"Lovino? Lovino? Feliciano? Are you guys okay? Matthew?" Gilbert screamed, letting go of Alfred immediately. "Matthew?"
Alfred hammered on the door. "Matthew? Are you guys okay?"
The screaming continued.
Terrified screams with few intervals in between.
"LET US IN! WHAT'S WRONG? MATTIE!"
Gilbert grew frustrated.
He ran back to the car.
"Gilbert what-?"
Gilbert seized Alfred's phone.
"Call nine-one-one!" he ordered. "And move back!"
"Why-?"
Gilbert shoved the phone into his hand.
"Just do it!"
He raced back to the car and began shuffling through Alfred's car, trying to find something hard or heavy. But there was nothing in the American's car that could possibly be of use.
"Think, think!" Gilbert though, trying to ignore Alfred's frantic, hysterical screams into the phone and the screaming from the house.
He turned around all of a sudden. The lake. Of course.
"Sir, sir, please calm down and tell me what the emergency is."
"Matthew's in trouble and it's all my fault!" Alfred wailed.
"You idiot, tell them where we are!" Gilbert snapped over his shoulder.
He raced to the lake.
And froze.
The house was situated on an uprise of land. So if he continued running, he would've gone over the side of a cliff face. Fortunately, the upraised land was steadier and less of a sharp-dropping cliff near the edges. He bolted to the right. He didn't slow down too much, though. He kept proceeding, but with caution this time. He stumbled and almost fell, but there was no time for it. He reached the lake. But it wasn't the lake he was heading for. It was the rocky shore. He scrabbled about over rocks the size of dogs, trying to find what he wanted.
After a few seconds, he found it.
A large rock, about the size of a cat. It was heavy and would've hurt if he'd dropped it on his foot, but that was good. That was very good.
"Listen, my brother and the kids he was babysitting are in trouble! I need the police! The address? Uh, I guess- holy shit, Gilbert!"
The albino paid him no attention. His arms and legs were killing him and his adrenaline was sending his heartbeat completely haywire. He didn't even respond to the frantic blond.
He threw the heavy rock with all of his might at the near window.
The gigantic, panoramic window facing the surrounding nature.
But he didn't give a shit.
Screw it. If Mr. Vargas sued him for destroying his window to get into his house because he'd heard his children screaming, then so be it.
He threw it with all of his strength at the window.
With an earsplitting shatter, the large, beautiful window broke into large, dangerous pieces of glass. It crumbled into the grass and onto the gravel as well as inside the house, but Gilbert paid it no attention, just jumping through the now open space and skidding slightly on the broken glass. Alfred finished his call before hanging the phone up and scrambling after the albino. He, unlike Gilbert, slipped and fell, his knees getting cut and sliced up by the sharp little glass shards, but he couldn't care less. Nothing short of losing one of his legs could stop him from getting to his brothers and those kids and being the hero!
"Mattie?" Gilbert cried desperately.
"Who's there? Help us!" he heard the Vargas children scream.
He followed their voices. Those poor little Italian boys. He hoped they weren't hurt. But that nagging feeling in his head wouldn't go away, that worry that it wasn't the children he had to worry about, but their babysitter.
The bedroom. They were in the bedroom.
He threw himself up against the door. To his shock, it was unlocked. Later, he would see that the lock itself was broken. But not now. That wasn't important now.
Gilbert almost slipped as Alfred collided into his back, shoving him forward, stumbling into the room. Glbert cursed at him, his hand immediately going to his aching spine. "You dumbass!" he shouted. But Alfred wasn't looking at him. His eyes were wide, horrified, as he surveyed the floor. Gilbert looked down. Blood. He'd slipped in blood.
There was a puddle on the floor. Both of them stared at each other for a moment, the same horrified expression reflected in each other's eyes. Then-
"You fucking dumbass, dummy-headed, cunt-sucking, pig-fucking-"
"Geez," Alfred frowned, looking scandalized. Gilbert ignored him, instead lunging at the closet. Not only was the closet locked, but a chair was jammed underneath the door handle, forcing it shut. Gilbert wrenched the chair free of the door and yanked frantically at the door lock. Thankfully, it wasn't a particularly strong lock. Probably just a child lock. Gilbert broke it easier than, unbeknownst to him, Matthew had broken the bedroom lock. He yanked it open.
