The Black Swan

Chapter 19 - I couldn't.

December 21

1 day after the day

04:35 am

"Mark was ever a normal boy, Brianna. He used to be violent, abusive, mind provoking and full of hatred. Clever, extremely clever, but in a his own special bad way. His teachers used to call the house all the time complaining about his behavior and they always ended up making dad pay more money to keep Mark in the only school that accepted him. My mom always tried to understand his mentality or why he was acting the way he does, but she couldn't. He would wake up at three am screaming, shouting and crushing dishes on to the floor. He would pull my hair out of my head if I asked him not to do something. He once burned my drawing copy book to ashes because I took a medal in school for it. "

"Mom took him to many psychiatrists, but it never worked out. The medicine they gave him would not settle in his stomach as he used to force himself to puke all of them. He once broke the hand of a boy in his school and hit his teacher. We all knew he was nuts."

"It all got even more dangerous when I got my emblem. He started asking why I can get snow out of my hands and he can't. And why I can freeze our barking dog and he can't. And why I can build a snow man out of nothing and he, no matter how much he tried, can't. Mom had to tell him about The Black Swan as he ,surprisingly, had the power to see our emblems!"

"At that period of time, he would lock himself in his room and scream into the pillow. "WHY CAN'T I DO IT? WHY CAN'T I DO IT?" And I would know he is speaking about my powers. Even though I was twelve and he was six, I was afraid of him. He was very very frighteningly bright and intelligent. He would read books and memorize words randomly from the dictionary then try to tease me with what he can do. But when it wouldn't tease me, he would end up screeching into the pillow the same exact words."

"On my thirteenth birthday, things started to change. I got another emblem. And I found out I could fly. And when I tried it, Mark took a vase from the counter and threw it at me. It hit me straight in the head and I fainted. When I woke up, I found everyone huddled around my and mom told me what happened. Mark was sitting in the corner of my room, with knitted-eyebrows, holding a box of tissues and not one tear coming out of his eyes. He looked angry, like he was about to burst into flames. Mom looked at me that moment and whispered in my ear something to make me feel comfortable, but it didn't."

"The month after my birthday, I got another emblem. And, another injury of course. The distance between me and Mark grew emblem by emblem, scar after the other. And I ended up hating him on the day my twentieth emblem appeared. On your birthday. On my fourteenth birthday. That day I came slowly to the house and found mom screaming, and I directly knew you are being born. I ran and as I reached the room, I found her on the floor with silence coming out of her mouth, the window opened. At first i thought she fainted, so I ran to her and scooped her into my arms and carried her to the car. But when I found blood spilling out of her head, I realized what happened."

"I surely didn't suspect Mark at first. I thought she just slipped and fell. But things quickly proved otherwise. When I reached the hospital, they got you out of her tummy before you run out of whatever you needed and died too. I held you in my arms and promised myself to get you away from everything, including Mark which I had no idea at that time what he's done. I got you home and called dad, who was in Paris, and told him all what happened. But he didn't believe me and turned off his phone." 

"And here comes the important part when I got to actually 'hate' Mark. I was sitting in the kitchen shortly after ending the phone call with dad, and got shot in my right leg. I got up and looked backward, too tired to use my powers, to find Mark, my eight years old brother, holding a freaking gun and a smirk decorating his stupid face. I did not understand anything. I was too confused. But he spoke quickly before my confusion over took me into the darkness of my subconscious."

"'My god, dear brother. You kill your mother on the day she gives birth to your sister, then kill your sister, then finally kill your self? How cruel is that. But how beautiful it is to be on the headline in the newspaper, uh?' He said as he moved towards you slowly, pulling the trigger and aiming. 'GET AWAY FROM HER! I SWEAR TO GOD, MARK, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!' My voice was barely audible. I was loosing consciousness. But he spoke again making me alert. 'Or tell you something, I got a better headline. 'Kills his own mother and then himself with the same gun'. And I will make Brianna read this? What do you think of that? Uh?' And by then, I couldn't move anymore even though I was dying to. I couldn't do anything. I wanted to get up and kill him with my bare hands but I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't."