"That'll be 40 bucks" The cashier at the kiosk said as she handed me two bottles of red wine and a big cookie wrapped with nylon.
"Thank you" I said as I handed the cashier 50 bucks.
"You can keep the change" I said, feeling good seeing the look of happy surprise pop up on the cashier's face.
"Thank you very much! Come again!" Said the cute cashier cheerfully as she waved me goodbye, I turned around heading out, knowing that today would probably be my last day coming to this kiosk.
Once I arrived at my shabby apartment, which looked almost abandoned because of its unkept condition, I sat down in front of the couch and watched TV.
This was a habit I got from my days in college because my dorm was too small to fit a couch inside, once my roommates and I saved up some money for a small TV, we had to sit down on the floor to be able to watch it.
I began drinking the wine in gulps and listening to the news broadcast, stopping between gulps only to bite the cookie.
- "Authorities are investigating a tragic incident in Longville County, where 12 individuals lost their lives in what appears to be a terrorist attack at a local factory. Police are currently in pursuit of the perpetrator responsible for this heinous act."
My name is Tony Glenn.
Currently, I'm 33 years old, single, lonely, and probably depressed.
- "If you have any information regarding a tall, slender brown-skinned individual with a Yin and Yang tattoo on his left arm, please report to your local police station. Your assistance could be crucial in apprehending the suspect involved in the recent terrorist attack in Longville County."
Why? U must be asking.
Because of many reasons, currently, the main one is the fact that I'm wanted for a terroristic attack.
Quite the news huh? Well, my whole life has been full of failures and misfortunes that continuously got worse.
Growing up, me and my twin brother had an abusive father and an absent mother.
Later in life, I found out my mother died during our birth, which resulted in my father becoming a depressed alcoholic who lashed out at the both of us frequently, which is a bit ironic now that I think about it.
Being the older of the two, I always stepped in to protect Mikey, my twin brother, and he adored me because of that.
Our teachers blissfully ignored the bruises and scars that both of us always had, and other kids at school happily bullied us for them.
I was always busy with keeping up an image of being fine in front of Mikey to not make him feel bad for making me endure his share of our father's abuse.
So caught up in the act that I didn't realize his mental state was deteriorating at a rapid pace.
Apparently, people bullied him way worse than they bullied me at school.
Because we were twins, we were in separate classes, and so I didn't know about the happenings of his class.
In retrospect, it was obvious something was happening to him, because even though most of the time I was the only one who got abused physically by our father, both me and Mikey sported bruises constantly.
One day, Mikey was fed up with being abused by his classmates every day, and so he fought back.
And even though both of us were very malnourished and unfit, we didn't have a healthy diet because of lack of food at home.
Mikey still managed to break one of the bullies' legs with a bit of luck, unfortunately for us, the parents of the bully weren't happy, to say the least.
They pursued the matter legally, using bribe money, and sent Mikey to a juvenile detention center, which angered our father a lot.
The problematic behavior of all the other kids in the juvenile detention center exacerbated Mikey's bullying experience, causing him to suffer.
When he was released from the detention center a year later, he was a changed person.
Mikey no longer relied on me for help, and he had this mature and confident look in his eyes that didn't match his 15-year-old face.
From that point on, my life seemingly took a turn.
I didn't need to protect Mikey from our father anymore, he would endure his abuse silently and began protecting me instead, the whole time seemingly unbothered by the pain.
2 years later, our father who only did three things in a day other than going to work: Watch TV, drink, and beat us. Was trying to fix the television.
While doing so, he touched a suspiciously exposed cable and got electrocuted.
Because of his worsening drinking habits, his unfit body, and his sickly constitution, he couldn't tank the shock and died as a result.
I was in disbelief for a long while, realizing we were finally free, and able to live a normal life.
As I was taking in the big change that happened in our life out of nowhere, Mikey took it upon himself to hire a great, shady lawyer and sue the hell out of anything that could be blamed for the electrocution incident.
Eventually, we got a very nice sum of cash as a settlement, together with the benefits we got from the government for being recently orphaned, we moved into a small apartment and put the rest of the money into necessities and investments that went surprisingly well.
During this whole process, Mikey took charge and showed signs of extreme intelligence and maturity.
He also trained daily.
Now that we had proper nutrition, he sported a lean muscular physique, and I too was inspired by him, so I trained, not as frequently and as hard as him, but I was also seeing results.
At night, Mikey would sometimes have those nightmares, and he would sometime murmur things like "merger" and "Gelingor" in his sleep.
When asked about it, he would brush it off as if it were nothing, but I felt like there was more to it than he let me believe.
One day, he mentioned he would be out late. This raised my suspicions as it was out of character for him to stay out late.
As we both were outcasts until recently, and just became adults, we didn't have any friends other than each other, so we didn't go out late usually, especially not alone.
When Mikey came back the next day, he seemed devastated, and shocked, as if something unexplainable happened to him.
Since that night he kept sneaking out every night at approximately 10 am, as if obsessed, always going out with expectations and always coming back with disappointment.
After a couple of times of doing this routine.
I decided to follow Mikey, trying to figure out what was happening to my brother.
When he left the house, I trailed him.
Eventually we arrived at the forest near the main road out of the city, as our apartment was already nearing the city border, we arrived there pretty fast.
Mikey entered the forest, finally stopping near a certain tree.
The tree looked similar to the rest of the trees in this forest, except its roots weren't underground, as if it was planted wrongly.
Once he saw this tree, Mikey sat down leaning his back on the tree bark, closing his eyes and taking on a meditative position.
After 3 whole hours, Mikey stood up frustrated and started walking back home.
Seeing him start moving, I realised he was about to go back, so I hurried home before he could notice, arriving way faster as I was running once I got out of the area he could potentially see me from.
To say the least, I was confused.