don't know what number this is of stuff he's asked me to get for him, but it's not a low number, especially if I've lost count.
I walk over to his fridge and take out a Mountain Dew before walking over to him with it. "Here's your pop, Frank." I hand it to him, and all he does after that is point us out the door. Thank Chaos. We can leave. I grab Sam's hand and lead him out the door with me. He's staying as close to me as possible. I'm not letting him out of my sight till we're at school… and even then I'll probably be hesitant.
"Make sure you stay with me, 'kay?" I'm pretty sure that worry is very evident in my voice.
He looks at me kinda funny before he replies, "Okay…" He's silent for a few seconds. "Are you okay, Ogie?"
"I'm fine."
"You keep saying that… Are you really fine?"
"I said I'm fine, Sam!" I yell, and he recoils a bit. "Look, I'm sorry, but I'm having a hard time right now."
"I know, but still… Can't you tell me if you're not fine?"
"You make it sound so easy…" And the rest of the walk is spent in silence. That's probably the longest he and I have gone without talking to each other when we're on a walk.
When we arrive at the school, he starts to walk into the building and over to his class, but I stop him and hug him. "Stay safe, okay? Make sure you don't do anything dangerous or anything like that."
"Ogie, it's just school. I'll be fine."
"Still… You can't do anything that could get you hurt… Promise me you won't get hurt."
"Ogie—"
"Promise!" Tears are starting to come out of my eyes. I can't lose him, too… He's my responsibility now, and until Dad comes home, I'm gonna make sure he's as safe as possible.
"I promise… Now could you let go, please? This is getting a bit embarrassing." I let him go, albeit reluctantly, and see that his cheeks are slightly red. He starts going to class, but before he actually does, he turns around and waves at me. "Bye, Ogie! See ya later! And cheer up!"
"He's right," I hear from behind me. "You do need to cheer up, and I swear you've been almost glued to him for the past few days."
"And?" I ask as I turn around to face Milly, who was just speaking. "You realize that I'm holding on by a thread and that he's that thread, right?"
He sighs, and a couple seconds after he does so, his mouth goes slightly agape. "Oh, God! What happened to your eye? A-and your arms?"
He walks up to me and lifts up my left arm, and I can see the bruises on there as he does, still fresh from last night. I quickly pull my arm away, though. "I don't wanna talk about it." And I really don't. It's not fun to even remember, and if I had to tell about it…
"C'mon, you can tell me."
"I said no, Milly!" I snap. These past few days have made me really irritable. "I said I don't wanna talk about it! Just leave me alone!"
I run away from him and go up to class, and when I arrive, I go and sit down in one of the empty seats in the back. My teacher doesn't care where we sit as long as we're paying attention… and I could actually not care less about paying attention right now. I just wanna be alone, for Chaos' sake…
In about a minute… or so… I don't know how long exactly, I hear Milly say, "Ogie, what's wrong?" Apparently he's up here now.
"I said that I don't wanna talk about it, so just leave me alone… Just go…" I lift my head up for a second, and he's about to sit down next to me. "I told you to go… Don't sit by me… I don't want to deal with you right now… I don't wanna deal with anyone right now…"
"But I just wanna he—"
"I don't care if you wanna help! You have no idea what it's like to spend even a day with Frank! You have no idea what it takes to protect your little brother from someone like him! So just leave me be! I need to be alone! Or as alone as I can get!" I look around and see all the students staring at me. "What the hell are you staring at?!"
I think I'm about to cry… I just… I just don't know what to do right now… "A-are you all right? And don't just tell me you're fine, either."
I can't hold back my tears as I say, "Okay, you wanna know? No, I'm not all right. I'm not fine. I can't handle all this… So please, I just need to be alone… Please…"
He sighs. "All right… I'll leave you alone for now… But I want an answer to my question at lunch."
