The Story of Why

Keda - Fairy Tale Endings

~Keda’s POV~

Eric parked his car in front of a small, shabby-looking house somewhere downtown. The house was so poorly taken care of; it looked as if it were abandoned. The paint on the door was chipped. No, more than chipped, more than 90% of that paint was gone. The window in the front was broken. A black shower curtain with white polka dots was displayed where a regular curtain should have been hung. You couldn’t see anything behind the shower curtain.

                “If he’s not here…” Eric began.

                I clenched my teeth. “There’s no other place where he would be,” I said shortly. I was using the end-of-discussion voice my mother used to use on me when I was a kid, trying to argue with her over something stupid. Eric and I got out of the car, and we walked side by side in silence while the wind was whipping snowflakes into our faces, and each one of them pierced our skin with a painful coldness.

                We reached the front door. I sighed and looked up at Eric. “Here goes nothing,” I mumbled and knocked on the door.

                Silence.

Eric tried knocking, but more loud and clear. There was a yell, then a loud noise lkie the sound of a beer bottle being thrown at the door and smashing into a billion tiny pieces. Eric's nostrils flared, and he banged his fist on the door. "Open the door!" Eric yelled.

Then, there was a shuffling noise. The door swung open, revealing a repulsive-looking individual. He was nearly a head shorter than me, but with big muscles and a permanent scowl. He wore a white tank top over his hairy chest. Well, the tank top wasn't as white as it had once been. The thing was covered in stains. Some looked like food -possibly pudding- and others were a shade of sickly red that made my skin crawl. It was definitely blood.

"What?" the disgusting creature grumbled. I was too busy trying not to puke at the smell of him to speak. Sadly, that meant Eric was going to.

"Where the fuck is Drew?" he asked, glaring at Drew's uncle.

"If only Drew's mother knew how impolite Drew's friends were...oh wait," Drew's uncle said. This disgusting piece of shit had the nerve to make jokes about Drew's dead mother. This was nearly enough to make me slap the filth right off of him.

"Where is he?" I asked, getting impatient.

The creature shrugged. "Probably laying in his own vomit and blood again," he said in his deep, gravelly voice.

"What did you do?!" Eric yelled. His fist was clenching and unclenching. I don't think he's ever been this angry before.

"Calm down, you dumb piece of shit. I didn't do anything. The kid comes home beaten every day now. I almost feel bad for the kid...." he began, then scoffed. "Nah, just kidding."

"Let us see him," I demanded.

"Go ahead," he said, moving out of the way.

Eric and I pushed past him. Eric climbed down the stairs, and I hurried after him. There was a door at the end of the stairs. Eric jerked the doorknob, but it wouldn't open. He turned around, looking up at Drew's uncle, who stood at the top stair, leaning against the railing nonchalantly. "There's a key on the bottom step," he said, then walked away.

I bent down, picked up the key, and passed it to Eric. He took it from me and opened the door. He walked forward, into the basement. It was kind of like a little apartment. Except there was no furniture, and there was a row of empty beer bottles right in the middle of the room.

Eric crept forward silently. He then went down a hall on the left and found a door. He took an anxious glance back at me. He knocked on the door softly. On the other side of the door, he was answered with a nearly inaudible groan. Eric looked down at the floor for a moment, then opened the door slowly.