Disclaimer: for a change, since I mention no names, I don't need a disclaimer. Oh, hang on, I don't need this bit, then, do I? Ignore that last sentence.
Chapter 2
He fights to wake, but cannot.
He hears his father's voice. Shouting. Two voices shouting. Anger, threats. What 'broken promises'?
Then, a terrible scream echoes through his head. A noise, a terrible, final noise. The noise, he knows, of death.
Sickening, crunching blows. Stop, please stop!
Then, the sound of running feet.
More shouting, another scream. This time, he knows, his mother's scream.
He is under the bedclothes, the colours of his dream illuminating the darkness of his prison; clinging, holding him down. All is now silent, apart from the deep breathing from the next bed. The feeling of deep, unutterable horror grows cold in his stomach, weighs him down. He is drowning, drowning.
He whispers, his voice labours as though his tongue is engorged. The air feels like treacle. His words sound hoarse as they finally escape from his lips.
"What has happened?"
A voice he knows. "I fear the worst. Stay here."
Stockinged footsteps cross the bedroom, and the door creaks open. Then silence, for what seems like an eternity.
At last - "Come quick!"
He is out of the bed, running downstairs, legs feel as though they are weighed with lead. He knows what he will find. It is as it always is in this dream. Yet it is not a dream.
His parents lying on the threshold. So much blood.
And standing there, on the path outside the front door, is a stranger. A man. His face is hidden, but he knows him, surely?
His brother does not struggle in the stranger's vice-like grip. The stranger is holding a gun to his brother's head.
Their brotherly eyes meet, pupils wide. Now the gun is turned slowly – oh, so slowly - to point instead towards his own body.
The hidden face is always there at the back of his mind. He cannot see, he cannot see ..... Except, the mouth. A smile. Cruel and cold, and yet – another emotion. He cannot see. He cannot understand. What is the other emotion? Frustration burns within him.
He hears the gun cocked as the stranger prepares to fire. Time has stopped; the hallway clock is silent.
More screaming. It is his own.
He wakes, his body bathed in sweat.