Out tumbled a screaming, crying Feliciano, who ran crying passed Gilbert's legs and into Alfred's outstretched arms. Alfred grabbed the little Italian boy, immediately hugging him tighter and rubbing slow circles over his back, trying to calm him down and understand what the small boy was babbling incoherently. Lovino, on the other hand, ran out and leapt at Gilbert in a fury, lashing out with his small fists and crying his eyes out, but in a rage rather than out of fear. Gilbert was sure he was scared and masking it with anger, but it didn't make his furious little punches to the balls any less painful. He resisted the urge to swear at the Italian and possibly scare, but something had to be done. Lovino was clearly upset, but that didn't give him the right to hit him when he was trying to help! Plus, how on earth was he supposed to help if he just stood there and took it?
He caught Lovino's tiny little fists and pulled him into a firm embrace, trying to be supporting and also stop the attack. Lovino still shrieked cuss words at him, causing his little brother to scream even louder, adding to the considerable racket the two little boys managed to make, all on their own.
"Lo-Lo- Lovino Romano Vargas! Calm down! I need you to calm down! What happened? Who put you in the closet? Where's Matthew?" Gilbert asked desperately, trying his best not to shake the boy hysterically, his fear building up in his chest.
"H-he was taken away!" Lovino screamed.
"By the scary man!" Feliciano added, breaking down once again. Screaming and crying and apologizing, for being useless, for letting Matthew be taken, for the scary man for even being there.
"Scary man? Who? Did you recognize him? What happened?" Alfred demanded, his comforting aura vanishing as his anger began to rise inside his chest, swirling and spiraling higher until his eyes were almost glowing with fury, his voice suddenly urgent. "Feliciano? Lovino? Tell us everything that happened!"
"W-we saw him earlier, but Matthew thought we dreamt him up!" Lovino said, sniveling. "And-and-"
"And we went to sleep!"
"Yes. And I woke up later, when I heard the phone ringing downstairs. I was going to go back to sleep, but then I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I thought it was Matthew, so I went and opened the door. And I saw this gigantic, big, scary, ugly man standing in the door with a phone in his hand. I couldn't see his face. The light was behind him and his face was in the shadows. I was going to scream, but he grabbed my mouth with one hand and then the light moved and I saw him smile the scariest smile I've ever seen! Then he said into the phone, 'I will' and it was the scariest thing I ever saw because then that creepy smile got bigger! He grabbed Feliciano and then threw us both into the corner. It hurt! He took out a knife and threatened to cut our tongues out if we didn't keep quiet. Then I heard Matthew screaming something and footsteps pounding up the stairs. I wanted to yell a warning, but I couldn't with that scary man and his knife in the room!"
"Then Matthew started to hit the door!" Feliciano wailed. "He tried to get in!"
"And I got scared and yelled when I wasn't supposed to!" Lovino wailed. "And I told him not to come in! I told him!"
"Then he broke the door!"
"Yeah, the door! And he came in and then-then-"
"Blood!" Feliciano shrieked, pointing at the puddle. "The scary man made him bleed!"
"Made him bleed? What happened?" Alfred shouted, unable to keep himself from shaking Feliciano furiously, trying to get him to stop crying long enough to tell him what had happened. But it proved too much for the younger Italian. He simply burst into frightened tears and they couldn't get a word out of him besides "Sorry" and "Scary."
Alfred rounded on Lovino.
"Lovino, you'd better-"
"Alfred! Don't scare him!" Gilbert reprimanded. "Lovino, please, can you tell us-?"
"Yeah, of course I can! You don't scare me!" Lovino squeaked defiantly, glaring at Alfred. "If you're ever a bastard to my little brother again I'll-"
"Save it," Alfred snapped harshly. "Right now, my little brother is missing. So I couldn't care less about yours."
Both Gilbert and Lovino were shocked to hear him say that. Sweet, affable Alfred saying he couldn't care less about Feliciano? Out of the three of them, they would both agree that Alfred was nicest. And he seemed so callous right now. Shockingly apathetic to the sobbing, clearly distressed little kid.
