by Quil Carter
“Get dressed. You’re coming with me today,” Silas said in the doorway.
I didn’t look up from my school work. “No, thank you,” I said simply.
Silas marched over to me and slapped me across the face.
I didn’t even look up at him, I just stared at the wall.
“I said get up and get dressed. You’re coming with me today,” he said through clenched teeth.
I nodded and he left the room. Wordlessly, I got up and found the clothes I was supposed to wear when I was shadowing Silas, and put them on.
A black blazer and a purple button-down with black trousers and my dress shoes. I put everything on and walked quietly up the stairs to the double doors that would lead to the hallway and elevator.
I waited for Silas. I was surprised to see that there was no one in the living room and dining room. I wasn’t sure if Nero, Garrett, and Ellis were home. I thought I’d heard them… maybe they were hiding because of Silas’s mood.
Silas emerged dressed as a king. He was even wearing a black cape and had his hair styled and done up. At one point in my life, I couldn’t wait to have a cape like his, but now I couldn’t care less.
I just didn’t really care about anything anymore. I was just going to go through the motions until I could go back to my bedroom.
Silas walked to the entrance and opened the door. I followed behind him and we went down the elevator in silence, and to the awaiting black car.
“We’re going to be visiting a new factory that is opening today,” Silas spoke when we had been in the car for over twenty minutes. It was raining today, perhaps the weather had sensed my mood and wanted to replicate it. “We’ve had such wonderful feedback with our ChiCola in Skyland and now that this factory is open, we can distribute it to the Moros district and the factory towns.”
Even after his words had hovered in the air and were silenced by the low hum of the car, there was no reply from me. I could feel his eyes on me, glaring at me, but I had nothing to say to him, and there was nothing I wanted from him either. I knew I would get smacked again, but I didn’t care.
“After we open the factory, we’re going back to Alegria because I have meetings. If you wish you can pick out where we go for lunch. I suppose I need to pick up food for the others.”
Because our sengils are dead, or they ran away.
“We’ll be having an early day. I’ll be going out to interview your new teachers.”
New teachers? I didn’t want someone new teaching me. I was smart enough to teach myself now. I already knew how to read and write, I knew math and I had a good handle on english as a subject. What could someone teach me?
“I wish to teach myself from now on,” I found myself saying, no emotion in my voice.
Silas was quiet for a moment. I didn’t think he was going to answer me, but then he said quietly, “If you believe you’re disciplined enough to teach yourself, you may.” This surprised me greatly. After how he’d been treating me, and after what he’d done, I thought he would deny me just because he was angry. “But once a week I’ll be sitting down with you to test your progress and you will show me the work you did that week. If you can promise me that, I won’t hire a teacher for you.”
“Okay,” I said dully and kept looking out the window. I wouldn’t say I was happy at this arrangement, but I was at least relieved that I didn’t have to deal with a new teacher. I didn’t want to meet new people, or talk to anyone. I just wanted to be in my room and left alone.
The factory was large and there were men and women in reflective vests power washing the outside. Silas stood in front of the factory and admired it, and the people washing it turned off all their equipment and bowed to Silas. Silas nodded at them, and directed me inside.
It smelled like new paint and it was very clean. We walked through the welcome area and were shown the factory floor. There were workers everywhere, and thiens guarding all of the exits and guarding me and Silas too. Master Silas always had thiens around me when we went out into the public, when there was a family outing half the thien force was out guarding us and the areas around us.
Silas didn’t want to see us hurt, yet he’ll murder our sengils in front of us. I don’t understand him. Perhaps when I’m older I’ll understand, it could be an adult thing.
But the older I got, the more I realized that maybe it wasn’t an adult thing – it was a King Silas thing.
I was given a bottle of ChiCola, ice cold, and a package of M’Oreos, several people tried to talk to me and I gave them short and curt answers until they gave up and went on with their duties. Silas talked highly of me when they asked about me and my siblings. Funny no one mentioned Stadium to him, I suppose they knew they’d be the next convict if they dared say something.
So many rules for these poor yes-men. I wonder how many of them are pissing their pants from fear of doing something wrong. They’d been expecting this visit from the king for weeks now, and I bet they’d even fucking rehearsed it. Fools. Dirt-eating, savage fucking peasants.
“Elish,” Silas said as he nudged me. “Stop glaring off into space, you look like a serial killer.”
I shrunk away from him. “Yes, sir,” I muttered, before busying myself with my ChiCola bottle.
The factory tour was boring. Silas made a request for them to start making something that used to be called cream soda, I thought it sounded disgusting but I kept my mouth shut and followed him around.
After what seemed like forever, we were walking down the paved road towards the awaiting black car, my third bottle of ChiCola in my hand. Silas was talking to people and I was counting my steps. There were people out on the grass watching us, and several of them thanked Silas for god knows what. I just wanted this dog and pony show to be over.
My attention turned however when I heard something. I heard crying. I looked into the crowd and spotted an older woman with blond hair, and a young man. The woman was crying in the young man’s arms, and he was staring at…
“Cristo?” I cried. Cristo was the man. It was him!
I ran into the crowd towards him. As I ran, I saw the older woman pull away from Cristo and both of them turn to look at me with shock.
