Hear No Evil

Chapter 2

Before his room, the basement was his home. And down there was love, safety, momma. Her dark hair and eyes, just like his own, her smooth skin and warm arms and tough bones. The way she would hug him to her chest and sing that he was hers and hers alone. The way He would watch them.

She fed him from her body, there was always enough. She let him run and play and would sing when the darkness seemed too dark. When They weren't around. And when she couldn't sing, when she cried so loud he thought he'd never be able to hear again, he'd tried to sing over it and tried to hug her like she did him. But it never worked. Momma always cried about Bianca, heart wrenching sobs that were too loud and too scary and too full of pain.

Bianca didn't cry at all. Not anymore. The day she stopped crying was the day momma passed out the screams were too loud and he claw claw clawed at his ears until they almost came off.

They stitched them back on after Bianca couldn't move no more and momma cried until she fell down.

Bianca started to look and smell funny, then worse, and then he was used to the change she caused. Momma sung to him and held him close whenever she wasn't crying. She stopped moving other than that. He could feel her bones and count them and try to match them up to the white bones sticking out of the mess of Bianca.

His ears had started to feel almost right when a baby came out of momma, when she screamed some more and bled and They came swooping in. The baby didn't move or make a noise. He liked it, its silence. Momma called the baby Zoe and laid her in what was left of Bianca.

After Zoe, two more babies came. They came at the same time, one after another, their screaming and mamma's screaming causing him to rip at his ears again. They took the babies and stitched his ears and he never saw little Maria or Maribel again.

After that, no more babies came. But He kept hurting momma in that way, the way she said made them.

Momma got sick after Maria and Maribel went away. She barely sang anymore.

When momma wouldn't move or speak and the darkness settled in, Nico would bury his small face in her bloody lap and stare at where he last saw Bianca. Sometimes he could swear he saw her bones move. Other times he thought he heard Zoe crying.

He woke up the time momma went to sleep for good and found Bianca's bones laying around him and momma. They were white and sharp and not gooey anymore. What was left of Zoe's little arm was with them, far far away from where he saw them last.

Nico screamed and crying and tried to wake momma. Cried so loud They came down. Cried worse when even They couldn't wake her up. 

He dragged him up those steps he had never dared touch before and through hallways he had never seen and into the little space he now called his room. A bucket was placed in there. 

Sometimes he wake up and find a bone in the corner. They reminded him of Bianca's. 

They didn't know where they were coming from. They said to ignore them. They said they would go away.

And they did, sometimes. They'd disappear and he would think he was safe and then they'd be back.

/\/\/\/\/\/\

¨Are you sure They saw them, too?¨ Will asked. ¨There´s such things as hallucinations. Your brain can make things up if it´s hurt or sick.¨

Nico rolled his head around against the padded wall. His black hair stuck to it.

¨Your brain could be a little sick,¨ Dr. Solace offered. ¨It happens to the best of us.¨

Nico dug it in his knees and started to rock. His bones seemed to be fighting to escape his skin.

¨They saw them. They saw them. They made me promise not to tell.¨