After a long and frustrating wait, just when I felt the most helpless, one of the rats finally came close by. I could hear it sniffing around me. It drew in closer and closer, still keeping an eye out for danger. My heart began to race little by little as I tried to keep my breathing in check.
The moment I felt its warm breath on my toes, I knew, this was the moment I was waiting for. Without hesitating, I quickly snatched the rat off the ground. I then struggled to get on my feet, that now felt numb from staying cross-legged for over an hour.
I looked at the struggling rat between my hands sympathetically. I knew what I had to do, but felt too disgusted by even the thought of it. I then grit my teeath and quickly closed my eyes.
I tightened my grip around the rat, then regrettably stepped on the rat's head, crushing its skull instantly. Its blood and brain matter formed the shape of a crimson star around my heel.
With tears in my eyes, I climbed up the stairs and opened the door hesitantly. Scarred by my last experience coming out that door, I felt scared to even peak outside. I then stretched my arm slightly through the partially opened door, dropped the rat, then ran straight back down. Two hours later, the old woman came down with a plate of food.
On the plate I could see a perfectly fried rat. I'm not sure whether it was just the hunger, or the old hag's beautiful cooking, but that rat smelled like something you would serve to a king. The aroma that came from it was divine.
'I can finally eat.' I thought to myself. I began to run towards her with my arms stretched forward, attempting to grab the plate from her. To my surprise, I suddenly received a slap to the face in return.
"Control yourself! No matter how much your urges grow, you must never succumb to them. We won't have you acting like an animal." She said.
"Don't you understand? We've been given a second chance with you Grayson. We couldn't properly enjoy-, I mean educate Michael, but with you...? It will be different." She added with a serious tone, which was in contrast to her facial expression. There it was again. She too had that same frightening, spine-chilling smile.
After sitting through a 5 minute lecture about control, she finally placed the plate down and went back upstairs.
"I will be bringing you water ocasionally. Make sure you keep those urges of yours in check when I'm back. Or else, next time, I won't be so nice." She said as she was closing the door.
I slowly began to start eating, not believing that this was my life now. Eating rats in my grandparents' basement. On this day, I did not cry. It felt like my tears had completely dried out. From then on, the only thing that mattered to me was my next meal.
For a while now this had been the trend, hunting down rats and crushing their heads. After two months passed I became very sensitive to sound and even started to notice a pattern with the rats' movements. Eventually, I no longer had to wait for them to come to me and took the hunt to them.
It was still quite difficult to catch them, but not like before. I remember hearing their squeaks and scratches through the walls everyday. I could now tell which paths they took and what crack they would come out of. The key was still patience.
However, they too were learning and eventually no longer came out of their usual cracks on the wall and straight out avoided them. I had to scratch openings through the wall to catch the rats in their tracks. This caused my fingers to bleed and my nails to fall off, but it was all for the sake of survival; it was all for my next meal.
The week after, I realized I had been wasting meat by crashing their heads, and the cleaning wasn't all that fun either. So I began to break their necks instead. Throughout the final months of staying in the basement, they would occasionally bring me bigger prey like cats or a dog.
The cats weren't a problem, but I was a little hesitant about killing a dog. They used to be one of the only things I still had love for. So, naturally I failed to kill the first dog they brought to me and decided to keep it. I then began hunting for two.
Although I was already 5 years old, I wasn't the most creative child and decided to name my new friend 'Woof'. At first, we lived off the cats they brought down, then we relied on the rats to replenish our energy. However, for some unknown reason, they never brought down another dog.
I didn't pay it any mind as this was good for me. I then began to leave two rats by the door instead of one. Each time the old man would come down to drop another rat, I would hide in the bathroom with Woof.
Woof made this whole experience so much more bearable, he gave me the much needed love that I longed for. We ate together, hunted together, and he would always sleep by my side each night and that gave me comfort.
Sometimes I would find myself crying in my sleep and Woof would lick the tears off my face and sleep even closer to me. This went on for 6 weeks, but the old man surely must have noticed by now that I never brought the dog back up.
Perhaps, he always knew. In fact, I now believe he was counting on it. There's no way he would have just let me keep Woof for so long without noticing and with no purpose. Not to forget the barking and howling that he did often.
As predicted, one day, the old man came down the stairs with a belt in his hand and the old hag following behind. Thinking that it was just another day where he would drop off a rat then leave, I hid in the bathroom with Woof as usual.
