"Get up you bastards!" A middle aged man roared at the top of his lungs from the bottom of the stairs up to the top of it.
The rustling sounds up stairs told him that his roar was effective and all the children had woken up, he grinned to himself and clenched the wooden stick in his hand.
Creaakk
The sound came from upstairs as several wooden doors creaked open and footsteps following from upstairs as the children came down stairs a look of fear on their faces, but one child in particular didn't have any expression on his face as he walked down the stairs.
"You little shits, do you think you can just sleep in like that without any punishment!?" The middle aged man said with a furious expression on his face as he shouted at the children coming down from the stairs as he smacked the wooden stick on his hands in a scary manner.
Each of them except from one child had the body language of a chicken waiting to be sent off to the slaughter house, but that one child seemed as if he did not care, as if it was a daily routine now and he was used to it.
"Roll up your sleeves!" The middle aged man opened his mouth and said once the first child had reached him, as they were rolling up their sleeves he readied the wooden stick in his hand and struck the first child in the right hand 5 times, each strike more powerful than the last.
The child is trying her hardest to hold back the tears from spilling out as she is hit, but the punishment didn't last that long as she was set free.
"Go and do your chores now." He said to the young child as he beckoned the next one to step forth and receive their share of the beating.
The line continued on till that one child with no facial expression came forth as it was his turn for his 5 strikes, once the middle aged man saw that specfic child walk up to him with his two sleeves rolled up ready for the strikes, he smiled creepily and said.
"Good morning Kyle." He said to the what looks like 10 year old Kyle as he stood in front of him with a fearless expression.
"Good mo-" Kyle opened his mouth and said, but he was stopped by the middle aged man's shout as he kicked him in the stomach full force.
"Who said you can talk to me!!" He roared at kyle as he continued to kick him in the side as he fell to the ground, then continued to stomp on him till he was satisfied.
'This fucking bastard' thought Kyle as he rolled on the ground in the aftermath of the beating, if you rolled up his shirt you could see the many marks and scars from the beatings he got from a similar situation long ago.
'This is another couple of bruises added to my body's collection..' Kyle thought as he pulled up his shirt and looked at the place where he was kicked repeatedly, there was already small little purple bruises appearing.
"He fractured a rib." Kyle muttered to himself as he didn't seem to even notice the intense pain that was followed after the abuse, as if he built up a resistance from continous beatings.
He pulled himself off the ground as blood started to emerge from his throat but he quickly swallowed it all back down as if trying to hide his injuries, he then walked into the dining room where what you call 'breakfeast' is being served, but in reality it's just a slimey horrible blob of what they call 'food'.
"Eat up." As Kyle walked in and sat on a seat around the table a middle aged mother came out and served what ever you call a slimey mess is, every kid looked in horror at the substance and thought 'We're supposed to eat that?'.
As they were playing with their thoughts, Kyle had already downed the food and drank a glass of muddied water, they watched in surprise as he walked out of the dining room and into the living room.
"Mother." Kyle said as he walked in and saw a very old granny sitting down on the couch drinking a cup of tea.
He didn't dare look at her directly as he looked straight down and waited for an answer.
"Kyle, now that Karoline has been adopted by someone, you will now take her job." She said to him.
"Okay." He replied to her and prepared to walk towards the door, he grabbed a small brown cardboard box on the way out, but before he stepped out, she said.
"You know what happens if you don't return, right?" She said as she stared at him in the corner of her eye with a terrifying glint.
"Yes." He said, not affected by the cold gaze.
After he went out and closed the door he turned his head to look forward and continued to walk down the steps, it was the first time in years since he stepped out of that house, he looked back and stared up at it for a bit.
After gazing at that old building that contained those horrible memories he turned and walked across the street, he followed the signs to an open square where many people were walking by and going through the shops.
He looked around to check for a good spot to settle down and begin his long day, it was winter at this time and it was very cold, he only had a couple layers of rags on and you could see the water vapour you breath out in the air as it was that cold.
"Who's that?" A woman in a black cotten jacket with a brown jeans on whispered to her friend beside her.
"I don't know, but look at him, he looks homeless." Her friend in a blue jacket with black jeans on said back, they both had brown hair but one had brown eyes while the other had blue-ish green.
One of the reasons why the old nanny sent Kyle out with a brown cardboard box was to collect money for the home, but another reason was to humiliate them also.
Sending out a 10 year old child in the freezing cold for the whole day to collect money? Not only that but to humiliate him also? The old woman was a heartless person, actually that's an under statement, she's an utter monster.
