• I had fallen asleep underneath the basement steps again. It was what I had dubbed my “cozy area” and would often go there to read. To my relief, no one bothered me because I was the only one who used the area and those who saw me just made sure I wasn’t up to any shenanigans and let me carry on with my reading. This time, when I woke up, the once usually quiet and peaceful basement was filled with tension and the sounds of anguish...I was eight then. How I regret that I ever glanced through the open slits of the stairs, an action that changed my eight year old world forever.
    Even now, I can see the man that my brother had strapped to a chair. I remember the color of his eyes and the blood that mattered his hair. I'd mever seen someone so battered and bruised as he was and the fear was evident in his emerald green eyes. They were wide and constantly darting from one end of the room to the other, sheer panic is what I would describe it as today. I noted the fact that he kept saying something along the lines of wings and angels and blood or something as though he was possessed. I couldn‘t make out what he was saying through his cries. I‘ve never seen a man weep before that day. I truthfully thought they lacked the ability to do so. You see…my father was a quiet man. He usually kept to himself and avoided any form of discussion with any human--- though oftentimes I would catch him talking to small birds or stray dogs. My older brother Derrick…lets just say he was the epitome of the coarsest stone to ever be created on this earth. Those eyes of his were naturally grey, a trait he inherited from our grandmother. Those eyes did not hold the same warmth, joy, and love that my grandmother held in hers. No, these eyes were hollow and filled with nothing but the uttermost disgust of everyone around him…well, except for me. I was the only one he allowed himself to get close to. He had no friends and women that used to throw themselves at his feet did so no longer. Now they were too terrified to be within a 100 foot radius from him.
    Derrick was circling the man like a vulture, not saying anything, not making any sort of gestures. He just circled him over and over again. His eyes, ice, blue eyes piecing through all the souls around us. It was like he was analyzing the man, like one of those fancy psychologists, only even more terrifying. The man blurted out even more incomprehensible jabber and shortly after Derrick back hands him across the face--- only then I notice he was wearing brass knuckles they read, I believe, “BLOOD ANGEL“. The man made several gurgling sounds before his head fell down. However, I saw that he was still breathing. I could see the red liquid dripping from one of the ridges of the knuckles and a thin flap of skin that plopped to the ground. I gasped at the grotesque sight.
    Derrick's head quickly snapped toward the sound, like a deer who heard an oncoming predator---so why did it feel like I was the hunted? His eyes found mine immediately, even through the small cracks of the basement steps. I stumbled backwards as I felt the force of his gaze steal my breath and claw at my irises.
    “Ah is that my sweet little sister Jaia?” He said in a voice that caused me to shiver in a way you would when death was near. I pressed against the cold brick wall, attempting to make myself as invisible as possible but of course he found me, standing there in the open. But there was no where else to go. . .