However, this day was different. Without warning, he opened the bathroom door, grabbed me by the neck, then pulled me out. He threw me towards a wall and began to beat me senseless with his belt. All the while, I never cried once. This seemed to bother him and motivated him to beat me even harder.
Woof was growling and barking at the old pair the entire time. Then, he foolishly attempted to attack the old man. The old hag, however, got in the way and started to beat Woof with what seemed to be a metallic rod.
Once the old man had gotten tired of beating me, he then said the life changing words that have stuck with me to this day and always will.
"There is no joy in this world that lasts forever, there are only fleeting moments of it. The only true constant is pain, this is something that everybody feels without end, even in their fleeting moments of happiness. Pain is not selfish, it does not choose one and leave the other. Pain is for all and all is pain," the old man said with that same spine-chilling smile on his face.
"Burn these words into your mind child and make them your philosophy," the hag added whilst pointing at Woof. "Now kill it!" she said handing me the metallic rod.
Without hesitation, I took it and tried to attack her with it. However, the old man was quick to react and caught the rod, snatching it from my hands. He beat me a few more times, with the rod this time, then said, "You had your chance, now you will do it with your bare hands!"
I immdediately got on my knees, crying and begging for forgiveness, but my plea was directed towards deaf ears. The only response I got from him was, "Kill it! The only person you can rely on is yourself, remember that boy... kill it!"
"Please, don't make me do this. He is my only friend. I'll do anything else. I'll kill anything else you want me to kill, just don't make me kill Woof!" I pleaded with tears finally rolling down my cheeks and snot now dripping from my nose.
The old man looked at me with a smile. Clearly amused by the sight of me finally crying. "Do you still not get it boy? It's either you or the dog!" the old man shouted all the while beating me with the metallic rod and never losing his smile.
"STOOP STOP! I'll do it; I'LL DO IT!" I say defeated. I then walked up to Woof with a limp. He looked at me with pitiable eyes. Each of his legs were now broken or fractured. All he could now do was howl in pain. Seeing me come closer, he tried to get up, but failed to do so with his now damaged legs.
I then wrapped my bruised hands around his neck and struggled to tighten my grip. He did not resist in the slightest. Unsure whether it was from his lack of strength to do so, or his reluctance to attack me, I finally pressed down on his neck with the intention to kill.
After a while, I could feel his pulse slowing down. His eyes widened and looked like they were about to bulge out. Tears came out of his eyes, but all the while he never resisted. His body wiggled and twitched occasionally, until he was finally dead. Tears continued to roll out of my eyes as I held Woof's now lifeless body on my hands.
On that frightful afternoon, I strangled the life out of the only friend I ever had. I looked up at the old couple with teary eyes and saw the most frightening, satisfied smiles on their faces. They then picked up Woof and headed up the stairs.
"I'll be back with your lunch," The old hag said whilst patting on the now dead dog in her hands.
Although I felt pain all around me from the beating I had just received, there was a different kind of pain this time, growing within me. This pain caused me to cry all day and all night without eating or drinking. The pain of losing the last thing my emotions held on to.
This pain was different from the physical abuse I had gotten accustomed to. It was consuming, suffocating, and made me feel like just giving up on everything...but I didn't…I couldn't. Not after all I've been through. Ending it now would have made everything I went through meaningless.
Still wiping tears from my eyes, I began to logically think about the reason I was kept down here. There had to be a meaning as to why all this was happening to me. It was at that moment that something within me broke. Suddenly, my tears stopped flowing and I finally realized, everything the old man had been saying was true.
The only true constant is pain, it was the only thing I felt that never ended. I will keep carrying this pain till the day I finally die. This pain is the only thing that will always be with me, everything else will cease.
'It's good that I killed that mutt myself, it would have died anyways...at least it died by my terms. That's right, I probably did it a favor.... Everything-Will-Cease.' Is what was going through my head at the time.
By the end of those two years I came to realize the only person I needed to rely on was myself. My parents weren't coming to help me. They were the ones who left me there, and for what? Nothing but personal gain. One wanted knowledge and success, and the other wanted glory. As for me, I wanted what everybody wanted, to live, and that's all I could do.
My mother eventually came back and stayed with us for about five months before leaving again to get her PhD. Seeing her for the first time after enduring this hell for so long....
I felt…nothing, nothing but hatred towards her. Hatred for leaving me here; hatred for her inability to save me from this hell; hatred for coming back to me with such a bright smile on her face. Although I was feeling all these negative emotions towards her, I was calm and never reacted.