The sun rose over the grassy dew, darkness turned to light as a vast sea of luminescence grew upon the dense forest of glossy pine. A boy of twelve years, groggily got out of bed, his name is Damian Apollon. His curly-tipped brown hair shinned in the sunlight that poked at his eyes, but he was not up for it today, he did not sleep well, he had another night filled with terrors and constant turning, causing him to be more than irritated this morning. The wood creaked as he walked to get dressed for another day at school. Apollon walked out his door and slowly wandered in the halls to the stairs where he slowly but harshly stopped into a pillow of flesh and bones. He grunts as the small body of his sister plows into his gut, she falls back in return.
“Ow,” she said as she lands on her bottom, “Oh, I’m sorry Dammy!” Dammy was her nickname for her older brother, he never liked it, but never said anything before.
“Whatever, just watch where you’re going.” He mumbled as he began walking again. Just then a sharp pain went through his left foot, the edge of his sister’s toy doll’s foot went piercing through his skin. He fell, sliding down the wooden wall, splinters stabbing into his back and neck. “Ow! Son of a bi-” just then he was cut off by his mother downstairs.
“Damian Roger! No cursing!” Yes Roger was his middle name, and his mother had that name loaded and when he was doing anything, it’d be common for him to be yelled at. He rolled his eyes and limped down the stairs. He went down and got ready for school; dressed, ate, got his backpack ready and went out to wait for the bus. His bus drove him from his house three miles down the road to a small town school, but even there, two hundred students went there, but even with that amount of students, he was secluded and alone.
He brushed his hair to the side and kicked the dead pine needles on the ground, waiting for the deep yellow and brown bus to arrive with puffs of fumes, always going into his face. When the bus finally arrived, he got on the rusted vehicle, three kids were on there, a girl with white skin, glasses around her brown eyes, her rustled brunette hair sat on her face, as she looked at the ash colored skies. On the opposite side there was a black haired boy, darker skin, he had a piercing on his bottom lip, and behind him a few seats back was another boy, who later takes advantage of Damian to beat him senseless in the boy’s bathroom afternoon at school, saying Damian was gay for looking at the feet under the stall doors to see which one was taken. As the bus driver, with his scanty grey beard and old foggy glasses on his grey eyes, closed the bus doors, Damian sat, alone of course, on his way to the school that does nothing but drain his energy and moral.
As Damian walked home, nose bleeding and his face bruised, left eye was swollen a bit, he held his head high, sort of. He walked against the road, the lanky pines and chalky birch trees followed him constantly, keeping their wooden eyes on his feet, stomping on their deceased leaves and needles. The deep forest watched him, from beast to vegetable, it all saw him, and soon, this will be nothing but consumption in his eyes.
He got to his house at around three o’clock in the afternoon, depressed and withered, he went upstairs to his room, and he fell onto his bed, and as the feathery impact overcame his body, he felt a small amount of serenity, until his foot was grabbed, he screamed and yelled as he put his whole body on his bed, he saw a small hand coming out of the bottom of his bed and grabbed a book that was on his oak bed stand and threw it at the hand, but then, after the impact made a loud thump, cries filled the room as his sister began crawling out from under his bed, he scowled at her and she screamed, running out of the room, calling for her mother. What’s a story without a little misunderstanding, so of course the mother would not listen to Damian and blame his actions on himself, not the fact that he was scared from his mischievous sister.
“Why don’t you ever listen to me mum! Why does it always have to be my fault, you always have to take her side!” He yelled at her.
“Do not raise your voice at me! You are older and you will need to make an example, teach her not to hurt people, not to curse, and be a good role model.” She fired back, with her daughter behind her.
“Oh this is a bunch b******s, Josh never had to do that with me, he got to curse even before he went to the army.” Damian said. “Even then you never stopped him, just like when he tried killing him” He escalated before his mother slapped him. Her eyes had crystal tears in them, bordering the bottom of her eyes.
“Don’t you dare speak about him like that, do you understand.” She ordered.
“Go die,” He demanded as he stormed out of the house, “both of you.” He slammed the door to the backyard and stormed into the forest. For a second he thought he could stop and walk back, wishing and begging for forgiveness, but he wouldn’t, he was finished with his family, he wanted nothing to do with them.
