“You have a sister too, right?” Tsagi asked. “How old is she?”

The question caught me off guard. We were walking down the sidewalk, as school had just let out. Luckily, we were the only people that lived in this street, so I enjoyed a semi-quiet walk home. The neighborhood I lived in was your typical American suburb.

It wasn’t rich, fancy housing by any means; some houses looked like no one had lived in it since the Cold War, but it was a good neighborhood. We had passed Tsagi’s house a few blocks down, but he insisted he come with me to see my house.

Anyways, back to the question he asked.

“Yeah, I have a sister,” I replied. “She’s only ten, but she’s a real demon though,”

Tsagi let out a ‘humph’. “She can’t be worse than mine. Older sisters can be such demons, must be nice having a cute little sister to take care of,”

I looked at Tsagi. I’d met his sisters once in middle school when they came to pick him and me up from a game, and I have mixed feelings about them. The older one, Jiānqiáng, was a hotheaded gym-girl that absolutely loved picking on Tsagi.

The second sister, simply named Mei, was a quiet but very cunning girl. While not as strong as her sister, she was very manipulative. In fact, in the car ride home, she tricked Tsagi into doing her chores for a month. I’m not going to explain how, but just know even I was shocked at how good she was at lying. Hell, even Jiānqiáng seems scared of her.

But back to Tsagi, he did seem like the strong and protective older brother type. No doubt he and Chloe would get along extremely well, considering how touchy and violent she can be. Well, violent is a strong word. She’s just very rough with people. Too rough.

In fact, when my dad was still alive, he’d play football with Chloe while I stayed indoors and cooked with my mom. My grandma didn’t mind, but my conservative grandfather was livid. He was already miffed at the fact I looked like a girl, now I was supposedly “acting” like one.

Safe to say, I never liked my grandfather. He tried to cut my long hair on multiple occasions, and always called me a “failure of a grandson” because of how I looked. When my father died, my grandfather stayed with my mother for a year. It was hell, to him I was a contradiction of his beliefs.

“A man should never look like a woman!” was his signature catchphrase.

And I never even remotely behaved like a girl. Believe it or not, I was a very feisty and rough kid. I enjoyed running and play fighting, and even though I know I said I hated sports; I used to play football with Tsagi all the time, though he’d go easy on me believing I was a girl.

“I mean, it’s nice being eldest, but it’s also has it’s own cons,” I told Tsagi. “For example: If anything bad happens, even if I’m not there, I still get blamed!”

Tsagi looked at me in confusion. “That doesn’t seem fair to you,” he said. “In fact, that doesn’t seem fair at all! In my house, if anything bad happens, Jiānqiáng doesn’t instantly get blamed; it’s the person responsible. My parents say we’re all old enough to be held accountable for our actions,”

He patted me on the back. “I won’t lie to you, your mom is kinda dumb,”

I was going to react, or maybe hit him, but he had a point. She was a very sporadic woman, acting purely out of emotion and never on logic. In fact, almost all financial decisions were made by Uncle Rayman.

I scratched the back of my head. “She can be a bit…much sometimes, but she’s not dumb..”

Tsagi side-eyed me. “Whatever you say, bud.” he said.

As we walked down, we did as normal teenage boys do: Tsagi decided to show me how much he can lift by picking me up and attempting to bench press me like a barbell. We decided to visit the local lake in our neighborhood we called Lake Vomit because of the smell, which was just a giant pit left over by the city’s construction that filled up with water.

The water was extremely dirty, so no one actually swam in it. Even so, Tsagi dared me to put my hand in.

“I dare to stick your hand in the water,” he said.

We sat at the edge of the lake, the water glistening as the sun set . Construction equipment was sprinkled throughout the shore, as were assorted building materials. The way the lake was shining and glistening, an unsuspecting by-passer would think it was safe enough to jump in.

“Ew, I’ll never touch this ‘lake’” I said. I dropped my bag on the ground to stretch, putting my hand in the air to pop my back.

Tsagi then pulled something from his pocket. “Not even for 20 dollars?” he said mischievously, waving the bill in my face like a hypnotist.

At face value, the deal seemed pretty sweet: stick my hand in rancid water for half a second and get 20 bucks, as Tsagi’s not the type of guy to swindle you. But here’s why it’s a terrible deal nonetheless (if you hadn’t caught on already):

The water is slightly radioactive.

Well, that was a stretch. This area is actually off-limits, but as you can see, no one really cares about what the city says. But everyone knows never to touch Lake Vomit, as everyone knows: if you touch Lake Vomit, you’ll smell like vomit.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I’m offended that you think I’m that easy,” I said.

Tsagi just chuckled. “Back when we were kids, you would dive bomb into the lake for a dollar!”

I rolled my eyes. I was a wild kid, but I calmed down a lot since then. Ever since my grandfather came into my life, I became very mild and almost timid. I’ll never forgive him.

“Yeah,” I said, beginning to laugh a bit. “But then my granddad would blow his top every time I came home smelling like shit,”

Tsagi busted out laughing. “Remember that one time when we filled his tub with water from Lake Vomit? And he smelled like shit for like a week?”