But no. Gilbert knew that Alfred was anything but callous. The fact that he'd said something so out of character just showed how much he loved his brother, and how panicked and worried he was for him. It showed how much he cared.
But now was not the time.
"Shut up, Alfred. I get that you're upset, but-"
"But nothing! Lovino, tell me what happened!" Alfred demanded.
Lovino sniffled, but replied.
"He-he came in and-and the scary guy took this big pipe out of his gigantic jacket. He hit Matthew hard. Hard enough to-to make all that blood," Lovino said, his voice shaking. "H-he kneeled down and-and he stroked Matthew's hair. He-he told him he loved him, then stroked his ch-cheek! Then he turned around and we were both screaming. I thought he was going to kill us! But he only shoved us in the closet, saying something about-about not getting Matthew in trouble. It was so horrible! He trapped us in here and it was scary! And we were all alone! For hours!"
Hours. Hours. It had been hours.
Both Gilbert and Alfred felt their hearts drop. The man had had hours to escape, get anywhere on the planet away from them. What had he done with him? Why had he wanted him?
They knew what had happened, yet, they didn't really know what had happened, did they?
"Lovino," Alfred said, his voice tightly calm. "What did the man look like?"
"Eh-eh, I- atchoo! He-he," Lovino coughed for a minute and Alfred had to resist the urge to slap him. "He was big. And-and he had kind of a round face and light hair. But-but I couldn't really see-"
"His coat was beige," Feliciano managed to choke out. He'd been crying too long and now his voice was cracked and sore. "Remember the big pockets?"
"Yeah, the coat had big pockets. But we didn't see anything else! It was too dark!"
Alfred stared at him, his mouth slightly open. He just stared at Feliciano, his eyes wide.
He could see it in his head, horrible in its clarty. A mysterious, dark stranger with no face hurting his precious little brother, his precious baby brother, and taking his bleeding body out of the room. Carrying him? Caressing him? Dragging him? Raping him, then throwing his body into the lake? Just the thought of seeing his brother's stone cold corpse thrown into the lake, covered in blood, brought tears to his eyes.
"Wide, staring eyes," Alfred said aloud, his voice cracking, his head falling into his hands as the tears fell faster.
"W-what?"
"Nothing," Gilbert said hastily, knowing exactly what Alfred was thinking about, but not wanting to scare the children.
It was then, staring at the puddle of blood, Alfred snapped. But not the way Gilbert expected him to. He expected Alfred to snap into a ferocious rage and go out screaming at the heavens and go looking for his brother with a mad fervor. He thought Alfred's eyes would be bright with ardor and he'd be shouting. He'd be angry, yes, vengeful, definitely, determined, absolutely. Violent? Perhaps. But nothing Gilbert expected was anywhere near Alfred's actual response.
He looked up and for a moment, his eyes were wild and Gilbert braced himself for a crazed, psycopathic rant. A lot of screaming, and a lot of breaking fragile or perhaps not so fragile objects. Maybe some crazy running out into the wilderness-
But then Alfred's face crumpled. Just contorted, his face anguished, as he put his face in his hands and just cried. No hatred, no passion, just sorrow.
Lovino backed away from him, slightly alarmed, but Gilbert scooted closer timidly. "Al-Alfred?" he tried, not sure what to say to the usually energetic, feisty American. Crying people were not his specialty. Come to think of it, he didn't have a specialty when it came to dealing with emotions. Or people. Or people with emotions. He wasn't sure how he would've dealt with Alfred if he'd gotten really angrily and gone storming out. Gilbert was usually as high-strung as Alfred. He didn't know why he didn't feel angry or pissed or even sad like Alfred. He just felt... stunned. Calm. Controlled, but shocked. It was odd. And it confused him.
"We ha-have to find-find him!" Alfred wailed, his head shooting up. He grabbed Gilbert's shirt and shook him before pulling him closer and hugging him like a teddy bear. "We have to! "Before s-something bad happens!"
But they both knew, and the children knew too, that something bad had already happened.
Sorry. It's shorter than I intended.
I'm trying to write more, put more details into my writing without being repetitive. But I'm not sure how I'm doing. If you've read my other stories, can you please tell me if you think I'm succeeding.