The Keys: A Tale of a Beginning and End

Chapter eleven

"My Dad was selected, among others, to join the army of soldiers, while my Mom and I were left to take care of our small store." As Zander said this, I recalled over hearing rumors that the most recent 'king' was recruiting people for his army. Why he would do this in a time of peace, no one knew but then again, we didn't really know anything anymore. He continued speaking about how his Father would write letters to them everyday and how he would complain about the cooking.

"One day the tax collector told my Mom that the amount of money collected was going up, and we needed to pay right away. She told him that we didn't have enough, so he left, after collecting what little we did have." I assumed there was more but I tried not to push to much, this was a very delicate topic and what Zander really needed right then was a friend, I assumed he didn't have many. "Later, at night, I woke up to the sound of banging and crashing. I was to scared to move, I must have been hiding under my covers for hours. When the sun came through my window I got the courage to go see what happened and..." Once again Zander stopped, but this time he was strange off into space, possibly reliving his childhood trauma. "And she was lying there, a horrible pale color, her lips were blue too. I had reached out to shake her, and when my hand touched her I jerked it back, she was freezing cold and her arm was stiff." He brushed this hair out of his face closed his eyes and continued "I got help and they told me she was dead, my dad got back the next day, but he wasn't the same, he was harsher and closed off, so sometimes I have trouble sleeping cause all I see is my Mom's corpse begging for help."

We sat in silence yet again, it was much like the other one but this one was not filled with curiosity, but had a bit of understanding to it. I had trouble sleeping wen I had run away but that was different, I was afraid of being killed, Zander's problem was worse he was haunted with guilt, a terrifying thing to have, for guilt, will slowly eat at ones being, until there's nothing left, but a ragged shell of a person.

"Well lets go back upstairs, I'll keep you company for a while" He looked at me kind of confused and then said "You sure, I'm probably going to just read." "Yeah its fine I'll just read to, I have like 2 chapters left, and I couldn't sleep anyway."

We walked up stairs as quietly as possible, I grabbed my book, which was actually one of the books they for you to read in case you're board, and went to Zander's room. His room was much like the one I shared with Rosalind but it was smaller, and the only furniture it contained was a bed and nightstand. I sat next to Zander on his bed and started reading, the book was extremely boring but I didnt want to leave, I felt bad that Zander had to stay awake by himself. That wasn't a problem though, within minutes of reading the second chapter I was asleep.