ONE WEEK CHAPTER EIGHT

Although his mother was shocked by this behavior of Francis of bringing another boy home, she didn’t speak much on the matter and just intends for her husband to come back home and know what has happened that led to the current situation, this Francis seems strange to her. Time fast forwards a bit and we see that the couple and their child was in the dining, eating and Francis takes it upon himself to start a conversation. That action on its own was very rare. One might think that the couples were acting weird over the way their child behaved. But it wasn’t an exaggeration, as their child wasn’t this way. He didn’t even like speaking to his parents and was rude if he ever spoke to them. But now, that same child was being polite, they couldn’t help to stare at the new person who was on their table with them. He was happily eating his meal while moving his legs backward and forward, he didn’t even care about what was going on between his hosts. He didn’t have the luxury of eating such a meal even when his parents were alive. There were levels to being rich in this life. After explaining the circumstances behind him bringing this child home with him, his parents stare at this child who has finished his meal and seems to be hoping for more. They had their cook bring more for him though. They now understood the reason behind his change, and this child played a huge part as he was the savior of their only child, they almost burst into tears and hugged this child but they held back. They quickly allowed this child to live with them since he didn’t have anywhere else to go. After all, there were enough rooms in the house for him to live in with little to no inconvenience. Although they quickly accepted him though didn’t mean that they trusted him. They were still skeptical, and seeing his parents, Francis choose to cool it off and bring up Andrew’s brother at another time, rushing things might spoil it all. Although he hasn’t fully changed, it wasn’t far-fetched to say he wasn’t the Francis of the old. Going through such a deadly situation and being rescued by a total stranger opened his eyes to various stuff, and now he valued everything that was by his side, especially his family. About a month after various tests in their house, Francis’ mother finally allowed Andrew to stay in one of the shops owned by her. Francis had already returned to school, their break has ended and he needed to return in order to continue with his degree. During the few moments he was at home though, he took care of Andrew. Although he might seem a bit cold and aloof at times, Andrew got used to this feeling of finally having someone to look up to, someone sort of like an elder brother. And the way he was with his parents was changed, he was way closer to them, and even his communication with Joe and the other helpers in the house changed thoroughly, although they didn’t dare to believe that this was the Francis they had all known, they grew to accept it all. Joe had initially thought that Francis had some kind of sinister plan kept in store for Andrew, but seeing the way he was treating Andrew better as the day goes by, he couldn’t help to change his thinking and start seeing Francis in a new light. Time quickly went by, and although Francis was no longer at home, his parents still treated Andrew well to some point. Another four months have gone by, and Andrew has gotten a bit plump together with his initial matured stature, which is a result of living well. He has gotten accustomed to such a lifestyle and didn’t intend to let go of it anytime soon. Although there was the issue of his brother still being away from him, Francis had promised that he would settle the issue the moment he was back from school, and Andrew chose to believe in him. But when everything seems to be going too well, that’s when stuff goes wrong the quickest, with no prior notice. It was on a cool day when Andrew has just closed from the shop and was going home with some of his new acquaintances, they were two boys and a single girl. They were chatting, or should I say arguing about the newly concluded World Cup finals where their country had come in second losing by just a nil to the opposition. “It was a total defensive error, how could that defender have left that attacker unattended”, one of the boys says. “The goalkeeper was at fault too, if he hadn’t rushed forward, he would have been able to defend that weak shot”, the other boy says. “Although we didn’t take the top position, I think we still tried”, Andrew says with a smile on his face. “What do you know? Do you know the kind of honor it would have brought to us? You are that way since your favorite player is on the opposite team”, the second boy says. The girl just giggles at their argument and Andrew doesn’t say any more words. That was when they heard people screaming while running. “Huh”, the three boys exclaim at almost the same time wondering what could be going wrong that was causing all these commotions, the girl, on the other hand, started panicking and was about to join the crowd. The first guy holds her immediately while saying, “Going along with the crowd won’t be wise. We should try looking for a place to hide”. Andrew and the other guy agree immediately, just running wildly could get them into trouble as they could unintentionally run in the direction where the danger was coming from, and they could get caught up in everything. They quickly find a place to hide. It was an open store room, sort of like a garage and they quickly shut down the wooden doors, locking it from the inside. They were out of breath at this moment and start breathing heavily, the girl was the one mostly panicking at this time as she seem like someone who was about to lose control. After a while, they start hearing loud footsteps, probably from a crowd, but this sound didn’t come from people that were running but seemed to be coming from the danger in question which the former crowd was running from. After about half of the walking crowd has left, one stopped behind, looking at this storeroom which has been locked. Feeling greedy he calls on the attention of some of his fellow members to help break the door. Hearing people coming closer to the door where they hid, the boys’ hearts plunged deeply almost close to despair. The girl starts breathing heavily like an asthmatic patient. “Boom”, the signs of the door being forced open was evident with that loud sound. But seems the door was pretty solid as it didn’t bulge in their first attempt, but this didn’t calm the people inside the room one bit as they all thought the same thing, ‘If they were caught, they would be killed’. “Come on guys, put more effort, there must be stuff worth a huge amount of money in here seeing how locked in it is”, the man who had initially stopped says. The other people who were with him had renewed vigor and put more strength as the door was pushed once again. This time, the door shows signs of giving way, probably given the effort they were using, just two or three tries would be enough to open the door. Seeing this situation, the first boy acts like the leader and says, “Quick we need to stop them from getting in”. Knowing that their situation was dire, Andrew and the other boy quickly agreed with this boy and they come forward to hold the door strongly to prevent the invaders from coming in, or at least that was what they intended to do. “Boom”, the people outside try to push the door once again and notice that they didn’t get the result they were looking for as if something has jammed it from the inside. Trying once again and feeling the same obstruction, one of the men peeks through an opening and sees the body of the second boy inside the storeroom. “There are people inside”, he alerts the other people of the reason for the delay in their opening of the door. Being told that the people outside got angry and hit the door in full force. Seeing the situation getting to this point, the boys understood that their efforts were useless and soon the door would be broken through, thus they all moved back at the same time and stood on alert while watching the door being forced open by the group of people. The door burst open sooner than they had expected though, the men on getting into the room see that it was just kids that were present and were trying to stop them from getting in, gets angry. They got angry seeing that the storeroom was empty, instead of the jackpot they had thought of earning when they broke through. “So you were the ones trying to stop us from coming in right?”, the men all equipped with different weapons stared at the boys dangerously with their resolve to kill them all. The boys gulped hard seeing the way the situation has developed into. They have all heard about this group of people who were unrestricted in their actions. They were just like modern-day bandits, they had backing from those at the top, and thus they always acted in ways that pleases them. They killed, stole, raped, and performed all sorts of heinous acts with no care for the law. One of the men while staring at the boys thinking about how they would cut them up, caught sight of the girl in the corner, and his third stick starts bulging out at a quick rate. He smiles while walking slowly towards them, the boys moved backward until their backs were against the wall, and seeing no more space to move to, they stopped. All that went through Andrew’s head at this point was, ‘Is this perhaps how I would die? I wasn’t able to take my brother from there at the end. How much would he suffer without any of his family members around? I hope you find peace sooner, kiddo’.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.