The House of Love

Ch 1: Oliver House

It was just another cold winter morning in the Oliver House orphanage and the only sound that pervaded the air of the otherwise silent morning was the sound of a male voice shouting. It was coming from the first floor living room.

"Clean it up quick! I don't want to see a single speck of dust, when I come to check on you again in five minutes!", Mr. Oliver said to the little thirteen year old girl, who had been rubbing the dust off the floor, since the last three hours, with fifteen other children of her age. He turned to leave and walked towards the door.

"We have been doing this for hours now Mr. Oliver! The dust is gone!" said a boy, suddenly. Mr. Oliver stopped walking, turned around and smiled at the children. The smile was neither warm nor understanding. It was cold as ice and scary beyond description. The children knew this smile way too well and the thought of what might happen after this, made a shiver go down their spines.

"So who exactly was it that decided to say such sweet words to me?" There was a heart wrenching silence in the room and nobody answered Mr. Oliver's question.

"Okay! I understand now! You brats want me to do it the hard way! Alright then! No lunch for any of you from today!" said Mr. Oliver, in a light, floaty voice. Everybody knew that Mr. Oliver wasn't joking and they remembered the last time this happened, they had to let themselves starve for a week straight, before they finally revealed the culprit.

At once, everybody looked at the boy who had said the words to Mr. Oliver. Mr. Oliver smiled at him, took him by the hand and said, “Let’s go to my room, Tom. Come!”

Tom was pulled to Mr. Oliver’s room and he looked around. It was his luck that had saved him from this room, till that day. Tom remembered the time when Kyle was taken to this room and how he had come back with three teeth, but he had refused to speak about it. Kyle, the happiest and liveliest person in this dead orphanage, was silenced by an invisible force. Tom also remembered the fact that Kyle ran away, without telling anybody, that night and never returned.

Tom waited for Mr. Oliver, while he went into the room beside this room and came back in an instant. When Mr. Oliver came back, he grinned at Tom and said, “You like that girl, don’t you? Kids, here, don’t usually talk back to me, unless, they have something stupid like that in their heads.” Tom didn’t say a word and stared at the floor. It was true. He really did like Mia, very much, but never told her about it because he thought that she didn’t feel the same way about him. Even in that scary moment, he couldn’t help but blush at the thought of her.

Mr. Oliver noticed this and said, “Ah, the things we do for love! I have a little gift for you, for doing this brave deed!” He went back to the other room and brought back with him a smoking steam- iron. He, then, locked his bedroom door and kept the iron on the table, in front of Tom. There was a dirty cloth on that table, which he picked up and went behind Tom. He made Tom open his mouth, put it across his tongue and tied it tightly around his head. Tom could feel the sweat forming at the back of his neck, in the cold of December and he knew there was no going back now. Mr. Oliver took his hands and put it on the table.

“Now, remember to stay quiet or it'll be your little girlfriend next time.” Tom looked at his evil face, at his own hands and then at the iron. He knew exactly what was going to happen and he couldn’t help but feel scared beyond description.

Mr. Oliver picked up the smoking iron and said “Let’s start with your pinkie!” Without any further ado, he pressed it onto Tom’s right pinkie finger and Tom pulled his hand away with an inaudible  wince. Mr. Oliver took him by the hand again and made him sit on a chair. Then, he tied his hands behind his back and around the chair. So, it became impossible for Tom to move anymore. Mr. Oliver picked up his iron again and pressed it properly onto the boy’s fingers. Tom could feel his hands burning but he couldn’t do anything but try to keep quiet. The cloth over his tongue was already preventing him from making much noise and he tried his best too. Mr. Oliver kept giggling and saying things like “Now you’ll know brat!” and “They are looking like red sausages now ha ha!” So, Tom sat there on the chair, feeling his fingers burn and Mr. Oliver giggling continuously. This went on for about an hour before Mr. Oliver got up and faced Tom’s tired face.

SMACK!

He punched Tom hard across the face and watched as blood splashed out of his nose. He said, “ Okay that’s it for today!’ He untied his hands and pulled the cloth off.

“Now go and get back to work! And try not to talk back to me if you don’t want another dose of my sweet medicine."

Tom looked at his hands and found them to be so red and burnt to the point that he could hardly recognize them. Then, there is this thing about burns: they keep burning even after being away from the hot object that burnt it. Tom rubbed the blood off his face, went back to the room where the other children were and started rubbing the dirt off the floor again. He could hardly use his hands and they were burning and paining terribly. But fortunately, it was lunchtime soon and he went running to the washroom to get his hands under some cold running water. Finally, after a long while, he found some relief from the unbearable pain. He stood there, with his hands under the water and thought about what had just happened. From the moment he had entered this orphanage, he had known that it was a terrible place and there was no way out of there. He also thought about Mia, the only good thing that Tom had found is this hellhole of an orphanage. Even in all that pain, he couldn't help but smile at the thought of her. He decided to not say a word about what had just happened to anyone. He knew that if Mr. Oliver got to know that he had opened his mouth, he would do this exact thing to Mia and who knows? Maybe he would do something even worse to her. Tom shivered at the thought of that and decided that he couldn't let that happen. He turned the tap off and went out, with two little burnt hands and a worried heart. Ah, the things we do for love.