I laughed at the memories. As a kid, I pulled countless pranks on my grandfather. I was a very playful kid, and when my father was alive I’d play with him a ton, and my grandfather put up with it until I was 11 or so.

“Yeah dude, I remember that! We couldn’t have guests over because of the smell!”

“Oh and don’t even get me started on when we swapped out his medication for extreme sour candies!”

I laughed harder. “The sour candy was beating his ass all night!” I laughed. “Mans did not sleep a wink that night!”

“Oh, and what about-”

KA-BOOM!

An explosion.

In that very moment, I felt time slow down. I saw Tsagi’s face morph from one of joyous laughter to shock and fear as he turned towards the explosion. I could feel my heartbeat in my mouth as I watch my world crumble before my eyes.

The heat of the setting sun suddenly felt so oppressive, and my breath became raggedy. My fingers and legs felt like they were being stabbed by millions of needles, and my vision waned between blurry and clear.

Then came the shockwave.

A mighty gust of wind sent us flying a few feet back, with Tsagi nearly falling into Lake Vomit. I, however, was slammed into a pile of wood. As I tried gasping for air, Tsagi roared in pain. I saw him, a giant man of sheer strength, writhing on the ground in pain facedown like a wounded soldier.

“T-Tsagi…!” I shouted weakly. In my attempt to get his attention, I coughed out blood.

Luckily, my efforts were not in vain. Though Tsagi shouted in pain, he managed to steel himself and get back up; his white tee now stained with dirt, sweat, and blood. Following his lead, I managed to get back up but not without coughing up some spit and blood.

“Where the fuck did that come from?” Tsagi said. “Was it a terrorist attack?!”

Maybe it was the ringing in the ears or the fact that I was in so much pain, but the city felt quiet; almost dead. I looked at the road behind me, and sure enough, I saw people running frantically. Car lights were blinking, dust clouds, and large crowds of people running.

“martin? Martin! MARTIN!”

Tsagi’s large hands grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me, snapping me out of my shocked state and back into reality. I winced in pain though, as my shoulders hurt like hell, and pulled away from the hands.

“Gah! Dude, my shoulders!”

Tsagi stepped back looking remorseful. “Sorry, you looked like you were going into a catatonic state…”

I coughed a tiny puddle of blood. “I’m fine,” I said. “But what was that…”

I could hear perfectly now. The screams of terrified citizens, the blaring of cars, the crumbling of debris, and the screech of fire trucks and police cars mixed to create this ear-splitting symphony of chaos.

“Uhh dude,” Tsagi said worriedly, pointing at my lower stomach. “You’ve got…um…that sticking out of you…”

At first, I didn’t know what he meant. Then I got a good look at the damage I had taken when the shockwave hit me and I saw it: a medium-sized piece of construction wood sticking out from just below my waist.

Before I could even process what I was seeing, my pain receptors went on overtime and the pure pain I had taken was realized and I doubled over.

I screamed.

My sides felt like they were burning up, and the more I screamed in pain the worse it got. Tsagi instantly rushed to help me, but the most he could do was hold me while I roared like an injured animal.

It hurt. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt. I wanted the pain to end so badly, but no matter how many times I hoped, it came back worse and worse.

“Someone help! My friend’s been injured bad!” Tsagi yelled across the street, but because of the sheer noise the commotion was causing, his voice was drowned out. “Shit!”

Tsagi wrapped his hands around my waist and put my face in his chest. “It’s alright, man,” he said. “Stay right here, I’ll go ask around for help,”

He picked me, being careful not to jostle me around, and lay me down beside some construction beams. He then took off his T-shirt and used it to clean the blood and sweat from my forehead, then took off to find help.

As I lay there, trying to control my breathing through the pain, I thought of my family. My mom and my sister Chloe, I hope they were far away from this chaos. Chloe usually comes home before me…wait a minute…

The explosion…it came from the exact same location as my house…

No…No…NONONONONONONONONONONO…

My eyes burned as tears streamed down my face. My family, the only thing I had, the couldn’t be…I pushed the notion or idea that they could’ve even been hurt by this random explosion to the back of my head,

It wasn’t an option I wanted to believe could be a reality.

If Chloe was to die, as her big brother; the man that is supposed to protect her after her father, I’d never forgive myself. But here I lay, writhing in unimaginable pain and unable to save her. How terrible of a big brother I was.

“Yes sir, he’s right there!”

Out the corner of my eye, I saw Tsagi approach me with another man. The man seemed to behave a light stubble, and dressed in khaki shorts with a grey shirt, brown sandals, and tinted sunglasses.

“Ooof, thank Christ we got here in time,” he joked. “Alright kid, I need you to stick with me just a bit more, okay?”

I weakly nodded.

The man looked like he was about to grab something off me, but he cleared his throat and I saw his face turn pink a bit.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” he said. “Because, you know, I need to take off your shirt…”

Tsagi sighed. “He’s a boy,” he said. “Why does it matter?”

The man cleared his throat and slowly removed my hoodie that revealed lots of other little wood splinters stabbing my stomach. At this point, my pain receptors were fried and I lost all feeling in my body.

Then I lost consciousness.