Murderer

Chapter 20: Ryan

I thought about a book I had once read and compared it to myself. City Of Glass by Paul Auster. Peter Stillman, like myself, was a victim of a terrible crime. His father locked him up in a dark room after his birth and never spoke a word to him or let him out. He wanted to find out if the child never heard any language, if it would begin to talk the pure, pristine language of God, that was lost now. I thought about how his father had used his son for experimentation, and even though it was evil and cruel, it had more meaning than my own imprisonment.

Have I been forgotten? I asked myself that everyday. He never shows me anything on the news anymore, and I always wondered what was going on outside of this pitch-dark basement that reeked of the odor of my own piss.

If I was dying, I was going slowly. Like he promised. Katherine had suffered, yes, but she merely suffered a thin hair that I have suffered. It only lasted a few minutes for her. What I have endured felt like a lifetime. That's what happens when you're trapped with nothing other than your own dreadful thoughts.

I didn't need the bandage anymore. The skin on my hand had heeled for the most part, but I would never get used to having four fingers. At least it was my ring finger, and not my index finger or thumb.

He abruptly opened the door to the basement as always, making me jump the little bit that I could while chained up to a support beam. As soon as he turned on the TV, I knew something was up. Was he going to show me the news again? I crossed off that idea when he slid in a DVD into the player. What the hell was he going to show me then?

I immediately was breathless with what I saw. There were videos of Brendon from different days. We sat there and watched silently for a few moments. He was always alone and he looked like he was losing it most of the time. That fucking bastard had been following him.

"You leave him the fuck out of this. I gave you my finger, remember?" I growled at him.

"Whoa now, I wouldn't get too angry now..." he said to me, pointing at the screen with the remote.

I turned around to see Brendon with a familiar looking girl from school. They were holding hands, and he looked happy. The last time I had saw him smile was back at the pond that very night I was kidnapped. Had he replaced me? Has he moved on, and forgotten about me? I was glad he had moved on, I didn't want him to worry about me, but I just hoped I was there in his memories.

The video skipped to what seemed to be another time during the same day, since they were wearing the same clothes. They had came across a garage sale, but it was hard to tell what exactly was for sale since the video was taken from a distance. What I could make out was an old guitar, which Brendon went ahead and picked up. He started strumming it before the girl had asked him something that I couldn't make out. Soon after, he began singing. It took me a few moments to make out what he was saying, but when I figured it out, my heart exploded with emotions. He was singing my song. The crowd around him applauded him when he finished, they loved it. He remembers me and is still looking for me, I knew it. Brendon is the most ambitious person I know, I should've known he would never give up on me.

Christopher turned the TV off.

"They look so happy, don't they?" he snarled at me, waiting for a response. I just nodded. I didn't want to say anything that would provoke him. I knew how delicate this subject was to him.

"I wonder how their little date will go if they were to find your finger in the most historically unpleasant but most romantic place possible, hm?" he said, picking up the jar that had my finger preserved in it, giving it a shake that I could only hear but not see.

He was going to leave my finger at the pond for Brendon and his new friend to be scarred for life at. I didn't want Brendon to worry about me too much, and this might put him over the edge. The fact that this creep has been following him around worried me a lot. Was he planning on kidnapping him too? These terrifying thoughts made my blood boil.

"Don't, leave him out of this! Just torture me, okay?! Don't do it! It'll really mess him up mentally, it would mess up anyone! Would Katherine want you to do this?!" I stopped immediately. Mentioning her is a huge mistake.

"No!" I screamed, as he planted his knuckles into my face.