Author's note: Okay, the internet at my house is set up, this chapter is a bit longer (but it is a bit ramble-y)... I should be able to update sooner now, but if I don't finish this story by september 8, I will probably disappear for a while again (school starts, and while I am generally good at starting new schools, this is a different curriculum, and therefore I am more likely to spend less time on the internet and more on staring at books.)
Disclaimer: If I owned the gone series, then I wouldn't have made a fanfiction about it
When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was the bright sunlight shining in my eyes, the second was lack of weight pulling my arms down, and the third thing I noticed was that someone was carrying me in one arm. I squinted through the light at my hands hanging limp over a muscled arm, they looked like, well, hands that had had the moisture sucked out of them by a cement block for a few weeks.
My brain slowly sorted through the events of the previous day, I remembered a terrible headache, similar to, if not worse than, the time I'd had malaria when visiting my uncle in Nigeria. I remembered the giant knife materializing from nowhere, similar to the one I drew on that same trip. As my eyes adjusted to the light, and I could see things more clearly, I saw the torn, bloodstained Coates Academy t-shirt, and I saw the tiny drawings on the sleeve, and I knew who this was.
I jumped involuntarily, falling from my older brother's somewhat awkward grip, scraping my elbows on the road
"Awake, are you?" asked an all too familiar voice. I tried to stand back up, but his large boot pressed down on my chest, "You know, I recognised that knife." he knelt down so he was staring down at me, I gasped shallowly, the pressure on my chest restricting my breathing, "What the hell? I gave you a chance to get away, look, you cut my fucking arm off."
"I didn't even know!" I gasped, "The knife just appeared, why would I even want to cut your arm off, anyway?"
"Who cares? You still did it." it was obvious that he was beginning to lose faith in his argument, despite the anger towards me still being there. I'd seen this before, in other arguments he'd had with parents, friends, neighbours, and me, and it rarely ended well for those in my position.
"Look, okay, whatever." he said, kicking me in the stomach. "Just get up and walk in front of me, we're going to walk," he looked around for a second and pointed in the direction of the town, "that way."
So I walked ahead, head bowed, running wasn't an option, even on one of his worst days, Drake could run faster than me on one of my best, and I, with my lack of meat on my bones and bruised ribs, stood no chance of running far without being caught.
We passed a few kids as we got closer to the town, some looked at the two of us, their eyes flashed first to Drake, then to me, casting me a quick glance as if to say sorry, then they walked a bit faster, while some would adopt my stance and walk away quickly, without more than a brief glance in Drake's direction.
Drake and I walked in silence, I allowed my mind to wander, as there was little I could do to change the direction in which I was walking.
The first thing I thought of was my power. I remembered drawing it now, Drake had been throwing a tantrum (one of many during his pre-teen years), he'd been yelling and screaming, his shrieks had alternated between barely understandable strings of insults, and normal screams that meant nothing whatsoever.
However, this hadn't been a normal childish tantrum caused by irregular hormone levels, but instead it was a Drake-ish tantrum caused by irregular hormone levels, no one would dare go near him (especially not after my bully of a cousin had pushed me into the kitchen in which Drake had been throwing his tantrum, and my older brother had thrown a butter knife in my direction, it had hit my arm, so I'd run out, hit my cousin and refused to talk to anyone for the rest of the visit unless I was forced to.
That was when I drew the picture, I'd been trying to get back at him, by inflicting pain on the imaginary Drake. Soon after this, I'd come down with malaria, and after three days of treatment I'd gotten better, but for those three days, I'd had nothing to do but alternate between lying on the cool floor clutching my head, and continuing to draw.
I think I must have hit my head, reminding me of the picture, and perhaps I'd somehow made it come to reality, it being that there was a fair amount of stress in the situation I'd woken up to. And maybe it only disappeared because I stopped thinking about it, maybe I was shocked by it's appearance, and that had knocked my subconscious away to replace it with my conscious mind, which had no intention of making a knife randomly appear in the middle of Coates Academy,
I wondered then, if I could bring a drawing of an arm to reality, and perhaps I could link the arm to the stub left of it, my plan had some problems, of course, but perhaps if I told Drake about it, he might be able to fix it, maybe he'd come up with a better idea, maybe he would help me actually figure out my power. But wait, why was I helping him? The bastard had probably given me a large number of bruises on my chest, and a black eye was likely already forming.
I resolved to not tell him. It was his own fault, if he'd not thrown a knife at me, I'd never have drawn the picture, and he never would have lost his arm in the first place.
I would end up telling him though, perhaps we would argue, and not be so angry any more, perhaps he'd give me some food and we'd sit down and chat because there was nothing better to do. Whatever happens, the two of us would reach a point in our bloody, petty little battle of revenge where we dropped our weapons and be the perfect siblings that parents dream of.
I remember trying to describe the relationship between my brother and I. I think I may have given a misleading explanation, jaded by our relatively friendly encounter at Coates, I said we were friends, really, good brothers that fought, but made up soon after, in reality however, we do fight a bit more than the average siblings, and our fights are more violent, and we would not hesitate to harm each other for selfish reasons, we'd never hesitate to harm one another in a fight, we'd never hesitate to give away one another's secrets to save our own skins. On the other hand, we'd never hesitate to drag one another out of death's grip, never hesitate to harm a friend to save one another.
I think a good explanation is;
Drake and I are the average siblings, in most respects, even if there is a bit more blood and violence involved in our relationship. We have a deep brotherly love for one another, but there is the fact that we loathe each other when neither of our lives are actually being threatened, there is then the polite friendship we have when there is no reason for us to fight, or to give the illusion of the perfect siblings to the people we passed on the streets.
Our relationship when we are with others varies depending on who we are with, we generally simply act so as to portray ourselves the way we wish those we are with to see us.
"Do you know the way to the house from here?" asked Drake, "I want to see Dad's gun collection, or did Mum toss it?"
"It's just down that way," I pointed down the street, I could just see the unkempt garden and various piles of useless things Mum had hoarded on the porch. "And you know Mum, she doesn't toss anything." as we got closer, so Drake could see the piles of stuff, he smirked, realizing what I'd meant as he remembered living with her, with only Dad keeping her away from turning the house into the dump it was now. "Are we planning to stay there for the night?" I was now speaking to him like he was Dad, and perhaps he was now, as he was technically my guardian, so not talking to him like he was the figure of authority might end in pain on my part.
"I guess." he said, looking at the darkening sky, "but don't get any ideas, I'm going to tie you to your bed so you won't go anywhere, and the fence if you cause any problems."
He'd done that once before.
I decided not to cause any problems