Good day, lovely readers! It's time for another chapter of JOTN. This time we're getting a journal entry from Russell, which will explain what happened to Bill from his perspective. It's gonna be a bit sad, though, especially if you remember what happened at the end of the last chapter. Speaking of which, we'll get an update on Bill's condition. Also, to make things even sadder, this will also reveal, or at least hint at what happened to Rudy.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 6: A Brother's Sacrifice

"Russell... Russell. Wake up, baby..."

The nine-year-old groaned as he slowly opened his eyes, to be greeted by his parents. Looking around, he could see that he was back in his hospital room. He looked back at his parents, who smiled, "How're you feeling, son?" His father asked.

"Okay... what happened?"

"You passed out. It's morning now..." his mother answered.

Passed out?

Slowly, Russell started to remember the events that happened earlier. He had learned that his brother was having a seizure and drooling blood, and had to go into surgery... and now it was MORNING?

"Bill! What happened to him? Is he okay?" he asked.

Mr. Cosby nodded, "Don't worry. Bill's fine. They were able to save him at the last moment. He's stable again but is still comatose. The doctors say it might be a few more days until he starts to be responsive again."

... That honestly didn't make Russell feel any better. While he was glad that Bill was still alive, there was the fact that he was still in a coma, and even less responsive than ever. Mrs. Cosby noticed her youngest's expression, "Would you like to go see him?" she asked.

He didn't want to see his brother like he was... but maybe it would be confirmed to him that he was still alive. So he just nodded. His father then gave him something, "Oh. Your friend Albert wanted me to give this to you. He felt like you might need it..."

It was the journal. Russell cautiously took it and stared at it. To be honest, he wasn't sure if he ready to write anything yet. But then again... here he was, ready to go visit his brother. It brought him back to why Bill was in the condition he was in right now...

And everything that happened that led up to that point.

And before the small boy knew it, he was sitting beside his comatose brother. There seemed to be even more wires and tubes hooked up to him than before. Russell stared at the heart monitor next to to the bed. It beeped ever so... it felt like it was mocking him.

Beep... beep... beep... beep...

Russell turned his attention away from it, fearing that he focused on it longer, it wouldn't be long until he heard a flatline. He looked at Bill and touched his hand.

"Hey, Bill... if you can hear me. I'm glad you're not dead..." He said, "I just hate that this has happened to you... our summer was supposed to be starting off great... but look at us... all of us are traumatized... and you're stuck here relying on a machine to survive!"

He closed his eyes tightly to prevent tears, as he took a deep breath, "But maybe... everything's gonna be okay... Fat Albert gave us this journal to write about our experiences. Weird Harold, Bucky, and Dumb Donald already wrote in here... but I guess it's my turn..."

Russell opened the book and began writing.

"Dear Journal... I have something to say. My brother's in a come right now. And I wanted to write about how it happened..."

Russell didn't know what time of the day it was... considering the basement had no windows, but if he had to guess, it was around nighttime. The man and woman had brought them breakfast and lunch already. Dinner was most likely next.

And it had only been a few hours since... they last tortured the boys.

Russell clung to his brother tightly, trying to ignore Rudy's wails of pain and misery. He couldn't believe it, but the child was starting to feel incredibly sorry for the rich boy who annoyed him on a regular basis. He didn't deserve the... cruel act those people did to him.

It had been ten days since they were kidnapped and brought to this dungeon of doom. There didn't seem to be any chance of them escaping if it had been this long. All of them had their fair share of torture place on them by Gabe and Bella, but they could all agree that Rudy suffered the worst of what happened earlier that day was anything to go by.

And Russell wondered... just how worse was it going to get?

He felt his brother grasp his hand. Russell looked up at Bill, who smiled and hugged him, "It's gonna be okay..." He whispered, "We'll get outta here... I hope sooner than later..."

"Me too..." Russell whispered back.

At that moment, the basement door opened, as Bella came down with a tray of bowls, "Dinner is ready, my little handsome boys!" She announced in a sing-song voice.

She walked towards the boys and sat the tray down in front of them. From what Russell could tell, it seemed to be some sort of soup. Tomato soup to be exact. Well, it looked appetizing, and he didn't mind eating it. Besides, he didn't have much of a choice but to eat it, since the last time he refused to eat... well, let's just say he was left both hungry and sore from the bottom.

Bella smiled until she saw that Rudy was still crying, "Aw. My little Rudolph is still blue. Cheer up, baby boy. I've brought you something to help you grow into a big man."

The orange cap wearing boy shook his head and turned away, "I-I-I'm n-n-not h-hungry..." He whimpered.

"But you have to eat, darling? You don't want to starve, do you...?"

