Murder

Chapter 2- How He Died

It's the day he disappeared. He had come into my room. "Hey, I wanted to know if you wanted to play some videogames. I have the GameCube and the n64 hooked up and I, uh, yeah." His bright blue eyes radiated happiness. He ran his fingers through his short blonde hair. I smiled, whenever I spent time with him I was so happy. He was amazing. I looked up to him.

"Of course. Why wouldn't I?" I was so excited. I stood up and looked at him. "No fair," I whined in my signature whiny-little-sister voice, even though I'm only two years younger. He looked down at me.

"What's not fair kid?"

"You're only two years older and like a head and a half taller! Why can't I be tall?" I was genuinely upset because he was taller than I am now when he was my age two years ago.

"You'll be tall when you get tall," he responded like the smart-aleck he is.

"Oh gee really!? I didn't know that. thank you for enlightening me oh wise one," I said like the smart-aleck I am.

Russ chuckled. "I've taught you well, haven't I?" he sneered at me.

"Yes, yes you have."

After about five hours of playing pretty much every video game Russ has, we decided to take a break. We watched TV while sitting on his bed and I fell asleep leaning on him. He doesn't usually wake me up when I do that. He never seems to mind. After a while I woke up because I was cold, and he wasn't there. I thought he had gone to get food, so I didn't think anything of it.

I woke up the next morning, and he was gone. My brother. My best friend. Gone.

Fast forward. It's about a week later, the detectives knocked on my door. When I opened the door, they looked at me, and stepped inside. "Hello. Are your parents home?" one asked me.

"Yeah, let me go get them," I said, and walked over to the stairs. "Mom! Dad!" I yelled. They came downstairs after about a minute. They looked at the detectives, completely ignoring me, but thats nothing new.

"Have you found him?" my mom asked, instantly breathless and hopeful.

"Ma'am..." the second detective started. "Theres... no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to say it." In that very moment, my heart was ripped out of my chest. Every cop show Russ and I had ever watched together, every time the family was told about the murder of their family member, thats how it started. I watched the detective carefully, paying attention to every word that came out of his mouth. "I'm sorry to say that we have found your son. He was found dead this morning at the docks. He was stabbed in the chest about three times and has severe bruising. I'm extremely sorry for your loss," the detective turned toward me. "Little lady, he had something in his pocket. I think he would've liked you to have it," he handed me a piece of paper. It was a picture of me and Russ. It was really damaged and faded because of the water, but I could still make it out. I turned it over to see how bad the damage was on the other side. There was something written on the back in Russ' chicken-scratch handwriting. it said "We're not just siblings. We're best friends. Nothing can ever change that." I gave him that picture after our camping trip. It was of us when we got back from the arcade and he won me a stuffed dog. My chest felt heavy. There was an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach and I couldn't stand. My knees were weak. I will always have this picture on me no matter what. It connects me to him, it always will.

I looked up at the detective. "Did- did he suffer?" I don't know if I want to hear the answer.

"No, the bruising wasn't severe, and the stab wounds were in his heart as well, so he was killed almost instantly," the first detective decided to answer my question. I was so relieved he didn't suffer. It scared me thinking that he would. I wish it wouldn't have happened at all.

I looked at the picture. My vision went blurry and I ran upstairs. I heard my parents crying over the phone to somebody, and the detectives left. I hate life. I hate it. I can't handle this. One week of hope. One week of trying to stay positive while my brother -my best friend- was missing. One week of not going and searching for him myself, of letting the detectives do their job. Look where it got me. One week wasted. One week I want back. His birthday was just two weeks ago, mine was two weeks and a day. He turned sixteen years old on December 10th. I turned fourteen a day before. He was still too young to have gone like this. He disappeared one week after his birthday, one week after my birthday. One week, one week, one week. One week changes everything apparently. I hate those two words. I hate that amount of time. One week, seven days, one hundred and sixty eight hours, ten thousand and eighty minutes. All lengths of time. All words and numbers. All bad. All life-ruiners. Suddenly the scene and the thoughts, they were gone. They disappeared, and I was back in Maranda's house.