In The Flesh(Teeth)

8

"I'll leave you choking on every word you left unspoken, rebuild all that you've broken, And now you know...." Throne by Bring Me The Horizon
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Her name is Katy. Her hair is golden and her eyes remind me of evergreen trees.

Her small fist curls around my fingers as her eyes stare up at with me with the wonder of a newborn. Her tiny lips purse and she contentedly shits her diapers.

From the moment she was born, Katy was mine to protect. She is my sister, and the light I had. There's something about being a big brother to something bright and innocent that made me so protective of her, even with the age gap between us.

I was seven when she was born. I was afraid that I would dislike the squalling wrinkly thing. But her innocence captured me when I felt her tiny hand around my fingers. I helped raise her- took her to parks and taught her to ride her bike. I remember cleaning her scrapes and putting SpongeBob bandaids on them. And I remember tracking down the boy who pulled her hair and giving him a piece of my mind. Maybe a few bananas were thrown, but nothing damaging.

Seeing such a bright and happy kid in an ashen, washed out wasteland hurt the most. Her glow was tarnished, her hair dull. Bags resided beneath her cut-emerald eyes and her lips frowned. My butterfly's wings had been robbed of their dust.

I'm not sure where it all began- the years are so blurred. I recall the broadcasts that told of the Breathers and the horrors. Watching the TV as images of mutilated bodies were shown. Sitting in my living with crayons and coloring books and action figures sprawled between Katy and I and the carpet. Being concerned with whether or not that one girl thought I looked cute. I didn't take the images seriously. Part of me was still in denial and felt like I was living in a movie.

I mean, c'mon, that shit only happens in the movies. Real people don't get ripped apart and the heads squished like melons run over by cars. No, that red and grey stuff wasn't an exploded watermelon, that was that guy's brains. Hey, that guy with a gun to his head wasn't using a prop and the loud blast and the squirt of blood and the shattered piece of skull that sprayed next to him wasn't pretending. And that woman swinging from a tree with her tongue puffy and her eyes bulging and her face ashen and shit running down her legs wasn't a Halloween decoration. And the screaming from outside and the loud bangs and the crying and the blood on the windows wasn't a movie being played really loud. Those big ass grey things weren't holograms, they were real and scary and I never wanted to look at one again but then I was put in the farm where I had to see them too much.

Reality sucks, kid.

The first broadcasts about the Breathers were sparse and we didn't really think anything of it. But then Dad stopped going to work because his boss disappeared. And Mom stayed up late at night and she had bought cigarettes after all those years being free and she would unwrap the cigarettes and tap them with her finger like she was shaking the ash from them. And her eyes were wide and sad and the shadows grew beneath her eyes because the hospital was filled with critical condition people and she had to work overtime and the stress was literally killing her. She wanted to quit so bad but she also didn't want to leave the poor people behind and it was the worst moral struggle for her- flee with her family or take care of the sick.

They canceled school because in the state over a whole school had been taken by Breathers midday and there were videos posted of kids screaming and crying and yelling for their parents while large grey skeletons chased after them and stole them away or crushed the life from them with vicious movements. Administrators feared that the Breathers would attack other schools because of how many ripe, young people attended them. Eventually, our school sent a call out to all parents and said that school was cancelled until further notice.

It was kind of fun, at first. I got to sleep in and spend all day playing video games or hanging out with people instead of going to class and doing homework. It was sort of a, "Dude, did you hear the news and those dead people? Sick, man." That was the extent of discussing it- we didn't think it would come to us. We were young and invincible and nothing but ourselves could kill us. No way anything bad would happen in my neighborhood- I grew up there and everything had always been so normal.

I think I finally started realizing how serious the attacks were when my friend John went missing. He had walked home from my house one night. He never made it there. His parents freaked out and started making calls and asking around for him. He eventually turned up about a mile from home. What he had become was definitely not pretty, and I'm thankful that I only saw his body in pictures.

He was strung up high on a telephone pole, his front facing the pole. His back revealed the skin of his spine cut off and his ribs were pulled out to resemble wings. I kind of thought of the Blood Eagle to be some brutal way Vikings killed people, something to be in awe of. It was far more disturbing in pictures.

I shut myself up for a little while after that. Seeing pictures of my friend mutilated made me sick inside. I'd occasionally text his phone to talk, but then I remembered that he was dead and he wouldn't be talking to me anytime soon. Dampened my day right quick.

With every day of Zero Hour, when the Breathers started taking us, things became more dismal. Friends quit calling and a lot of people had stopped going to work after schools got shut down. Neighbors went missing and we didn't ask questions because we already knew where they went. News broadcasts slowed down and cautioned us to remain home, and in small groups.

My house was broken into one night. Katy and I had slept in the same room, because she was scared to sleep alone. I had woken up in the middle of the night to a loud crashing noise and shouting. I sat up and found Katy's wide eyes glistening in the moonlight as she watched the door. I pressed a finger to my lips and crept to the door quietly. I heard Mom yelling, "Get the hell out of my house!" and Dad attempting to calm the situation. I quietly opened the bedroom door and padded down the hallway to the top of the stairs and peeked over the edge.

Below, Mom and Dad stood before my neighbor, Mrs. Rudy. She was a wiry woman with stringy brown hair and sharp cheekbones. She held a gun in one hand and her fingers were bleeding. Her mouth trembled as she pointed it at Mom.

"I just want some food," she whispered.

Mom crossed her arms over her thin frame and leveled her eyes at Mrs. Rudy.

"You leave now or I get my pipe," she said.

That kind of shocked me because I had never heard Mom so angry and serious.

Mrs.Rudy's mouth twisted to one side and her arm jerked. A loud bang ensued and a dark hole appeared in the wall next to Mom's head. Dad swung his arm out, the aluminum bat he kept in the closet for emergencies colliding with her head. Mrs.Rudy collapsed and her hands went limp. I think I made noise, because Dad looked up at me. His eyes scared me. They were desperate and scared and I never wanted to see my father scared of anything, because that meant that my nightmares were real.

"Go back to Katy," he said quietly.

And I did. I walked back to my room as if nothing had happened and I lay back down in my bed.

"Was that a gun?" Katy whispered.

"Yes." I said simply as I pulled the covers over myself. And she didn't ask me anymore questions.

That's when I learned Rule Number 2:

Never trust your neighbors.

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*Twirls in tutu and fairy wings unashamedly*

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