Rudy refused to answer. It was then where Bella was starting to get irritated as she leaned in and grabbed the boy by the collar of his sweater, "I slaved over a hot stove to make this soup, and damn it, you're gonna eat it until the bowl is empty, you ungrateful bastard!" She snarled, "Do I need to punish you again?!"

"NOOOOOOOOO!" Rudy shrieked, more tears streaming down his cheeks.

Russell hated this. Seeing Rudy so miserable, scared, and broken was devastating, and this woman was making things worse. It had to be stopped... it had to be stopped...

So... without really thinking, Russell jumped up and got between Rudy and Bella, ignoring his brother's calls to come back, "Leave him alone! If he doesn't want to eat, then he doesn't have to!"

"Excuse me?!" Bella was outraged.

"You hear me!" Russell shot back, glaring at the woman, "If Rudy's not hungry, then you don't need to force him to eat. And I wouldn't blame him for not wanting to eat anything. Who would want to put food in their stomach after they got some long thing shoved up their-"

SLAP!

The little boy fell to the floor after that strike to the face. He held his cheek and looked up at the woman, who was officially pissed, "How DARE you speak to me that way, you little brat?! I am your Mommy! You are to respect me!"

"You are NOT my Momma!" Russell frowned, "Nor will you ever be!"

Before Bella could hit him again, Gabe started coming down the stairs, "What the hell is going on down here?" He demanded.

"Our boys are being bad, Gabe." Bella replied, "Rudolph refuses to eat his dinner, and Russell decides that he'd rather sass me!"

The man glared at the two boys, "Is that so..?" He then walked towards a wall, and grabbed something, before walking towards the boys. They all paled when they noticed that it was a sledgehammer.

"You boys wanna go 'bout disrespecting your Mother, eh?" He asked, "Well, let's see how you change your tune after this!"

With that, he raised the hammer high. Russell braced himself for a hit before he heard a scream. Looking to his left, he saw Harold reeling over in pain, clutching his left leg. He got hit.

"W-Why did you hit me? I didn't do nothing..." The tall boy hissed.

"Just wanted to test the strength of this. Haven't used it in a while..." Gabe then turned to Russell, "Now. Time to show you some respect, you little troublemaker..."

Again, he raised the hammer... right above Russell.

"NO!"

Suddenly, Russell felt himself being pushed out of the way hard. He landed on his arm, which brought some more pain, but that was the least of his worries when he heard a sickening sound and a loud groan. He looked at what happened, and it made his heart stop.

Bill... on the floor... bleeding from a big gash on his forehead.

He took the hit... and saved his little brother.

"No... Bill..."

The small child felt tears falling as he couldn't help but stare at what was happening right in front of him. Gabe smirked, "Not the target I was getting, but it's better than nothing. Let that be a lesson in respect to you mugs! If you ever step outta line again, you'll be hearing from me and your mother. Understand?!"

But before the boys nod their heads...

There was a sound in the distance...

It got louder... and louder...

Until it was loud enough to be recognized... as police sirens.

"Shit!" Gabe cursed, "Cops are here! Bella, we gotta go!"

Bella moaned, "I don't wanna move again! What about the boys?! We can't just leave them!"

"Forget them! They're about useless anyways."

With that, the couple scrambled up the stairs and out the door. As soon as they were gone, Russell crawled over to his brother, and held him, "Bill... Bill, please... why... why did you do that?" He asked with a sob.

There were a few seconds of no response, but Bill weakly looked at his younger brother and smiled a little, coughing up blood, "I did it... 'cause I didn't want my little brother to get hurt..." Was his response, "I'll be fine, Rus... don't worry.. oh, my head..."

Russell almost got sick from all the blood that was leaking out of the split on Bill's forehead. So much so, that he used his scarf to cover it up. But by the time he did... he noticed that Bill's eyes were closed, "Bill...? BILL?!"

No response.

None at all.

Fearing the worse, Russell began to cry in sorrow, holding his brother tightly. The other boys couldn't help but bow in silence, thinking that... one of them... was... was... or almost...

After a few moments, the door opened again, but instead of it being Gabe and Bella... it was police, one of them the boys recognized as Officer Jackson, "We finally found you, boys. We're gonna get you outta here." He assured as he descended the stairs.

"My brother!" Russell cried, "You gotta help him! They might have killed him!"

"Don't worry, Russell. The paramedics are on their way..."

The child nodded, before looking down at his unconscious brother...

"And that's what happened, Journal. Bill risked his life to save me. I could've been the one in the coma right now, not him. Now, all I hope is for him to wake up... and maybe he can write something down. Bye, Russell..."

