Strangers By Nature | Red Dead Redemption II |

Chapter Eleven | Something We Can't Stop

NOVEMBER 17th, 1887

Peter sat in his little sister's bedroom, playing with a doll to make her happy. She's only eight, after all, doesn't take much to make her happy.

Their mother is downstairs cooking some godforsaken concoction. Whatever it was it smelled of grease and shit. Father was outside chopping firewood, and Ronald and Richard were going at it.

Peter's old enough now to understand that all of this is not right, that he's been abused his whole life. Siblings aren't supposed to touch each other, and certainly not parents. They're supposed to protect you from such abuse, but for some reason, it was the opposite here.

After Stephanie turned five they did the same to her that they did to him, no matter how much he tried to fight it. Just too many others were keeping him from saving his sister from the abuse. He's nearly eighteen now, he can fight off any attempted assault. But only sort of, as if he were to hurt any one of his family members he'd surely be shot dead by his father or one of his brothers.

"Foods ready come n' get it!" his mother suddenly shouted from downstairs.
"Do we have to go down there?" Stephanie asked as Peter picked her up.
"Yes. Be kind and you'll be okay. I promise," Peter then wandered downstairs, setting Steph down at the table and then seating himself.

And with all six of them sat and ready to eat his mother paused for prayer, Peter never closed his eyes. The only sound was that of their prayer and the crackling of the fireplace. And once they said Amen he looked down at the gross meal his mother had whipped up so graciously.

Their dirty plates were holding large discolored cuts of beef, the meat unnervingly pink on the inside. Peter picked up his knife and fork, looking at the meat with a grossed-out look on his face. There's no way he can put that in his mouth. Let alone eat it.

His father noticed his hesitation and stopped his eating,
"Is there a problem Peter?" He asked through gritted yellow teeth,
"I don't wanna eat that. It looks raw," he said defiantly, his father was about to pop a blood vessel.
"Your mother has spent all day cooking this for you! Eat it you ungrateful little shit!" His father threw a fork at his son.

Just as Peter was about to argue Stephanie threw up, the meat she was forced to eat being physically rejected by her body. His mother grabbed her by the hair,
"You litt-" Peter lost it, jumping forward with the steak knife and plunging it into his mother's throat. She screamed as Peter slit her neck open, his father gasping as she fell to the floor in a puddle of her blood.

His father lunged at him, tackling his son to the floor.
"I'll kill you!" His father screamed, and immediately he wrapped his greasy hands around his child's throat. Peter began to struggle as Ron and Richard cheered their father on.

As Peter began to panic he stuck his thumbs into his dad's eyes, gouging them out as the perverted old man flung himself back. And as his dad clawed at his mutilated eye sockets Peter shoved him as hard as he could, his father crashing out a window.

Ron ran over to check on his father as Peter retrieved the knife from their mother's neck and thrusted it into his brother's chest.
"Peter! Why!" He cried out, his little brother had no sympathy in any shape way, or form. And he ripped the knife out as he bled out on the wooden floor.

Richard attempted to grab him but Peter just shoved him, his brother's pant leg catching on fire as he stumbled back into the fireplace. Richard began to scream as the fire began to spread all up his back until eventually he was entirely engulfed in the flames.
"Peter? Why'd you kill them?" Stephanie asked,
"I..."
"Why'd you kill me?"