Damian bolted into the forest of pine and sage colored birch trees, jumping dead logs and furiously dotted bushes, going in farther and farther into the depth of the forest. The trees grew denser, the monstrosity of green overwhelmed the teenage boy, golden leaves and green needles fell as a breeze flew inward towards Damian. Does not matter which direction he went, no matter what could be in that way, North, South, West or East, he never cared farther he ran, faster, faster, longer strides as he hurdled over logs and bushes, until, he tripped as his shoelace.
Blood gushed out of his nose, and as he got up from his contact with the dirt and insect ridden ground, he grabbed his nose with his sleeve, holding it tight as the red liquid slowly seeped through his sleeve. He tasted the iron favored ecstasy, as it slowly slipped into his throat, and if he wasn’t careful enough, he would occasionally choke on it.
“God dammit” he muttered. Damian’s, emotions were all over the place, he felt guilt, hatred, fear and no remorse, he was glad he left. This wasn’t the first time he wanted to run, far from it, he despised his family, he hated how they never trusted him, they used to abuse him, neglect him, what you saw was nothing from what used to happen, and his father, well his father suddenly disappeared after he slammed his daughters face on a table after she wouldn’t eat her vegetables. A stupid reason, but to him, wasting food was not acceptable, yet she was only five, Damian, only being ten, couldn’t stand his father or his mother’s abuse or neglect of abuse. His older brother, Joshua, couldn’t stand his parent’s abuse, but he could not do anything because once he was eighteen, he was drafted into the military.
He wandered in the forest, and once his nose stopped bleeding, he took his sleeve off, but the farther he went, the more his nose hurt, the pain in his head, a vibrant, growing pain, it was as if needles were being striked into his eyes, his skull, all of it slowly opening into a void of shattered fragments, each fragment cutting into his brain. When the pain took over his body, he sat down on a fallen log and breathed for a moment, he kept getting flashes of his little sister, how he use to stick up for her, what he did for not only her, but his family, it still wasn’t enough. The guilt was overbearing, and the sun, fell behind the trees, slowly turning to darkness.
“Stop it, he got what he deserves” says one tree. Damian stared out into the forest.
“Who said that? Where are you!?” He demanded answers.
“We’re all around you, Damian,” an echo was brought forth to the boy “we see all that happens, we are everywhere, the canotila.”
“The what?” Damian replied, he saw something, creatures that looked human, but not, he would scream in fear until he slowly became unconscious, loud screams and explosions filled his mind, burning sage and demons were all that passed by his eyes because he remembers, he remembers a knife, a bloody knife. He knows now, two years ago, he killed his father, murdered him after the rest kept sleeping, took his body out in the forest to be buried in the morning, but when morning struck, he was gone, of course for days Damian was paranoid, but slowly grew to believe the lie that his mother did, he just packed up and left them, not knowing things in the woods would witness them. Only if Damian could wake up from the sleep he was put under, see that it was all memories, not revisiting what hell he went through, murdering his father at ten years old, bringing his body out to the forest only to believe it never happened.
The sun rose over the grassy dew, darkness turned to light as a vast sea of luminescence grew upon the dense forest of glossy pine. A boy of twelve years, groggily got up, his name is Damian Apollon. His curly-tipped brown hair with pine needles shinned in the sunlight that poked at his eyes, but he was not up for it today, he did not sleep well, he had another night filled with terrors and constant turning, causing him to be more than irritated this morning. At this moment, irritated was no feeling for him, only fear, he got up, and ran, ran until he couldn’t breathe, but that was not enough to stop Damian, because excitement was only things he saw in the form of a smoke pillar in the distance.
He ran to what he hoped was a home, his home even, or a campfire, or even just a homeless person. Damian couldn’t think of anything better than coming back to the plastic cover of his home, shielding him, constricting him, from the ugliness of the truth. All that would be hell twenty-four hours would be fine now, how odd his feelings have changed. He kept running, just keep running, all he can do, all he can move to, the beat of his heart, each time a foot landed, was another heartbeat. Just as the forest opened up, the blood flow was reaching its top speed, eyesight flashes black and white rorschach spots over the scenery of his house, his beautiful wooden house, burned to the ground, collapsed into the dirt. He teared up as he thought what was haven next to a road, was now gone.
He bent onto his knees, slowly crying, as he realize it was gone, his family probably left him, and his sister’s doll, left on the ground in front of him, with singed yarn, and behind him, three nooses hung in the pine, two being used, and one, slowly being pulled into the trees.
