Broken Toys: Part 1.
To say that Michael makes his little brother’s life hell is no exaggeration. Elliot is ready to run. Then, late one night, he makes a discovery that changes everything.
Elliot:
My brother, Michael, is part demon.
You wouldn’t know it to look at him. Michael is handsome, the very picture of fairy tale perfection. Mother said that he was normal once, a sweet and happy child, until the dark and stormy night where he screamed the house down. She swears that she witnessed a dark shadow lingering over his cradle, though it fled as soon as she entered the room. When she attended Michael his tears had vanished. He stared back at her with eyes as red as blood. Father was convinced she’d had a nightmare, for the next morning he was fine. He didn’t see what I saw. Two years later, I was born, and my first memory was of Michael bending over me, hypnotising me with the glint of bloody red power behind his eyes. He asked me to bite down on my own fingers, and so I obeyed. This time, it was my turn to scream the house down.
Michael didn’t see me as his brother. I was his favourite toy.
“Dance for me, Elliot.”
He would make me dance to the point of exhaustion. Even that time when he moved me over towards that ants nest, he forced me to keep going as they started to bite.
“Do my chores, Elliot.”
It sounds innocent enough, except that I wasn’t allowed to stop, eat, have a sip of water or sleep. Not until he was satisfied.
“Fetch me some honey, Elliot.”
Of course, store bought honey wasn’t good enough. Though I was terrified out of my mind, I was compelled to climb to the top of the highest tree and steal from a beehive. Freshly covered in bee stings, I wasn’t allowed to climb down the ancient oak. Instead, he forced me to jump.
The glint wasn’t Michael’s only magic. He could move objects in midair too. Thankfully, on this day, he wasn’t throwing items at me. Michael caught me with his magic before I hit the ground. He also had the power to make my sores disappear, robbing me of all evidence that proved that he was torturing me.
You’re probably wondering why I never told anybody what was happening. One of the first commands Michael gave to me was “don’t tell Mother and Father about me, or our secrets. Don’t tell anybody.” As a result, I barely spoke as a child. Michael did the talking for us both and he was so charming and angelic in appearance that he was able explain away any questionable situation. It wasn’t long before he won Mother over to his side completely, costing me my only ally. As for why I never ran away, of course I considered it. My favourite past time, other than hiding from my brother, was writing in my journal. I filled its cover with plan after plan about how I was going to go about it, as well as all of the adventures I would have once I was finally free from his torment. By the time I was seven years old, I considered myself old enough to run away from home. I had made it as far as the hallway when I walked past his bedroom at witching hour. Michael, the demon boy that never showed any emotion other than anger and the joy from watching other suffer, was sobbing in his sleep. I didn’t know that he could cry. I only intended to peek inside of the room to witness the miracle for myself but then I noticed that he was trembling too.
“Go away!” he shrieked. It was clear that he was battling his inner demons in his sleep and losing.
“I never asked for this. I never asked to be one of you. Isn’t it enough that I live and breathe your evil? I deserve dreams of my own. Get out of my head and leave me alone!”
The screaming doesn’t work. I cannot imagine what happens next, but it sends Michael cowering underneath his blankets.
“Leave me alone,” he whimpers, though this time his voice is filled with hopelessness and defeat.
Go to him. Help Michael. Help him to fight his demon.
As soon as this thought popped into my brain, I couldn’t let it go. I should have run for the hills. Even with all of my senses screaming at me, telling me that it was a dangerous idea, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the right thing to do. Without hesitation, I walked towards Michael, sat on top of his bedsheets and held his hand. Every time that he cried out, I would squeeze it and promise that he was safe and that everything was going to be okay. I sat there for hours, until I saw his eyelids flicker and then bolted back to my bedroom before I was caught. His screams haunted me the next day, even as he inflicted his torture upon me from morning until night. Unable to sleep, I wandered back to his room. Again, he was sobbing. Again, he was trembling. It didn’t take me long to work out that my suffering was nothing compared to what Michael battled within his dreams, night after night.
From that night onward, the twisted routine began. I lived a life that was no longer my own, I would slave after Michael in the mornings. At school, he would always find a way to embarrass me, endanger me and make me his walking slave. In the afternoons, it was straight home to ‘play’ and it was my job to amuse him until it was time to crawl into my bed. The alarm clock underneath my pillow was always set for the witching hour. Somehow, I would find the energy to get up in the middle of the night and attend to his nightmares too. It was impossible to know if I was making a difference. As Michael grew bigger and stronger, so did his inner battles. Even as he grew too big for such things, I found myself holding his trembling body steady and singing to him like he was a small child scared of the monsters underneath his bed.
Before I knew it, five years had passed since I had vowed to help Michael battle his demon. The nightmares continued to intensify, as did his punishments. We had long moved childhood pranks and scares. Michael pushed me so close to the brink of death so often now that I accepted that he would be the one to kill me one day. I became accustomed to smiling throughout the torture because I knew that it would send him into a rage. Next, he occurred to him to torture me psychologically, but after a lifetime of terror, I had already developed a very thick skin. Though he continued to terrify me on a regular basis, I learnt how to conceal my fear. Not giving him the satisfaction of breaking me was a battle that I was determined to win. As a defence mechanism, I had stopped caring about myself years ago. The reason for my existence had been reduced down to two things only, infuriating the demon and giving Michael courage while he slept. That wasn’t to say that this hellish existence wasn’t taking its toll upon my body. Exhausted, and burning with fever, one night I made a fatal mistake. After sitting up to comfort Michael, I accidentally fell asleep on his pillow.
“Just what do you think you are doing?”
I awoke to find myself hovering, facedown over Michael’s bed. I probably should have cared about whether he was going to drop me but my fever was so high that I could barely think straight.
“You’re not alone, Michael” I murmured, half delirious. “No matter how scary the demon gets, I won’t let you fight him alone.”
“And what difference do you think you can make, human child?” Michael raged. At the time, I thought it was the fever playing tricks upon my eyes, but I saw him turn bright red in face. Steam started pouring out of his ears.
“I am unstoppable, and you are nothing. Let me give you a lesson on how frail you really are.”
Then, just like a rag doll, Michael picked me up with his magic and flung me towards the nearest wall. My left leg broke upon impact. Yet again, I screamed the house down.
Michael:
Elliot’s screams woke me up like a bucket of icy water. I stare over at him, pale and crying out agony. My eyes filled with tears as well.
I can cry? I thought that I could only cry in my dreams. It was horrible, of course, but at least I was never alone there. Not anymore.
Fearless Elliot, Invincible Elliot. He is my little brother, as dependable as any big brother, and he was going to save me one day. My saviour was currently crumpled in the corner of my room, completely helpless.
“Elliot!”
My hands flew to my mouth. I had just spoken. Aloud, I had just spoken my first true word.
“Elliot, I’m so sorry. I’ll help you up in a second,” I cried, but then my feet froze.
“Go back to sleep, Michael,” called the demon in my voice. As he overpowers me once again, I made a vow, a crazy vow inspired by a crazy brother who spent night after sleepless night cheering me on.
“I’m going to fight you,” I shout inside of my head, sounding as intimidating as a kindergartener challenging a wrestler. “From now on I am going to fight you too. Prepare yourself, demon. Your days are numbered.”