And he walks over to his desk… I know he just wants to help… and I know he cares about me a lot… but I just can't… I can't talk about it like it's nothing…
I put my head back down, and after I do, I can hear someone talking. It sounds like another one of my friends, Liz. She's a purple cat with long hair. "Milly, what happened to him?"
"He won't tell me," answers the vermillion raccoon. "I don't know what happened to him between yesterday and today, but whatever did…" he pauses, "it's not good… Y'know, I just wanna comfort him, but will he even let me do that? No."
"I'm sure he'll come around. After all, he is Ogie. He's not going to stay like this forever."
"But what if he does, Liz? What if this is his breaking point?
"Then I'm sure we'll find some way to get him back to normal… or as close to it as we can."
I tune out the rest of their conversation… I can't listen to them anymore… Until lunch, I just sit at my desk with my head in my arms, and the teacher surprisingly doesn't say anything the whole time… I think she probably knows what happened to my mom… News travels fast on a small island like Christmas Island…
When I'm in the lunch room, I go and sit at the table I normally sit at after getting my lunch, and Milly and Liz are already sitting there.
Liz smiles at me. "Hey!" I sit down and don't talk to her. I just start poking at the meatballs in my spaghetti with my fork. "C'mon, won't you talk at all?" I stab one of the meatballs with my fork and eat it without answering her. I'm not in the mood to talk.
"See what I mean? He's basically been destroyed…" says Milly. He turns his head to face me. "Look, we just want to know what happened. That's all. Can't you tell us?" No, I can't… I can't tell them… If I did, they wouldn't understand… They wouldn't understand why I'm so scared of telling them… If I told them, everything would be ruined even more than it already is…
I shake my head and continue eating. "Can you at least talk to us if it's not about that?" asks Liz. I look up at her. "Please?"
"I guess…" I answer. "There's not much else to talk about, though…" I don't know what else to do right now… I can't tell them about this… I really wish I could, but…
"So," starts Liz, "how's Sam doing with all of this?"
I take another bite of my spaghetti before responding, "He's handling it better than I am, if that's what you're wondering… but he's still now handling it the best… I saw him break down and cry yesterday, and I just… I just… don't know what to do…" Tears start coming out of my eyes. I can't think of him crying, or it'll only make me cry…
I quickly wipe away my tears and start stuffing my face to try and hide my sad expression. "We need to do something about this, Ogie…"
I stop shoveling food into my mouth and look up at Milly. "About what?" I know he can see right through my "playing dumb" ruse, but still…
"You know what I'm talking about. How you don't want to talk to us about whatever went on over the weekend. You're obviously hurt, judging from your black eye and the bruises up and down your arms, and there are probably more of those same blotches under your bandages. How did you get hurt?"
"I-I fell down some stairs and hit my eye on the railing, okay?" I stutter out quickly. Don't look at me like that, okay? I had to lie. I can't let him know. I quickly eat the rest of my food and get up to throw my tray away, and as I do, Milly gets up as well.
"C'mon, I know as well as you do that that's not the truth, otherwise you would've told me by now." I drop my tray in the trash can and run back to the table. I can't keep on avoiding this, so I'm gonna have to avoid him. He soon arrives at the table. "We're best friends. Why can't you tell me?"
I have to make up a reasonable lie and fast or I'm gonna spill the beans. "I accidentally ran out in front of a car…" I say, hoping he'll believe me. I really hope he does…
He stays silent for a few seconds before facepalming himself. "You're so clumsy, Ogie… I hope you don't have any fractured or broken bones. It's dangerous to go across the street without looking, even at your speed." Wait, he believed me? He actually believed that poorly constructed lie of mine?
"I-I know," I reply, kind of astounded at how easily he'll believe what I say.
"Be more careful in the future… and I can't believe you were this nervous about telling me that. I mean, yeah, you probably realized I was going to give you a talking-to, but are you seriously that afraid of my lectures? They aren't that bad, are they?"
"Well…" starts Liz.
