chapter 18

I stood shocked... that boy... the one I had long forgotten... was Dean. I couldn't believe it.

Dean stood nervously shuffling in place. His nervous actions started resembling that of the boy. Looking again at his bright blue eyes, they did resemble David's that I already knew but I couldn't believe I was not able to connect the dots the first time I spoke to him.

I slowly walked to him, Dean didn't move. He looked more and more nervous the closer I got. Finally reaching him, I embraced him and he hugged back breathing a sigh of relief as we connected. As we hugged my eyes wandered to his back, I could feel some ridges through his shirt...The scars. It really was him...I finally let my guard down, feeling completely safe in his hands.

"I forgot you... I'm sorry" I whispered into his ear, not breaking the hug.

"It's ok, at least you remember me now..." he said now looking into my eyes with a small smile.

I suddenly became conscious of how close our faces... No... how close we were. I think I had a thing for long hugs.

I smiled back moving away, wiping away the single tear that threatened to fall. I hated seeming weak, Dean however didn't seem to care. He was a ball of tears, talking about how much he missed me and had never forgotten me while pulling me into another hug. I guess he liked long hugs too, I thought to myself smiling

After finally calming down Dean proceeded to tell me his story, and it wasn't a happy one.

"My dad was by all accounts a monster. He kept me and my brother in a cage in his lab running multiple tests on us. It was torture. I don't even know what the tests were for! I doubted he actually cared about us, I mean he named us One and Two! It started out simple, small test, but as we grew they got more and more painful and cruel and there was an increasingly maddened look in his eyes when he looked at us. He would often give us painful punishment or hurt us just to see how much we could endure...And we could endure a lot. My memory is always blurry but the clearest one is the memory of the day I escaped. That day my father had taken my brother, One into a different room and all I heard were screams of pain. That was usual but the screams were louder, and whatever he was doing took long. I had cried the entire time, because I couldn't help my brother I only imagine what was being done to him and what would be done to me.

The screams went on for hours until One was returned to him in a bloody mess. Father was about to put him back in the cage when he heard a noise from outside the lab. He just dropped One's unmoving body square on the floor like he was nothing and hurried to the source of the noise. I whispered to my brother, to check if he was ok, but he remained unmoving. I was scared that he was going to die, even if I knew it would be sweet relief I could not imagine going through all that by myself, however, there was nothing I could do so I just cried. Suddenly my brother's body began moving, it was slow and twitching but movement nonetheless. I was relieved

I waited in silent distress as my brother rose from the bloody pool that had formed on the floor and tried desperately to limp to a close bye desk to support himself. Once he steadied himself he locked eyes with me. I felt something break in me when I saw the look in my brother's eyes. That soulless look. We stared at each other, unblinkingly before One turned his bruised battered face to the desk he was leaning on, and there, shining like a firefly in a black void was the key to my cage.

As quickly as possible One grabbed the key and rushed to the cage. He stumbled over almost everything in his path and ended up crawling to the cage but still in a quick manner. He fumbled with the key a bit as his hands seemingly went numb but eventually, he got hold of his bearings and opened the door. I jumped out, ignoring my own pain as I knew One felt much worse. I tried to hug him but my hands were slapped away.

"No time for that Two... you need to escape now!" one had said in labored breaths, clearly struggling to breathe.

"What?, Why just me... we can make it together" I pleaded, I did not like the resigned look on his bruised face.

" Look at me, I won't be able to keep up or help... If anything I'll just get us caught. You need to leave me here"

My eyes watered as I shook my head hearing this..." No, please"

One took my hands and gave me a brave smile... Silently pleading with me to trust him and leave. I was about to protest more when I heard our father, coming back. One must have heard it too because he roughly pushed me away and shouted at me to leave. I backed away slowly, then hurried to the small window in the room. It was really small and only fit his head, but it was the only exit. I stuck my head through and had to dislocate my shoulder so that the rest of me could fit. It hurt so much but I knew it didn't compare to a fraction of the pain my father but me through, and it wouldn't compare to whatever he planned to do. So I endured the pain and finally squeezed through landing outside. I was firstly blinded by the sun having never been exposed to direct sunlight.

I looked away turning back to the window I had escaped from to see my brother looking back at him with tear-stained eyes, mouthing out "Good luck to him". I was about to respond but the door burst open and before I could even see the look on Father's face I took off running. I only heard shouts from him warning me to come back and a pained cry from One, who I guessed had been hit, but I didn't slow down or turned back until I reached the forest where I hid from Father who tried for months to find me but I hid well never let him or anybody see me."

Hearing Dean's story, I felt an odd sense of solidarity with him. Our stories were mildly similar. Abused by a parent... leaving a brother behind. Though Dean's story was obviously more tragic. The worst part of it was it all happened when he was five, which meant that Dean spent the next five years in the forest. We were the same age so it was easy to create a timeline of events. It wasn't hard for me to imagine what it must have been like and how he had felt.

Now that I remembered, he was really skinny and boney back then, and it made sense that he didn't talk, maybe he forgot how after so many years alone.

"Wait then where did you go? And how are you here now?" I asked because the question now was why did he disappear and how did he become Dean. what happened?

A soft smile appeared on his face as he told me the second part of his story