Kyle didn't seem to mind the odd stares every now and then and just sat there in silence, waiting for someone to throw a coin in to the brown cardboard box he was holding in his hands against his chest.
Every now and then he would put the box down and try to blow warm air into his hands to warm them up, as he didn't have any gloves on because he was never given any.
"Mommy look! A toy store!" A child Kyle's age said to her mother as she walked past Kyle sitting on the cold hard ground.
"Can we go in!" She continued to ramble onto her mother and she agreed, they went in together hand to hand like a lovingly small family.
When Kyle saw that, he put forth a smile, one that hadn't re-appeared in years once Karoline had left him, 'Where's my family?' He thought to himself as he fell back down into depression as the air suddenly grew colder.
Anyone who had seen Kyle now sitting down, wouldn't think that he's a ten year old boy from the amount of loneliness he was emitting into his surroundings.
Kyle's mental state isn't normal at all, if the sea level was the average then his was the inner core.
The time quickly passed and no one had given him any money, he looked like he didn't care if they even did.
He stood up for the first time in hours as his legs had bad pins and needles, Kyle then picked up his box that hadn't change weight since the start of the day, he looked down into the box and when he saw nothing, he sighed heavily.
"Haaa, nothing today.." He sighed then said depressingly, as if something horrible just had happened.
He followed the signs back to the foster home, the ground had began to frost over as it was about 20:21PM at night, the street lights had turned on also since it gets darker in winter faster than it does in any other season.
As he was walking along he remembered the day when Karoline was adopted by another family, she asked them to bring him also but they didn't have enough room in the house for him so they couldn't take him in.
That was 7 years ago and Kyle was only three and Karoline was 11, it was like any other day in the house, everyone would get 5 strikes on the arms even if they woke up early in the day. But for the last couple of days Karoline didn't get struck as they didn't want the bruises to appear when she will be taken away by the adopting family.
Kyle didn't notice many signs of her being taken away soon as he was only three years old and his brain still hadn't fully developed yet, another sign was that she was being fed much better than everyone else as if trying to make her healthy looking, and not abused looking like every other child in the foster home.
But she herself noticed the changes that were happen and at night she brought Kyle into her room to notify him about what's about to happen, he was very confused at first and asked what was going on.
"Big sister what's wrong?" He said with an innocent yet corrupted smile, Karoline noticed his innocent being slowly being corrupted and burst out into tears.
"What's wrong??" Kyle still didn't know why she was crying and went over to hug her, he patted her head and told her everything is alright.
Karoline felt even more guilty and the tears flowed like a waterfall, Kyle still didn't understand what was going on as he was a child and only knew that rubbing her back like she always did for him might work.
"I'm going to be leaving here soon." She said with great difficulty as she was still crying in distress.
"Where will you be going?" Kyle said to her, thinking that she will just be going out for a trip like she always does then comes back a few days later with nice food she snuck in from the outside, he always loved apples, he thought they were some magical fruit that gave you super powers, he's a child afterall.
"It's not like those other trips where I'll go for a couple days and come back, this time I'll be gone forever." She said with her hands covering her face in guilt that she will not be able to come back this time, and she will have to leave him here all alone, even though she promised she'll take care of him.
"Oh." Kyle said one word then finally came to an understanding, he didn't say anything else other than that word as they stood in silence hugging each other, finally a drop of tear followed by many others fell from his eye as they too flowed like a waterfall.
They quietly hugged each other for the rest of the night crying, it was truly a sad sight to behold but only the two of them were in the room so no one saw, when the morning came each of them had red eyes and when the time came for her to leave as two new people appeared in the house, a man and a woman.
They were Karoline's new parents as she is leaving today, when Kyle and Karoline saw it was the time to seperate they once again broke out into tears.
"You'll meet each other in the future definitely." The mother said to Karoline as she held her hand and walked out after she and Kyle said their goodbyes and had a long hug.
The words Karoline said to him still rung out in his head as he stood there in a daze for a while looking at the closed door, "You've got to escape this place, I can no longer protect you." She had whispered into his ear while they were embracing each other for the last time.
He suddenly snapped out of that daydream and he found himself at the entrance of the foster home, he walked up the slippery steps and he managed to keep his balance till he got up to the door, he knocked on it and it opened after a couple of minutes.
The person who had opened the door was John and in his hand was a broad knife with blood all over it, once Kyle saw it his pupils shranked to the absolute minimum as he anticipated what was going to happen next.
