The father appeared moments after John's sister fell prone into the ground. There was a stupidly wide grin on his face. He held a Trumpet in his hands.
Without saying a word, he played the same song again. It emanated Grief and Sadness. But now John detected a hint of sadism in the tune.
Was he going to play this every time one of his children died? And why was he smiling? WHY WAS HE SMILING?!?!?!?!
The walls were painted with new strips of red.
"Food."
John's sibling's eyes all turned to their sister's body.
John looked down at the body.
I have to survive this. IT HAS TO BE ME!
John snatched her body up.
He started to chew her corpse. He gulped down chunks of her flesh as fast as possible. He needed to get the most food. He couldn't be the one to starve.
John had already cleaned off the flesh of both her arms by the time the other children arrived.
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
They descended on her body like rabid animals. The bones, the skin, the eyes, the nose, the teeth. Everything. Every last bit of her body was consumed. And John was right there with them. He would grab every bit of flesh he could get and shove it down his throat.
After they'd eaten her corpse, they shuffled away. Everyone had their backs against the wall. Their eyes were glancing fearfully at each person in the room.
It only took a few hours next time for the next person to break.
"Meat."
This time, they didn't come for John. Instead, they went for the person on the next run down on the height ladder.
His name was Aron if John Remebered correctly.
"NO! NO! NO! NO!"
He might be tall, but he was very squeamish. He wasn't able to muster up the will to fight back.
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So he was quickly killed. The broken person descended to eat him. But....
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
"Meat."
Everyone else was hungry, too.
Every time, the father would sing. And the cellar would be painted with strips of red.
John got his fill.
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
He ended the lives of twelve of his siblings.
And after all that death. After all that blood. There was only one other person left.
She was a very, very small girl with deep brown skin. She had hidden in the corner of the room and had only come out to enjoy the feeding frenzy. Like that, she had survived to the end.
"Haaaaaaaaa."
She almost seemed to deflate under John's gaze.
"I'm not strong enough to beat you. Kill me"
John covered his mouth.
He was smiling. He shouldn't be smiling. But HE was smiling.
"THANK YOU!" John screamed in a tone flooding with gratitude.
She didn't even twitch in response. She just looked off into the distance. Her eyes were glassy, and her face was slack.
John's fist stabbed into her skull. There was a slightly red aura around it. Her skull exploded in a hail of shards.
John was never that strong before.
She collapsed onto the ground.
John looked down at her body.
The smile fell from his face.
Wait....
The final strip of red was splattered through the cellar. It was now a deep, deep red colour.
John looked down at himself. He was covered in blood. His sibling's blood. He had killed them all. No. Worse. He had eaten them.
The Father appeared in front of John. He had a fuzzy smile on his face. His head tilted to the side as he looked down at John.
He reached out and held his cheeks.
"You.... You are my truest son." He bent down and placed a kiss on his blood-soaked head.
"I love you."
And then he was gone.
CLICK
The sound of the door unlocking echoed through John's ears. He was alive. John lived.
But at what cost?
The world began to warp. Tears were drowning John's world. John collapsed into the fetal position.
They all died. For me….. FOR ME!
No. They didn't die for me. I... I killed them.
It pressed upon the back of John's neck like a reaper's scythe—the weight of his sin.
I. I shouldn't———
The thought was interrupted.
John fell deeper into the rabbit hole. A lie within a lie.
.
…
...
...…
A pale woman lay in the fetal position. John was sitting behind her. He didn't know the world. He was so young that he'd barely seen anything.
But John still had a sense. Her shoulders were shaking, and she was making stilted choking sounds. She sounded like she was being strangled by something. And based upon the bruises covering her she might have actually been strangled.
John toddled towards her.
He put his hand on her shoulder.
"MaMa."
The choking sound stopped.
"I've got a kid to take care of. Come on, Saphiree." She mumbled to herself.
"Take all the pain. All the agony and all the hell that you can't deal with. And put it on a piece of paper. Then take that piece of paper and put it in an envelope. Mail that envelope to the strong you a year from now. Then you'll be okay." She whispered.
And her sobs vanished.
That was the last time John saw Saphiree.
Even though she'd said that she'd be strong. She'd———.
The instance stuttered. And it flickered. A lie within a lie within a lie. It was too much to handle.
A voice echoed through the room that Saphiree stood in.
"She didn't run."
John had asked The Father where she was.
"She was too strong."
That was his reply.
An hour before that, John had seen him digging a hole.
"She's dead."
The lies shattered into shards because there were no lies. Only pain. Only reality.
The shards fell. Ther stabbed into the mind, cutting pieces of grey matter away.
I need. I need. I need. It repeated in John's mind like a chant.
I need to escape.
John lay at the bottom of a cellar. The corpse of a human was in his belly.
The world didn't look the same anymore.