Russell closed the journal with that last sentence, and looked back at his older brother, "You think that was good? I think so... well, I gotta go meet the other dudes in the kid's room. Maybe when you wake up... you can join us, okay? See you later, Bill..."

With that, he touched his brother's hand again and walked out of the room. What he didn't realize, was that there was a faintest of noise aside from the beeping of the heart monitor.

"... Rus..."

Meanwhile, Russell joined the others in the kids' room, where Albert had brought some board games to play, "Hey, hey, hey. Let's play some games."

"Fat Albert... I wrote down an entry..." Russell spoke up, giving his large friend the journal.

Albert smiled, "Great. I'll read it later."

Harold was thankfully allowed to get out of his wheelchair, only to get on the floor to play the games. They were even joined once again by Daisy. Also, Harold's little sister, Tiffany, had come to visit, and Harold was pretty much forced to let her play.

"I hope you're ready to lose, Harold." She declared, "I'm good at Scrabble!"

"How can you be if you don't even know how to spell most words at your age?" The tall boy smugly replied to his sister.

While the boys were setting everything up, Albert took the time to read Russell's entry really quick.

'Dear Journal... I have something to say. My brother's in a coma right now. And I wanted to write about how it happened... It had been ten days since we got started after that bad man and woman hurt Rudy really badly. And I mean really badly. He was crying a lot. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually felt terrible for him. As 'no class' as he could be, he didn't deserve to get hurt that way.

The man and woman left for a few hours, and the woman came back with some food. She had some tomato soup, which I wouldn't have minded since it looked good compared to the other stuff they fed us. But Rudy didn't want to eat at all, so the lady began to threaten him. I felt like I couldn't stand by and let her do that, so I stood up to her and told her to back off.

It was probably the dumbest thing I could have done, but I didn't want to show that I was weak. But she got madder and hit me. Then the man came in and decided that he wanted to swing a big hammer around to teach us a lesson. He used it to hit Harold on the leg as a 'test', and then tried to hit me... but he didn't... because I got pushed out of the way... by Bill...

And Bill got hit instead. There was a huge cut on his forehead, and he was bleeding badly. The man didn't seem to care, though, but then... we heard police cars outside. The man and lady left us alone in the basement. I guess this is when they escaped. I talked to Bill, and asked why he took the hit. It was because he didn't want me to get hurt. I used my scarf to stop the bleeding, but then Bill... I guess passed out, but I thought he died right then and there.

The police showed up in the basement and told us that we were saved. But... I was still worried about my brother.

And that's what happened, Journal. Bill risked his life to save me. I could've been the one in the coma right now, not him. Now, all I hope is for him to wake up... and maybe he can write something down. Bye, Russell...'

Albert smiled. He really admired Russell for standing up for Rudy. In normal circumstances, he wouldn't dream of it, but this was a serious situation right here. "Hey, Russell. Can you come here for a second?" He called.

The little boy nodded, and crawled over to Albert, "What is it...?"

"I wanted to say that you were very brave..."

"Huh?"

"I just finished reading your journal entry. You were really brave to stand up for Rudy like that... to protect him."

Russell frowned deeply when that was mentioned, "I wish I didn't... look at what happened to Bill, all because I decided to get sassy. If I had just kept my mouth shut and not say anything..."

Albert put a hand on the child's shoulder, "It's not your fault. You did the right thing. You saw that Rudy wasn't being treated right, and decided to put a stop to it. If you hadn't said anything, Rudy would've suffered more than he did. And Bill made a sacrifice to save you because he loves you. He took the blow to the head so that you would live..."

"I know... but now he might die..."

"Well... if that is the case, God forbid. At least he can die knowing he did a good deed."

Russell wiped away a few tears. Albert was right. Bill had to have known the risk when he shoved his brother out of the way. And if he... passed on, it would be from the fact that he kept his brother safe. But Russell still hoped that Bill would wake up...

"Hey! You guys gonna play with us or not?" Harold called from the center of the room.

Albert and Russell looked at each other, before smiling, "Hey, hey, hey. Let's go play!" Albert said.

With that said, the two went to join their friends for some friendly games.

Wow. So Russell feels like he's to blame for what happened to Bill. But Albert is quick to assure him that he's not. And props to Bill himself for taking the blow for his little brother, even if he knew doing so could've killed him. Next chapter, we'll get an entry from good 'ol Mushmouth, and see a flashback from his perspective.

Also, you noticed that Harold also got hit in the leg by the sledgehammer, but that wasn't the only thing that factored into his injury. Next chapter, we'll see what else caused it. Until then, I'll see you guys later. And as always, don't forget to review, please. Thank you!