"Hello, Kyle." He first said Hello, then with a pause he said his name, after that he swung the knife downwards at Kyle in attempt to slice his head open, Kyle attempted to dodge by turning to his right but since the floor was slippy he fell onto his butt and the knife barely missed him, only leaving a scratch on his shoulder where the knife touched him.
Kyle was shocked at first and didn't have enough time to react at first, but now his thoughts were more collected as he found out what was going on, as a horrible smell came out from the house and how John was covered from head to toe in blood.
"Come here you little shit." John said as he once again attempted to slice at Kyle but missed once again as Kyle had got up onto his feet and began to run away, fast.
"I won't harm you!!~" John said as he followed after him in a sprint, his voice was very creepy as he ran after Kyle.
A middle aged man can easily out run a 10 year old child even if he's a bit old, but Kyle kept turning around corners and he couldn't get a grasp onto him.
'I can't die!!' Thought Kyle as he ran for his life, the footpaths were very slippy also so he had to run out onto the road to lose the maniac John.
BEEEP!!!
SKRRTTT!
A loud beep came out from a passing truck and he tried to step on the breaks but it was too late, a bang came out and someone flew across the road, he hit the wall and fell to the cold ground.
It was fortunetly John and not Kyle, the truck driver came out of his truck and came over to John calling out to him seeing if he was okay, but seeing how hard John got hit he was probably dead or severly injured and not long to live.
"You okay man! I'm so s-s-s-sor- AAAH!!" The truck driver came over with an apologetic look as he was going to help John up but once he saw him covered head to toe in blood with a knife in his hands he screamed and ran back to his truck, on the way he slipped and fell on his ass too, it was pretty funny and you could see a wet patch on his pants as he climbed back in and took off.
"Phew." Kyle blew out air in relief once he had seen that John had died and the truck driver took off, he went over to check if he was truly dead and not playing, he checked his pulse as he learned from a book he read and if you don't feel anything that means he's dead, he checked the wrist and the neck and didn't feel anything, he confirmed that John was stone cold dead.
He was careful not to get any blood on his hands or if he did he rubbed it off in the inside of his clothes, he continued on over to the square as it was a big open area and was still fairly active at night, but not so much as during the day where it was a bit crowded.
He returned to the spot where he was at earlier and sat back down once again with the small brown cardboard box in his hand, he started to collect his thoughts and look back on the events that just took place 10 minutes ago.
He walked back to the foster home and knocked on the door, John opened it and was covered in blood head to toe with a knife also covered in blood, the house had a horrible smell of what it seemed to him now several dead bodies, he tried to attack him but was only able to scratch his shoulder and when he got up to run he chased after him.
Following that when he was running on the rode and John chasing after him, John got hit by a massive truck and was instantly killed by the impact, was it the impact of the truck that killed him or the impact from hitting the stone wall that killed him?
Kyle thought about it but then came to the conclusion that it didn't matter, what mattered is that John is dead and everyone else in the foster home, he will not have to go back there anymore and is free.
But it struck him that all those children that were with him also got killed by John in his killing spree, but it didn't affect Kyle since he had lost most of his emotions and wasn't affected by it at all, it just a light wind breeze to him.
"But, what now?" He muttered to himself as he watched people go from one side of the square to the other as they strolled around in the cold winter night.
He was very tired actually and didn't seem to notice it himself as he slowly dozed off into a sleep as he laid down on the freezing hard brike ground.
He woke up in the morning as the sound of people going past him and chatting along awoken him, he rubbed his eyes and looked around and sat back up with his brown cardboard box, seeing if anyone would care to give this poor child money.
And from morning to late at night, nothing appeared inside that brown small cardboard box as the weight was the same as it was, he sighed then laid down to sleep once again.
And this continued on for a total of 3 days, he had nothing to eat and only drank the water that melted in his mouth from eating the snow white ice.
In the morning of the fourth the he once again continued this routine, but off in the distance sitting on a bench was a kind looking old man gazing at Kyle.
"That poor child, he's still here? Where's his parents for god sake." He muttered to himself as he walked over to Kyle in a slow but steady stride.
"Hello kid, where's your parents?" He said to Kyle.
Kyle turned his head to look up at the old man, his eyes made contact and what the old man saw horrified him, they looked lifeless and completely void of any colour.
They were like the starry night sky, a rogue planet separated from it's solar system, drifting throughout that cold empty space.
Lonlier than the loneliest, Colder than the coldest.