Brother Dear

This is the second part of the Tokoyo Train.

The will to die can make the most luxurious fancies feel like the ugliest of fires

It's clockwork how days work now,

No, the sunlight doesn't turn a modest shade and no voices don't fade.

The cold shards of wind don't bring cold or hot gushes.

Instead, it's the repetitive phrases that haunt me. 

For me, it's five gunshots that I hear. 

"Miss, your parents? Where are they?"

"Miss?" 

Mr Collin's voice echoes in the cold house. 

I see the late winter noon sunlight fall on the leaves.

I finished writing the research paper I had to send to Dr. Keith a few days ago. 

I walked down to where Mr Collin was standing. 

"Why are you here?" I ask, speaking after days of not uttering a word out of my mouth. 

"Well, the research programme had prize money, you rushed out so fast we couldn't give it to you. I'm here for the same" With that he handed me a box. 

Taking it, I nodded. 

"Your parents? Where are they?"

"They flew back home"

Lie 

"Will they be back to take you back home?"

"No, I'd stay a few days and go by myself"

 Another lie 

***

The apartment my father had bought here was huge, a luxury, people say. 

I have a better name, useless fancy. 

I open the heavy oak wood door into the dead little garden, not paying any heed to it. 

I hurry out, with my feet quiet, a silent rush. The research papers are tucked under my arm. My eyes are covered under shades bigger than my face and my head is covered with a black scarf, passing slightly as an article of fashionable choices instead of being a method of camouflage. 

The laboratory Dr. Keith owns is tucked away, opening in a quiet and small street that lies in a black spot from the busy street on which my father's apartment is. 

As I blend into the crowd of the busy street, a flash of red catches my eyes and I try to find it again but seems it has blended too. 

***

5 hours later, back in my father's apartment, I stare outside from a glass door on the second level, my head killing me, with the banging noises of gunshots. 

I try to focus and find a hint of red, but no, I find nothing. 

An hour later, I return back to my desk, determined to finish business. 

***

I wake up in cold sweats with a jolt. 

Checking the time, it shows 3 in the night. My hands shake wildly as I try to arrange the papers on my desk on which I had fallen asleep. 

I stand on unsteady feet and retrieve my gun which I had taped to the underside of my desk. 

Making my way cautiously downstairs trying to hide the best I could. 

Soon I reach the main door, where, in my nightmare, I had seen the red hooded figure, who had walked up the stairs and had caressed my hair. 

I forget its face every time. But for the past 9 months, it had haunted me. 

 I tuck the gun on the back of my jeans and hide it well with a jacket. 

***

The train stops, and I get down, again on the abandoned musty station. 

This time though, I walk outside, It is almost morning and the sky turns colours. 

There is a car parked near the gate which I had parked earlier. 

I get into it and drive for half an hour before reaching my destination 

My destination is an old warehouse, secluded from any human presence, 10 miles away from an old abandoned city. 

I get inside and am surrounded by the foul smell I had gotten used to. 

I pass the empty welcoming room and retrieve my key for the metal door, which is in a corner. 

On opening the door the smell grows intense and my eyes try to fix the cool blue light. 

This is a big room, where each part of the four walls is guarded by human-sized shelves except for the space where there are two doors. 

And in each of those human-sized shelves is a human, wrapped in plastic. 

These shelves are closed by metal barriers. 

I walk to the next door right in front of me and open the lock to it. 

Inside is a control room, where on one side are a few operating systems and on the other side, three bodies covered in big plastic bags lie huddled on one side. I put in a few passwords and unlock the shelves. The sound of metal sliding against metal fills the building. 

I come back to the shelf room and look around at the forty bodies I have brought here and am proud of. 

The two bodies right beside the door are of two special people. 

I look at their faces, which have almost lost shape. A feeling of nausea fills me and my heart is furious. 

I did not know how much of the time had passed by of me just staring. 

I feel a hand on my shoulder, "Do you think they are happy?" the voice says

"Yes" I reply 

The hand recoils and a red-hooded boy stands next to me.

I look up at his face, nauseated. 

"Because they took mum, you took everyone, why?" he says after a while.

I remain silent, 

"You stole our father's life from him" he shouts now

"He wasn't happy" I struggle to push out words.

"Sadness is not permanent," he says

We stay silent for some time. 

Then he backs away two steps, "You know what, you're a murderer, you steal people's lives while thinking you're doing them a favour, your thoughts are messed up pretty bad up there" he shouts again and then falls to the ground, pulling out his hair while crying. 

I turn back to look at him.

He continues to cry for some time, but after some time
he stops and looks up, he goes dead silent and starts to back away while shaking his head. Words fail to escape his throat as he vigorously shakes his head. 

A gunshot. 

Not for him, but for me. 

He walks out of the warehouse, a gunshot ringing in his head.