Jo

I haven't always been like this. In this horrid, freakish, vulnerable state. It happened one night, long ago, when I was still rejoicing stupidly in my half-spent youth. That night...

It was cold; the wind rattled the glass windows in their panes and the rain lashed at the solid walls of our old, blue blood owned manor. My little brother and I sat on a warm rug beside a roaring fire. I was staring deep into the dancing flames, thinking philosophical thoughts as always; he was simply building up blocks and knocking then down joyfully with his chubby, clumsy fist. I loved my two year old brother dearly. So, so dearly. I would give my life for him.

Anyways, Jo and I were at home, all on our own, waiting for our parents to come back home after yet another dinner with an earl or duke or something. I hated them. They were always so busy. With Jo, or work, or someone else that wasn't me. It was almost neglect. They felt I thought too much. They found it scary how I sat for hours on end, just rocking backwards and forwards and thinking.

I heard a noise upstairs. Now this is unusual because my parents like to keep visitors away from the house. Away from their freaky daughter more like. And this wasn't just a creak. It was a thump. A thump repeated a few times before I decided to check it out. For Jo's sake. I ran upstairs, leaping the hurdles two at a time, before arriving at a room. The study. I pushed the door open and walked inside.

Our study isn't normal. It has a desk and chair and many papers cluttering the floors. And on the walls, pictures. Pictures of a girl with wispy black hair and hunting light brown eyes and a skinny frame with no smile on her sunken face. The walls are absolutley packed with her pictures. You can't even see the white walls beneath. There are pictures of x-ray scans of her brain. Of her body. Her finger painting. Her essays. She's so very very beautiful. She's so very very clever. That girl is me.

I suddenly hear a footstep behind me getting louder and louder and louder until they're almost deafening. I grab my ears, sharp pains flitting through my mind at the piercingly loud clacks. Just as suddenly, they stop. There is a shadowy figure in front of me. It has a knife. I run from that figure, that mad person, run and run to get downstairs to Jo as fast as I can. I grab a sleeping Jo in my arms and sigh in relief. He is breathing. I hug his sleepy, limp body to me and back away from the shadowy figure, but it gets to me. Pushes the knife into my hand. Demands I do the deed. I don't want to. So I refuse.
My white, white, soft room surrounds me comfortingly. I am trying to sleep. But that night, that killer, replays in my mind. That white, white hand holding the long, pointed butchers knife just above my unknowing brother. Jo gargling and trying to grab the killer's dark, straggly hair. Then the killer, driving the knife deep into my brother's stomach, watching in sick satisfaction as the bright blood spurts out. I see my bother getting paler and paler, his cries dying and fading as he closes his now white, white eyes.

His bright blue pupils have already rolled back into his head. His chubby arms flail for a second, his legs kick, and then he is gone... almost. A little life remains and the killer can sense that. So it twists the knife again and again, slits the ripe flesh now so cold, laughing as I watch, crying. But still the killer does not completley drain Jo.

He/she leaves my brother, writhing, his heart barley intact, on our special hearth rug so when my parents find him, they still have hope of him living. And then they feel even more crushed.

Then I replay that moment when the killer looks up, glances at the mirror on the mantle, propped precariousley for my mother's last minute, stupid little image checks before she braves the outside world. And I see myself. In that mirror. And I know what I have done. I stay calm, though. It's happened before after all. No biggie. I'll just sort this through in my head. I sit in the corner of the room to think... and begin to rock.