Dead Beat (❌)

Chapter Seven

Alfie

"I refuse to listen to another word you say until you tell me what the hell is going on!"

Struggling to keep attached to reality, my brother's sudden yell snaps me out of my trance, shattering the image of our mother's corpse from the surface of my mind.

Lifting my face from my hands, I'm a bit confused on where I am at first, wishing this all to just be a bad dream. All I want is to be back home curled up in the bottom bunk of our bed. I want to do nothing more than to call out to John for comfort, just like I did when we were small, but I have a feeling that we just left our whole lives behind in a fraction of seconds.

The realization of that makes my stomach churn and I shut my eyes tightly, the rest of Dad and Johnie's conversation fading to mumbled words that I couldn't care less about.

I don't want to seem this weak in front of Dad, and especially Anny, but I can't help it. My stomach feels like a bottomless pit and my chest is so tight, I can barely breathe.

Closing my eyes so hard that I see stars, I finally force myself to face the reality that we're having to deal with right now, not wanting to leave it all up to Johnie.

Johnie's always been the one to take the fall for any and all of our mistakes, taking punishment even when he had nothing to do with it, but stupid childhood groundings were nothing compared to this. The worst part is that I don't even think Johnie really knows how dire this situation is.

If he does, he's taking it pretty well.

"What I am attempting to say is that these beings will not rest until you three have been successfully repossessed, even if they must kill me in the process," Dad says, breaking the deafening silence and heavy tension between us all. Even Anny slowly sits upwards in her seat to listen, her face bright pink and her eyes rubbed raw.

It breaks my heart to see her like this, but my mind can't break away from Dad as he continues, all attention focused on him.

"You make them sound like they aren't even human," Johnie replies with a forced chuckle to lighten the mood, but we all know that Dad doesn't fool around.

"The term humanity is just society's way of painting the general population the same. Not everyone will slay their neighbor, but if given no consequences, will they make that same choice? Humanity is simply a collar given to trained beings of society with laws being the bars of the cage, but when that collar is never placed and that cage never locked, then we are left with a pure human being, which was his intention all along," Dad explains, speaking as if reading from a book, his tone even and monotonous.

"Who is he?" Johnie asks breathlessly, his distress radiating off of him like waves of water, making me so nervous that I start picking at my nails to relieve it.

None of this is real, right? None of this can possibly be real!

My gaze turns from Dad, who doesn't seem too keen on answering, to lock eyes with Anneliese who is only sitting halfway on the seat, her hands clutching the back of the one in front of her. She doesn't say anything, but nothing needs to be said as we just look at each other, her cheeks turning red as more tears fall down them.

I instinctively want to poke fun at her, something Johnie and I always did when she cried over stupid things, but once again my brain makes me realize this sudden shift.