Survival Of The Fittest

"You have problems with you're brother?" Hawley asked addressing Adam, smirking somewhat as he thought of his own four brothers. Thinking deeply over everything that had happened between the Faust siblings...

He knew being the baby he'd be the one picked on the most, but after almost sixteen years of life it hadn't lightned up, and at times he wondered if they even knew there was a brother after Douglas, if they just figured him for a odd guest in the house.

Maybe he just thought to hard on the subject.

Adam sighed, and nodded to Hawley.

"Yeah, I do. My brother was always kind of fucked up...like not in the sense that he wanted to be, just in the sense that he was. He was depressed, suffered from treatment-resistant clinical depression and so most every day was hell for him, just because none of the medications that they prescribed for him seemed to work. Plus he's one of those people who keeps shit inside, so when he flew off the handle, he punched walls, raged...it was scary shit, man. It was tough seeing him go through that shit as every day went on...and for me and my other brother to be just normal, everyday kids, well...I don't know...I guess he kind of resented me for it. I...I never really knew how much until last year..." he trailed off, shaking his head. As he did, he kicked a stone in the path, and paused for a moment.

"So I came home from school after hockey practice one day...as I'm sure you guys can figure, it'd usually go till about 5:30ish. On Wednesday nights, my little brother has piano practice from five-thirty to six-thirty, which my mom takes him to, and my dad works two hours later so he doesn't get home until seven-thirty, sometimes even eight. So my brother is usually just home by himself from then, which isn't usually a problem, 'cause he usually just watches TV or whatever. So I come home and he's smoking a joint in the living room, he's got this big bag of pot and he's lighting it up. And I mean, he's a year younger than I am, so what the hell is that, you know? So I come in and I'm just basically asking him 'what the hell are you doing' and shit, you know? He gives me some obvious bullshit excuse and then starts basically being a typical jackass. So I start reaming him out, telling him how he shouldn't be doing all this shit, and whatnot, and how mom and dad are gonna fucking kill him when they find out and shit..."

Adam grimaces again, the painful memory being a little too much to handle. He composes himself and continues.

"So like...without warning, the guy picks up the closest thing to him - an X-Box controller, and pitches it full-speed at me. Fuckin' thing hits me in the head and knocks me right onto my ass. Guy can throw, I'll give him that. You've gotta keep in mind that yeah, he may be grade 8 then, but he just had a growth spurt so he's like, six feet tall and like two-fifty, three, you know? So I'm cursing like a sailor, calling him every name in the book. and I didn't mean to say it, but it slipped out...I called him fat. He's pretty sensitive about that, and so he just snapped. Grabbed me by the throat, pulled me up, gave me a big punch in the face. Now, I'm no pushover guys, but fuck, I tell you...it was almost lights out for me after that. The next couple of minutes were a blur. I can tell you he tossed me through a glass door, a window, and our table...basically whatever he could find. I end up on the floor of the kitchen, bleeding all over our nice white tile floor, and next thing I know he's sitting there with one of my mom's sharp kitchen knives pressed up against my throat. I'll never, ever forget what he said to me, too. He goes....

I'm going to enjoy cutting your throat, making you suffer. It's always Adam that's the perfect son, Adam that's happy. Adam that gets to live the normal life. And you rub it in my face. Well I'm not going to take it anymore from you. I hate you.

And he raises this knife, basically getting ready to widen my smile a bit, and I hear what sounds, in my delerious state, like a cannon. And suddenly he's not there anymore. And I'm just lying there, bleeding on the floor, when this face comes over me...I passed out right then, woke up in the hospital."

Adam nervously rubs a scar on his wrist. and continues after a pause to collect himself yet again.

"As it turned out, when my brother had tossed me through the window, and come outside to pick me up and toss me back through, our neighbour had been out watering her garden, and called 911. The cops heard the commotion, broke down the door, and shot him before he got the chance to...yeah.

My brother ended up in an institution in Canada, because he remembered nothing from the time he threw the controller at me...apparently the marijuana decreased the effectiveness of the antidepressant medication that he was on, which wasn't working that well to begin with, and his white hot rage wasn't even him, he wasn't in control. Doctors felt it was the best option. He felt absolutely horrible about the whole thing. Problem is, I never forgave him. Whenever we goto visit, I...I can't bring myself to go. I just can't. The things he said, what he did...I never could bring myself to go and visit him, to forgive him for what he did."

A single tear rolled down Adam's cheek, which he quickly wiped away and looked at the ground. His voice, which had been shaky up to now, hardened suddenly.

"But I guess it looks like I never will, and because of my selfishness, my poor brother will never be able to know that I do forgive him for what he did."

Adam spit into the dirt, and then said nothing more.

((Continued in: Lighthouse Ambush))

"The SOB tried to murder you. There's no excusing that. You should snap the bastard's neck first chance you get, if you ask me. But then again, I'm the vengeful type." Alan muttered as he took a quick drink while moving.