Then Silas grabbed me. I screamed as loudly as I could and began to fight him.
“Let me go!” I screamed. I turned around and began clawing at Silas’s hands, trying to free myself from his grasp. “Fucking let me go!” I turned back to find Cristo, and saw him staring at me with an alarmed look on his face.
Why? Why was he acting like he didn’t know me?
Cristo’s face fell into despair, and the lady beside him began to cry. “I’m… I’m sorry, buddy,” Cristo said to me. “I’m his brother… I’m not him.”
No…
No, you’re Cristo.
Please, you have to be Cristo.
But when I looked into his eyes, I saw that they were brown. Not the blue eyes that Cristo had. And when I began to really search his face, right before Silas snatched me off of my feet, I saw the differences in his facial structure.
It wasn’t Cristo.
Because Cristo was dead.
The devastation of this hit me like the feeling itself held a physical weight. I started to scream and I couldn’t stop. Silas had me tight in his arms and he was stalking to the car, but I couldn’t stop. If I screamed, I wouldn’t be forced to feel this gut-wrenching pain, this guttural sense of loss that was eating me from the inside out. If I screamed, I wouldn’t have to hear the screaming in my head.
The doors slammed around me and the car lurched forward as the driver sped away. I then felt a hand over my mouth and Silas’s angry voice. “Shut the hell up and fucking control yourself!”
But I couldn’t. And the moment I realized that I actually couldn’t, that I was no longer in control of my own voice and my own body, the anxiety enveloped me, and grabbed hold of the remaining strands of control I still reigned over.
I began to howl louder.
“SHUT UP!
” Silas screamed at me. He shoved me away, to the other end of the car. But all I did was grab my hair and continued to wail loudly.
Then Silas began to hit me. He started smacking me in the head, the arm, every part of me he could grab hold of he began hitting me harder and harder. He was screaming too, yelling things at me that my frazzled and fried brain couldn’t register, I only felt the pain, and the low thunking sounds of his hand hitting my flesh.
He grabbed me next and began shaking me, shouting and shouting at me with a crazed look in his glowing green eyes. I’d never seen him this uncontrolled, this terrifying. I was sure he was going to kill me.
And just as I said those words in my head, I saw with my own eyes, Silas’s own turn black.
Then there was a sensation in my brain that made me unleash an entirely different scream, a spasm of energy that was white hot, and it was flaring and glowing in the back of my head. The terrible sensation was as if someone was holding a blowtorch to my brain. I could feel it inside of me, the damage this light was doing. Everything was becoming scrambled, melting away. Memories were darkening, strange smells and sensations were coming and going, and right in front of my eyes. Right… in front…
I saw Silas through foggy liquid, smiling at me.
He waved. “Hi, Elias! Oh, Perish! He’s looking right at me. Look at those eyes. Hello, Elias, lovely boy.”
Then I was yanked backwards, and the brief memories that had found their way into this pain like water would find cracks, vaporized in front of my eyes.
Reality returned.
And the pain returned.
His voice returned.
And he was screaming hysterically.
“ELISH!”
“ELISH?”
“Get Perish. Get Perish, I need him here now. It’s an emergency. Tell him I hurt Elish.”
Flashes of images went through my head. But not all of them were memories. I saw things that made no sense, pulsing rivers, trees with electrical currents going up them, and forever were these images getting ripped away from my mind to grant me fleeting views of what was going on around me.
My mouth was full of blood, I knew this because I kept choking on it and spitting, and my tongue hurt as well as my fingers, my scalp, and my face. I was no longer screaming but my teeth were clenched and I was taking large huffs of air through my nose.
“Shh, shhh. It’s okay,” Silas cried, his voice incredibly strained. “Help him!”
“I told you this would happen,” Perish’s voice said accusingly. I realized his hand had been resting on my head. “You should’ve never been allowed to have them.”
“Just fucking help him, Perish!” Silas yelled.
“What’s there to help? This isn’t your fucking powers, Silas, you’ve driven him to a god damn nervous breakdown,” Perish snapped back. “This is all on you, King of the World. How’s the crown feeling these days, asshole?” Perish’s hand left my head and I heard a crash.
“I could really use your help with them. But I suppose exploring the dead world to look for the others is more important?”
“Perfecting the next mutant so he doesn’t turn out like the monster, the nutcase, or the wimp is what I’ve been doing.” Perish touched my head again and a strange static-like tremor went through my skull. “I’ve healed what you damaged. I need to get going.”
“You haven’t healed him at all!” Silas snapped. “He’s still staring off into space; he’s still grinding his teeth!”
“Because he’s having a nervous breakdown, you fucking retard. You’ve driven that poor child to a breakdown at eight years old. Cristo told you this would happen, and so did I, and now you get to deal with the consequences.” There was more crashing, Perish must’ve thrown or kicked something. I couldn’t move my eyes to look and see.
“I told you you weren’t capable of raising children.”
I saw a blur as Silas shot to his feet. “I fucking need help, Perish!” he cried. “Sky left me this fucking world to repair and run, and you can’t be bothered to help me. It’s all on me right now and I can’t fucking handle it! I need their help. I need their help or I swear to fucking god I’m going to kill every inhabitant in this entire fucking city. I can’t run this place by myself anymore.”
