Days Are Numbered

4: Regrets

"Noah!" Emery yelled out as he walked into the hall with his team of popular footballers from school. He turned around with a smile, and she was in her cheerleader uniform, which was a combination of a blue mini skirt with sparkles and a sleeveless crop top. She had dyed her hair strawberry blond since they started dating. She jumped into his arms, and they exchanged a deep kiss.

"Now that's well-deserved, isn't it?" he smiled as they broke apart to catch their breath.

Emery grinned. "Maybe tonight we can talk," she winked at him in admiration.

"How lucky the most popular boy and the most popular girl in school are dating," Juliet, one of Emery's friends, said while cooing at them.

They walked as a group heading for lunch, passing by Kira, who was one of the most intelligent students at school. She was known for having few friends and more time to herself, some said her mum was a cleaner and her dad a driver. Emery had stopped to pull on her afro hair, and Kira sneered at her in return.

"I present to you, my boyfriend. I saw you gawking at him the other day, and I want it to be the last time you do so. He would never consider a girl like you," she said to poor Kira, who only glared back.

"Oh, wow. When he's done exploring, get ready to be dumped," Kira spat. Emery, in an angry state, hit Kira across the face, only to be hit back. Noah's boys broke up the fight.

"Dog!" Kira yelled.

"Shut up, savage! This is the last time you'll speak to my girlfriend with that tone. Look at you, bag of rags! Slave to be exact," Noah added, referring to African past history. His friends erupted in a fit of laughter and some student stared in surprise.

"You better die in a fatal accident like your father," she had said to him. Noah slapped her across the face, much to everyone's surprise. That was the very last time anyone heard of her.

He recalled Kira in her last days at school. He had made sure charges were pressed against her for threats and assault. She was arrested, and it entered her record as he planned, then he never saw her again.

Noah groaned in his sleep; this was not the life-frustrating groans he usually let out, but more of a painful groan than anything. He crawled to the broken mirror in the corner, taking in his appearance: busted lips, swollen nose bridge, and a battered body. The memory of the punishment made him cringe in fear of the unknown.

The only time he was physically punished was the day he tore his father's contracts while throwing a tantrum. The man had pulled him over his knees and swatted him properly. When his mother found out, she was furious, and she threatened his father to ruin him if he repeated the action. He was her only child, and all she could have as a woman, and she didn't want to lose him. Because of that incident, Noah secretly feared being alone with his father, so he came up with excuses to be with his mother often. That was the only time anyone laid a hand on him openly other than the occasional slaps his mother was used to giving him when she was angry, which was rare, and it felt like love taps. And again, there was Rosa, he never thought or spoke about her, he buried the memory forever!

Now that he thought of it, he missed his mother dearly. He had not seen her in days, and he had no idea of where he was nor why it happened to him. Maybe it was a punishment from God, after all.

He almost never showed up for his father's funeral and didn't shed a tear; he resolved his behavior to the fact that he hated his father for wanting to control his life.

Noah heard the sound of footsteps a distance away. He hopped to a corner and braced himself. After the incident, he was confined in the dark room again, getting food only once a day, being left to wallow in pain and anguish. Noah desperately tried to find an escape in his mind, but he had nothing good to think of.

He could recall how disrespectful he was to his mother and how he always yelled at her, or how he never cried when he heard his father was dead, even till then. He sucked in a breath as he waited for the approaching step to open the door.

Mr. Yaroslav tore the door open, and his gigantic features were revealed. Noah cringed and tightly wrapped himself, ignoring the pain in his back and ribs. All his senses screamed danger!

In a flash, he played the moment Mr. Vin ripped his diamond earrings off his ears by practically tearing his earlobes; he was in pure agony as blood dripped from both ears down to his shoulders while wailing in pain.

Mr. Yaroslav settled on the iron bar in the center of the room, where he would usually force his victim to be as Noah had witnessed firsthand.

"Come here," the man ordered. Noah hoped the man wouldn't see him, but he was definitely wrong. He tried to move, but his body wouldn't agree. He started sobbing on the spot, with his nostril still bleeding.

Mr. Yaroslav did come for him, grabbing him by the hair. He let out a scream that faded quickly as it came with a slap. "Maybe I should give you something to cry about, you have more tears than I thought."

Noah's eyes widened. "P-please, no!" he quaked through tears.

Mr. Yaroslav paused, "I'm willing to give you a second chance to abide by the unit and rules. You'll first read the rules from the first to the last page and commit them to your memory; then you'll quit crying and shouting. We're over now," he explained as he let go of Noah's hair. Then he pulled out a hair clipper.

Noah started to freak out, but it took little to no effort for Mr. Yaroslav to wickedly shave his hair to a length similar to Avgustin's. Noah cried silently as he felt his spirit shattering at the torture. He had spent a fortune growing out his hair and preserving it only for it to go to ruins in the hand of a beast.

"You look clean. Now," Mr. Yaroslav complimented as he let go of him. "Follow me," he said as he started for the door. Noah limped behind him, hanging on for a bit while silently balling his eyes out.

Each step was followed by severe pain from his damaged body. Finally, he was back to the first floor.

Augustine was assembling a shotgun by the front door while the others were nowhere in sight. Exhausted, covered in blood and sweat, with strands of chopped hair over his body, clinging to his clothes like traces of murder, and a proof of what transpired in the dark room Noah felt too distracted to notice how threatening that was.

Mr. Yaroslav said something to Avgustin in a language he couldn't understand, and the young man responded in a similar language, sounding hoarse and almost hushed. As Mr. Yaroslav's stare hardened and he pronounced two words, Noah noticed Avgustin balling his fist behind his back before releasing his grip and responding with a "Yes, sir." He grabbed Noah firmly by the bicep and pulled him away.

Noah was back in the room. He was more than grateful to be back. He tried to make it to the bunk bed but couldn't, so he ended up curled in the corner with the notebook of rules in his grip. He was more than confused and lost, he wanted to sleep and wake up in his own bed.

His posture reminded him spookily of little Omar. It happened many years back, and they were in elementary school. Omar was autistic, and it made him little. Omar was known for having little episodes that were not so violent, one day during an episode he had thrown a stuffed toy at Noah who took it to another level as the kids laughed at him. Noah gathered his friends and together they threw little rocks at Omar during recess. To shield himself from the stones Omar had curled in a ball behind a try where they still found him and finished off what they'd started. And that was the last time they saw little Omar. Noah allowed fresh tears to slip down his cheeks as he thought of how vulnerable Omar must have felt.

A/N

Thanks for staying till this chapter. Let's move on.