"Don't say anything. My lectures are not bad. I give them for good reasons." Well, this is just a tiny bit entertaining. It actually cheers me up a little as they keep arguing about Milly's lectures. I get through recess and the second half of the day without any more outbursts, but as soon as I see Sam, I run over to him and look him over.
"Are you okay? Any cuts? Bruises? Anything?" I ask worriedly as I keep scanning over his body.
"O-Ogie, I'm fine. Don't you think you're obsessing just a bit?"
"No, you have to stay as safe as possible." Well, it doesn't look like he's hurt. Thank Chaos.
"You are obsessing," states Milly simply.
"I already told you why I am, so don't get on me about it, okay?" I respond.
He sighs. "I know, but you might want to tone it down just a bit." He looks at his watch. "I've gotta get home. Be seeing you." He starts walking in the direction of the orphanage, which is in the opposite direction of Frank's house.
I then grab Sam's hand and start walking toward Frank's. "You know you don't have to hold my hand. I'm old enough to walk on my own."
"I know, Sam!" I snap. "I know… Just please let me. I don't want to lose you, too…"
"All right…"
I can't… I just can't lose him… Especially not after what happened last night… I didn't run in front of a car or anything like that… No, it was worse… Frank had gone to a bar last night, and unfortunately, we didn't expect him to come home as drunk as he was. God, it was a nightmare…
I was helping Sam out with some of the homework he missed while waiting for me to get better, and things were going pretty well till Frank showed up drunker than a sailor. I thought he was walking over to his couch, but then he started stumbling in the direction of the "dining room" table—the dining room, living room, and kitchen are all one room—and when he arrived, he hit me straight in the eye, knocking me off my chair.
"Chaos, what was that for?!" I exclaimed.
He grinned lopsidedly at me. "'Cause I felt like it, bitch!" And then he kicked me straight in the crotch.
As I was recovering from the pain caused to me, I looked over and saw him stumbling toward Sam. "Oh, no you don't!" Completely ignoring the pain from both my eye and my area, I stood up and tackled him, and with my speed on my side, I was able to knock him down despite the fact that he was much taller than I. "You won't hurt him!" I punched him right in the face as hard as I could, and I actually got his nose to start bleeding. I felt accomplished for a couple seconds… until he punched back right in my stomach.
"If I don't hurt him, I hurt you twice as much. Got it?!"
I looked up at him and narrowed my eyes as angrily as I could. "Bring it on, bastard. You can do whatever you want to me. Just don't hurt him."
He chuckled at me. "You've got yourself a deal, kid." And he started beating on me with his fists… I don't even want to think about how much it hurt… I felt so powerless, too, but I couldn't let him lay a finger on Sam… I needed to protect my little brother at all costs…
When he was done with me, he stood up and wiped the red blood from his still bleeding nose before smirking at me once again. "That felt good. Have fun with those bruises, kid."
I felt my eyes watering… It hurt so much… So much… I looked over at Sam, and he looked devastated… He was already crying… "O-Ogie… You're hurt… A lot…" was all he was able to get out before he jumped out of his chair and ran over to me. He scanned me over before he started crying even more. "So many bruises…"
He immediately hugged me after he said that, and he choked out in between sobs, "We've… we've g-g-gotta tell… someone… about this…"
I was about to say that we should, but Frank yelled, "You tell anyone and you're dead, pipsqueak!"
"B-but we've still… gotta—"
I shook my head. "We can't, bud… He'll find out… and then you'll be gone, too… And you can't go… If anyone asks tomorrow, just don't say anything… Promise me you won't say anything…"
"But I—"
"Promise!" And he promised he wouldn't tell anybody… I have to keep him safe at all costs, even if it means that my own safety will be gone… because he's more important to me than my own life…
So...? How is it compared to the original? Please leave feedback! Please, please, please! I'm begging you! XO
-Camobamo1
All right, that was the third chapter! ^_^ Yeah, it's sad, but hey, Sam is still alive... for now. ^_^'
-Tails Luv-er