“Yeah, you useless fuck, you can’t really do anything. Goodbye, and next time, do him a favour and let him die. Better for him to die now while he can, then wish for it once you’re cruel enough to make him immortal.” There was a door slam, and I heard Silas break down into tears.
I don’t remember anything after that, just wisps and catches of more strange outbursts from myself, worried cries from Silas, and finally, demands for the doctor. Eventually my suffering was extinguished and something was given to me to make me sleep.
When I woke up, I found that I was in my bedroom.
And Silas was awake beside me, staring up at the ceiling.
He saw that I was awake and brushed my hair from my face. Sadness was heavy in his eyes, but his touch was warm and soothing.
Silas reached down and grabbed Tangerine, then put him beside my arm. “How are you feeling, little love?” he asked quietly.
My groggy state had reduced me to my basic instincts, and that instinct was to get away from this monster who had been tormenting and torturing me. I whimpered and shifted away from him, wanting to sleep more, but without him so near.
Not too long ago, Nero and I crawled into bed with him to feel safe. Now I didn’t feel safe anywhere.
But Silas wasn’t having it. He put his arm around me and drew me close to him. I heard him sniff once, however after that… there was silence.
Several hours later, Silas roused me from yet another nap. He asked me kindly if I wanted to come up for dinner which I didn’t but I was hungry and I believed I slept enough. So I nodded and the two of us walked upstairs to the main area of the apartment.
Everything was quiet which was odd. It wasn’t usually quiet here when my brothers and sister were all home. But it was, and the lights were dimmed and the curtains all closed.
Garrett, Nero, and Ellis were sitting on the couch and when I emerged their eyes were on me. I said nothing to them, I didn’t feel like talking, and I sat down at the dinner table which was already set.
Tonight was hamburgers and potato fries, and since we’d been to the factory earlier that day there was ChiCola bottles still with frost around the spout, and lots of ketchup for the fries.
I didn’t say that much during dinner and conversation was taken over mostly by Ellis and Garrett telling Silas about their days. Nothing in me felt like talking or having any attention drawn to me so I ate in silence and waited for the meal to be over.
“Is it okay for Elish to play Smash Bros with us?” Nero asked. He was holding a fry in each hand and he had ketchup all over his mouth.
I looked down at my last several fries and picked at them. The heat of four pairs of eyes were on me, I could feel them burning my skin with their investigative gazes.
“I don’t think he wants to, loves,” Silas said. “Elish can go to his bedroom right after dinner if he wishes. Remember what we talked about.”
What they talked about? Silas had talked to them about me? My mind flooded with questions about what was said.
I didn’t really know what happened to me either to be honest. It sounded like from what Silas had said that he’d hurt me with the thing he could do with his head. But Perish also said something about a nervous breakdown. I didn’t know anything about nervous breakdowns and I’d only seen Silas do that head thing a few times, and it seemed pretty scary.
Silas seemed to know. Another thing that adults knew that I didn’t, what was happening to me.
I just felt confused, sad, worn out and wanting everything to just be quiet without much going on. My mind didn’t want things to be busy, only dark and quiet.
I also didn’t want anyone yelling at me anymore. And I didn’t want Silas to hurt me.
After dinner was do
ne, I excused myself and decided to go back to my room.
I didn’t leave that bedroom the next morning. Nor did I leave it for the entire day. Silas brought me food once he came home and I ate it in my bedroom, then I fell asleep.
The next day was the same, and the day after that. Silas came down several times to ask me to come up, and my brothers and sister eventually did as well. But I believed I was okay here in the darkness, and that is where I stayed.
͠
And though eventually I would venture out of my bedroom as the weeks turned into months, I was different and I felt different; King Silas treated me different as well. From speaking with Nero once I was older, I would learn that Silas had sat down with my three siblings and explained to them that I’d had a nervous breakdown and that the doctors, the top doctors in Skyfall including Zamir, had told him to keep me in a low stress environment. They told Silas that I would be prone to cracking under mental stress for a long time, and it was best to keep me as content as I could be.
As the years passed, I still shadowed for Silas and I was still to be his heir, but he treated me different. Silas no longer lashed out at me. When he was angry, he still hit us and he still yelled. But it wasn’t like before, a normal yelling not as full of venom and verbal abuse, something that most children of the Fallocaust endured and were fine with.
I wouldn’t call these years peaceful to say the least. My mind was troubled and I found that the doctors were right, I wasn’t able to handle stress well after the breakdown. I would worry myself into anxiety attacks which I’d take Xanax for, and I also took several more pills from Silas every day when he instructed me. During this time, since I didn’t like going outside and only did for Silas’s job shadowing, I read a lot and advanced quickly through the school curriculum that Silas had personally designed for me. I also learned two languages before I emerged from that cave-like bedroom: German, since Silas had told me at one point in time that he was German, which in-turn meant that I was as well, and Quenyan which is the language from The Lord of the Rings books, elvish basically. I learned that as my own little hobby and would eventually teach Garrett as well.
