Our Minds

Chapter Seventeen

The football player goes back down to the first floor, where all of this bullshit started. Suddenly the green eyes spot a door at the end of the hallway. He makes his way down the hallway, passing all the rooms with an eerie feeling. He suddenly wishes for Ethan to be down here, Miyo and Gwin as well. He feels a little frightened. The 11th grader examines the heavy door. Worry settles in as he pushes the big door open. It creaks and echoes through the hallway. The teenager looks down the dark stairway, afraid of what is waiting down there for him. Suddenly a light shines down below in the basement. This tiny light makes Clive's breath increase, his father used to spend all his time down in the basement at home, that's where his mother was...

The 7th grade Clive wanders around the house at 12:00, midnight, looking for the cause of a bang. He was afraid of the cause. Another crash is heard, so the child follows it and it leads him to the door of the basement. His father is yelling profanities at his mother like usual, but this time she bites back. Glass suddenly breaks as Clive sneaks down the steps; low enough for him to see, but high enough for them not to see him. His father has broken a beer bottle of his and is approaching his mother. She keeps shouting at him, but Clive can't hear what they're saying, because of how hard he was crying. Why wasn't he used to these fights yet? They happened twice a day, and they'd probably continue for the rest of his life. Clive was wrong though; they wouldn't continue throughout the rest of his life, because of what his father chooses to do next. The young boy watches his father shove the sharp bottle into the stomach of his mother. Clive couldn't remember the rest, some of it was fuzzy. He remembers screaming though and running for the phone on the coffee table and didn't hesitate to call the authorities on his own father. Clive couldn't even call him a damn father.

A warm hand is placed on Clive's shoulder as he returns to reality. He gasps and whips around, getting ready to punch whoever or whatever. That whoever was his one and only Ethan. "You're awake!" Clive cheers and hugs Ethan tightly. He picks him up and spins him around for a little bit. "Okay, okay. He's awake, we didn't break out of this fucking asylum yet," Miyo comments. Clive nods and sets Ethan down. Ethan clears his throat and fixes the collar on his sweater. "So, this is the basement?" Ethan questions his boyfriend. He nods, "Yeah. Looking down there is why I just had a flashback." Clive shivers in disgust.

"Maybe there's something down there we can use," Miyo implies. "That's what I was thinking," Clive agrees and looks at his friends. Gwin slowly nods, "So are we going down there or not?"

"I guess we have no other choice," growls Miyo as she starts down the stairs with the surprisingly working flashlight on her phone. The other teenagers follow her, oblivious to the fact they were walking down to their deaths.