“That isn’t the point Alan.” Hawley muttered with a sigh to his voice, “Being hurt by a sibling… that shit scars a whole out deeper than being attacked by a person who you don’t know. I can’t say I understand fully what you went through, my brothers never physically hurt me… more mentally than anything.”

Eyes blinked somewhat as he went over the words in his mind, he had no damn clue as to why he was telling these people this. He hated telling how he felt about certain people – family included.

“From as far back as I can remember my four brothers never treated me as their baby brother, more like an annoying pest that happened to be living in their home. I understood they where much older than me, hell by the time I got to kindergarten the second youngest was already fifteen. The twins were seventeen, and my oldest brother was nineteen… I learned to understand that they probably didn’t want some little brat hanging around them. I hated them because they didn’t care, the time I told you about, when the soccer players broke my fingers. Matthew, the oldest, came in as it finished and as they took off he didn’t do anything just looked at me and complained, saying picking me up was going to make him late for his date. I hated them… everyone of them because they’d all done something to hurt me mentally.”

He hand found his hair as he quickly ran it though, only flinching lightly as fingers graced the head wound. The hand dropping back along his side as he continued;

“But then, when I tried to cut my throat… Benjamin walked in and tackled me to the ground before I had a chance to cut any deeper than I already had. I was starting to black in and out by the time I hit the floor, having hit my hit on the tiled floor hadn’t helped matters much but though my vision was giving out I could still hear. Benjamin yelling at me,

“Don’t you understand!? Doing shit like this isn’t just hurting you it’s hurting us too, damn it!”

When Robert and Douglas came out of their rooms to see was the matter, them cursing as one ran away to trying to call the ambulance. Benjamin saying there was no point in it and they should just take me to the hospital them selves… Matthew went with them I think, he was the one sitting the in back holding the cloth to my throat as he both prayed, and talked to me to try and keep me awake.

“Come on Hawley, stay with me. We’re almost there little bro.”

I passed out as we where pulling up didn’t wake up for a little while after the doctors finished up with my neck though they where there when I did wake up, so where my parents. My mother right straight going after me, telling me this is the last time she’s going to let something like this happen… and finally turned away from it and simply looked out the window while she yelled in my ear. By the time my father got her out, the damage had already been done. It was Robert who explained the whole thing to me – how they had pretty much saved my life, at that time I wanted to scream and yell at them for doing so… but I didn’t I just say looking out the window.”

Rubbing an eye he sighed again, smiling somewhat. “I suppose deep down, all I really wanted to do was say thank you… After I got out of the both the hospital, and the mental hospital they started acting kind of different toward me. Talking to me, asking me stuff, I figured they where just being nice because dad told them to, and I confronted Matthew about it, at breakfast one morning when our parents weren’t there with the three around us saying why should they care now when they never had. And he didn’t even bat and eyelash, or think twice before speaking,

“You’re our little brother Hawley we always cared about you, we might not have shown it but it's there… We just didn’t knew we could have lost you so soon.”

And yeah, I beat myself over it because I walked away saying they were all lying… when really I know I should have said thank you. I suppose if I do ever get off this island, I’ll do that before I go off.”

"That's a pretty powerful motivation to live." Alan noted, waiting for the other two to catch up with the slightest bit of irritation. It would not be his fault if they didn't make it to the lighthouse, though he was genuinely interested in knowing why the others wanted to survive.

Hawley glanced over, taking in the fact of how far ahead Alan was to them somewhat. Adjusting his day packed, pushed himself a little more trying to keep a steady pace to the other boy.

"It's not much further now. Unless we are attacked, we should get there in approximately twenty minutes."

"I don't think anyone's going to attack us now," Hawley muttered lowly, glancing about the area that ran along side the path. "I'm worried about what we'll find at the lighthouse."

"I'm not sure what to expect either, but if we're lucky, all there will be are corpses. Or the place will be empty."

"Both are kind of doubtful, we don't know how many, if any, have died today. Though I suppose we'll just see when we get there, won't we?" He mused lightly, glancing forward into the distance. The tip-top of the lighthouse somewhat visable over the grove of trees it lay beyound, only a little while longer.

"All right, let's go!" Alan said, excited after finally reaching their destination. Without hesitating, he ran full-speed to the lighthouse, not oaying attention to the fact that Hawley and Adam might not be able to keep up.

OOC: Continued in "Lighthouse Ambush": http://s10.PLACEHOLDERLINK/SurvivalOfTheF...p?showtopic=130

"Oi, Hold up! Running in there like a madman you're going to get yourself killed." Hawley called, going against the fact that it would hurt like hell and speeding his walk into a weak run, hoping that whoevere, if anyone, was in that lighthouse wasn't waiting to blow the head off of whoever tried to get in.

((Continued in: Lighthouse Ambush))