I don't need you

Solitary

The Mother laughed at my distressed face, and simply grabbed onto me, and threw me down the stairs as well. She shut the door loudly, locked it, and walked away. I stood up, helped Lachlan to his feet, and looked around. We were in the basement, the walls lined with cells, dirty glass windows the only way to see in. I walked over to one cell, peering in the gross window. A mans head leered back at me, with sores and boils covering his face. As I watched him, disgusted, he reached up to his temple, and pulled a part of his skin off, right down the side of his face. He giggled as blood began to pour down his face, and rubbed a filthy finger in the sore. I backed away from the window, fighting the urge to gag. Lachlan was pacing back and forward, muttering to himself.
"Poor Ivan, what have I done?" He stopped for a moment, and eyed an old pile of crates in the corner. With three large strides, he was standing over them.

"I need to get out. To get Ivan." He had picked up a crate.

"Let me out!" Lachlan screamed, and threw the box at the basement door. He picked up another and did the same again. When the boxes were all smashed, he turned on me.

"Ivan!!!" He tackled me, and punched me square in the jaw, still yelling for his brother. I lay still, as repeatedly he punched me in the face, over and over, until my nose felt broken, and my right eye was too swollen to see from.
Lachlan calmed down and began to cry hysterically. I pushed him gently off me, almost sobbing as well. I patted him on the shoulder, and cringed when he turned to face me.
"What happened? Who did that to you?" He had already forgotten, and I didn't have the heart to tell him.

After a quick search, I found that almost all the cells had patients in them, including Jane, who was still muttering about Charlie's scarf. One cell door lay open, the room was empty. The patient inside must've gotten better.
"Probably died." Lachlan said spookily, throwing an arm around my shoulders. "Or escaped."
He poked me hard in the ribs. I laughed uncertainly and looked inside the empty cell. The room was covered in mouldy padding, to stop the inhabitant hurting them self.

I turned away from the cells, looking around the room we were currently in. The only ways in or out were the door we had been thrown through previously, and a set of stairs in the far right corner of the room, hidden in the darkness, which led down, to something I didn't want to know about. As the evening came to a close, Lachlan and I were sitting inside the empty cell, away from all the screams and cries of the other patients. The basement door opened with a loud screeching noise, metal against metal. A sad, small boy wandered down the basement stairs, carrying a bucket nearly bigger than him. He fell down the last two stairs, and landed heavily on the floor, spilling the buckets contents (which turned out to be porridge) all over himself and the floor. A sharp, unfamiliar voice called down from up the stairs.
"Miles! You stupid boy! Don't you know how to walk? Idiot!"
The little boy, Miles, was on the verge of bursting in to tears. I felt bad for him, he was even younger than Thomas, why was he here? Miles gathered himself together, stood up and began scooping the porridge back into his bucket, with the large serving spoon he had tied to the bucket handle with string. That condescending voice yelled out again.
"Hurry up! We haven't got all night! Feed 'em already!"
Miles lugged the bucket over to the first cell door, and opened a small flap at the bottom, that I hadn't seen before. An almost skeletal hand reached through the hole, grabbing desperately at Miles' ankles. The little kid screamed, picked up his spoon, and quickly placed a spoonful of porridge just in side the small opening. He fed all the patients this way, sobbing quite heavily by the end of it, after nearly being pulled all the way through a door. He moved to our cell next, and seem terrified that the door was open. Who had inhabited this cell before?
He peered carefully in, and nearly screamed when he saw us. We must've been a fearsome sight, my bashed up face, and my own blood smeared over Lachlan's face, as well as his dark birthmark under his right eye. Lachlan leaped forward, covered the boy's mouth, and dragged him close. I talked quickly.
"It's alright kid, we're not gonna hurt you. We just need to know who you are and why you're here."
Miles nodded rapidly, tears cascading down his face.

"L-let me... breathe!" He was fighting against Lachlan's hand over his mouth.
Lachlan let go.

"I-I'm Miles, and I live here. I, um, feed the solitary confinement people. Me and my sister."

I nodded reassuringly, and pointed in the doors direction.
"That your sister up there?" Miles nodded." Think she'll trust us?"
"No, she's a meanie."
I laughed quietly, and patted the small kid on the head. Then I remembered what he'd said.
"Wait, you live here? But I've never seen you before?"
"Me and my sister live in the attic. She says at least we don't live on the street. She cooks the food."
I smiled, and pushed Miles slowly out the door. "You go back to your sister, ok? But don't forget about us."
Miles smiled, and it lit up his face, and my heart broke for the sad little boy who fed porridge to prisoners.
"I won't."