Phobic

Chapter 7:

My mother formerly told me, "Trial by jury can create more outcomes of us than us as an individual alone." I've now learned that society will destroy threats to their customs. Me. And because I am one person- an individual alone -I understand the precautions and the consequences; but my views aren't faltered. Our sectors are a foolish way of dividing our fears. Humans will constantly obtain and release fears on their own free will- at least they should be able too.
It is humanhood.

I recognize that I'm required to conceal the thoughts. Hide the truth, more say. Or I'll be struck until I'm limp nothingness. But is that the solution to rebelling citizens? I don't know the correct answer to that, but I do know that one day I will start one. I don't know. I don't know, yet.

I doubt Joan, I doubt my mother and my father and Sara's beliefs. They may just be frightened by childhood taunting, like me. I'm sure they might agree with me deep inside.
I still don't know.
Since they aren't me, I can't determine that.

Oddly, my thoughts echo as I contemplate them.

An alerting bang sounds downstairs. It appeared to have come from the living room area. Another thing I didn't know.

I scrambled out of the curl of my blankets. My mother had hand-woven them herself four months ago. They crumbled to the floor in a tall heap of color.
A scream was heard next. It was manly and firm, yet terrorized as it came out.
Joan. What was it with him?

First, he shoves me to my knees, unnecessarily, and now he's antagonized? I'm antagonized, if anything. These oddities continuously are being thrown at me, and I can't deflect them.

"Joan?" I yell with post-sleepiness, so it sounds more like a hoarse yawn. Another loud scream, and I rush down the stairs towards the noise. I make it down the stairs just in time to catch a small glimpse of a slim, dark-skinned figure exiting through my door with great swiftness. He slipped outside sleekly with no hesitation, and then I turned to look at Joan.

My legs tremble. And my hands shake tremendously. My balance is inoperative.
"Uh-" I said. I couldn't form words correctly.
Joan didn't respond.

That man, that morbid man, had just shot my brother.
I tumbled on my knees. I pounded my hands on his chest, once, twice. And I sobbed, mourning him my hugging him too. This was too sudden, my heart couldn't bare it. I shook him, but he was unresponsive. Nothing I tried to revive him would manage to wake him.

He was dead.

I still pursued to wake him out of grievance. "Joan. . ." I muttered. "Please, wake up!" I sobbed again, and shook him again, and again.

I want to die. I want to die, now. If Joan must suffer a supercilious death, why should I live my foolish life when he died in a foolish way? I don't deserve to live.

Though, I continue trying to wake him up, until it's no use anymore. "Joan." I say again, fainter this time. I bury my head in his chest.
Then, I notice a blurry object lying in the crevasse of the door. Black, and L-shaped. But it remained unclear aside from that. I rotated my head, glancing with a tear-streaked face at the thing.

It was a gun. An unfamiliar gun from the ones I'd seen before, but it was a gun. I crawled across the carpet trailed with blood. It didn't have a peculiar scent, like vital fluid does. In fact, an aroma of cherry blossoms lingered on the carpet. The perfuming scent in the tank of detergent that my mother applied when she cleans the carpet. It wasn't dirty; so, maybe she'd just deodorized it recently. It smelled to high heaven.

I clasped the gun handle with my fingers, shuddering, but I settled myself. It was cold; and as light as a feather.
Almost unreal.
It wasn't difficult to raise it in my hands. I saw that a bullet was previously clicked into the chamber of the gun. Presumably by the murderer.

My hands quiver again, but now, I can't cease them. They shake crazily, and I cry on Joan's corpse lying in front of me, my knees poking at it. At him.

When I pressed the gun barrel to my right temple, I rattled so badly that I dropped the gun on accident. I picked it up again, positioning the barrel on my head. My index finger slithered around the trigger, touching it, adjusting to the feel. It was polished on the grip, but rough like sandpaper on the sides.

I cocked the gun into shooting mode. My last tear was shed, and I unyieldingly tugged the trigger backwards with my finger.
Whiplash and ache flash in me until I fall. Blackness.

I wake up abruptly, gasping and hyperventilating. My lungs are drained of oxygen- it's challenging to catch my normal flow of breath. A scream escapes my throat- not escapes, more intentional. My brother was just assassinated in my dreams, how could I not scream?

Joan bursted through my door, and sprinted to my aid. His hand was squeezed on my right shoulder, right under the area where I'd just falsely shot myself. But it felt so realistic.

"Joan," I gargle. "You're alive. . ." My breaths come in long violent bursts. That was the most bloodcurdling thing I'd ever encountered.
I really hope that my brother never actually gets killed.
"What?" He asked, backing away slowly. I tug at his shirt collar, drawing him closer to me. Then, I embrace him in a hug. He's confused, obviously, but I can't explain it to him. It's too baffling, and scarring to foretell.

I squeeze him tighter, laughing hysterically.
"I'll be careful Joan, I'll be wary of what I think." I murmur.

I acknowledge that the dream was a visual representation that my actions can effect the ones that I love. I can't, and won't forsake that.
I do know that.

Worry-free Joan, my beloved brother; the one who roamed the sector with me, the one who makes me laugh with his lunchtime gab, can be executed in a flash because of me. Our government believes that if it thrives in one of us, those of the same blood act in that manor too.

And if I say one thing incorrectly: Joan dies and my mother dies, and my father.

"Okay." Joan says, sighing.