#bofwc

“What happened?” She let herself fall on the chair the man who was talking to her had grabbed and place behind her. He had introduced himself, but she had forgotten his name. The only thing that kept repeating in her head was the first thing he had said. I’m sorry, Camille. Your parents and brother died in the Dauntless attack on Abnegation. She kept shaking her head. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. As much as she was happy here in Candor, as much as she had always stood behind her decision to transfer to another faction, they were still her family. Faction over Blood suddenly didn’t mean a lot when you got these kind of messages

“You heard about what happened, haven’t you?” The man didn’t stop talking about what happened in general. Yes, of course she had heard what happened. Of course she had heard what Erudite had made Dauntless do. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “With them, I mean. I want to know how they died.” She didn’t know if she wanted to hear it, but she had to. She knew she had to know it, she knew she couldn’t rest before she had heard the truth. Even when it would hurt her, and she didn’t doubt it would. “I want to know it. I need to know it!”

She felt a glass of water begin pressed in her hands, and automatically she started to take a few sips, before she realized what they were doing. “I don’t need to be calmed down! I need to know what happened! I need the truth!” She looked up, watching him in the eye, and she saw he didn’t know if he should tell her. “Is it that bad?” He nodded, grabbing another chair and sitting opposite her. “They didn’t have a chance...” She pressed her lips together. She wouldn’t cry when he was still there. How could they have had a chance? If there were people believing in turning the other cheek, it was them.

“They were among the first. They just... they just took them and shot them...” She looked at the man who seemed to have trouble to tell it. His voice started to break, and suddenly he stood up, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry Camille...” He turned around and walked away, silently closing the door behind him. She stared into nothingness, seeing her parents at the dinner table, like they had been the night before the Choosing. Her brother was there as well, and when she looked back at that night, she was sure they had known she would go.

She had never been back. She had seen them once or twice after that Choosing Ceremony, but she had her life here, she had been happy to be away, and there hadn’t been much contact anymore between her and her family. Faction over Blood, after all. And now they were gone. All of them. She couldn’t restrain herself anymore, and suddenly she started crying, wishing she had visited them now and then. Wishing she had managed to be so honest with them to tell them she did love them. Now it was too late. All because some Erudite leader thought she knew what was best for the city. All because those Dauntless soldiers were too trained to be stopped.

"I'm going to make dinner," he lied easily, forcing a smile for his father.

"Fill me up while you're in there, Stefan," the man slurred, and Stefan took his glass before he quickly left the room. 

The truth was, Stefan had no intention of cooking dinner. He had no idea how to make anything like Damon or his dad could, and the fact that his father had bought his blatant lie so easily just confirmed Stefan's suspicions about how drunk he was already. Stefan wasn't cooking, no, but he did have a plan. And now was as good a time as any to execute it. 

He grabbed his stool from the small wooden table in the corner of the room, dragging it over to where he knew they kept the first aid kit. He scaled the stool, trying to balance as it wobbled dangerously beneath him. His mission was successful, though, and he scrambled down as quickly as he'd gotten up there, opening the kit and producing what he needed. Sleeping pills. His dad sometimes used them, and Stefan knew that one of these could knock the man out for hours.

Willing to do almost anything to avoid a beating, Stefan quickly opened the small bottle and tipped the tiny pills into the palm of his hand. It was the entire bottle, but being young and unknowing to the dangers of too much medication with alcohol, Stefan quickly dropped them into his father's glass, filling the glass up with whiskey and waiting for the pills to dissolve before delivering the concoction to his father. That would keep him out long enough for him and Damon to pack their things and get far away enough from the house that he would never find them again. 

___

Two days later Stefan and Damon were found in an abandoned building in the city by a couple of Dauntless guards and promptly taken back to Abnegation. Stefan squirmed with anxiety the whole way there, his little heart racing in his chest at the scene he knew he was going to have to face. His father would be furious that Stefan had drugged him, and the punishment he would get for doing something like that and then running away would undoubtedly be the worst one yet. And Damon would be punished too, even though none of it was his fault. All he ever did was keep Stefan safe.

They arrived in their faction, but they weren't taken home like Stefan thought they would. Instead they were taken to the leader of their faction, where Damon was whisked away before Stefan could say a word, and Stefan was put in a bare, empty room by himself. 

What was going on? Where did they take Damon? Why wasn't his dad here? The questions were eating away at the young boy, and his anxiety only grew. Feeling overwhelmed, and scared to see his father, Stefan began to cry. It was only a moment before he was joined in the room by the leader of his faction, Marcus Eaton. Stefan watched him warily as he crouched down in front of him so his gaze met his, but he did feel slightly calmer at his presence. 

"Where's Damon?" Stefan asked him, his voice coming out sounding very small and scared. 

"Damon's talking to a friend of mine," Marcus replied, glancing away before clearing his throat. "Look, Stefan. Damon's done something to your father, and I'm afraid I have some bad news." Stefan stayed quiet, the only thing he could hear was the sound of his heart furiously pounding in his chest. "Your father was killed two days ago, I'm sorry." No. No, no, no. He couldn't be dead. Stefan had only meant to make him sleep for a few hours, not kill him. What about Damon? Damon. 

That was the moment that Stefan's whole world crumbled into tiny little pieces. He immediately closed himself off, refusing to say another word to anybody. Stefan had killed his father and he was never coming back. Before the man was about to leave him, Stefan finally sat up, his face wet with tears he didn't know he'd been crying. "Wait!" he cried, his eyes pleading. "What's going to happen to Damon?"

BOF WRITING CHALLENGE → #1 death of a loved one SUMMARY → tl:dr; #bye SONG → to build a home – the cinematic orchestra

Stiles understood that living in a home with two Dauntless leaders for parents meant that he would sometimes have to stay home alone. For the most part he would put on a brave face and act like being alone in a big loft was no big deal, because that's what Dauntless were supposed to be; brave. Others strived to be the best they could be, but Stiles just wanted to be like his parents.

No matter how exhausted they were after coming home from their patrols or faction meetings, they would always have time for their hyperactive son with a million questions that always seemed to spill out at once. Stiles admired them, he wanted to be like them. Sure he wasn't the most promising student in his year, but props had to be given for his dedication to his training.

Still though, the concept of being alone in a big old loft was daunting for an eight year old, as brave faced as he tried to be. Stiles had never realised it at the time, but when people like Liz Forbes or the older kids Stiles admired would hang out with him they had come because Stiles' mother had asked them to look out for him.

On the night everything had changed for him, he was staying at his best friend Caroline's house for the night with her and her mother. Where other kids might have found movies or games to play at night to keep them busy, Stiles and Caroline would train. The concept of hitting a girl wasn't really something he worried about, mostly because he could never get a clean hit in anyway. Nine times out of ten their fights would end with Stiles pinned to the ground crying 'uncle' before Caroline twisted his arm back too far.

"Don't gloat too much, Caroline. I'll get you one day." He huffed with a grin as he pushed himself into a sitting position and stretched out his arm. She had only laughed and rolled her eyes at him, muttering a 'whatever' before she headed for the bathroom.

That was how Stiles had spent a lot of his nights, they would do their homework, have something to eat, train til they were exhausted, and he'd pass out until his mother or father came to pick him up. Only this time they didn't. Stiles wanted to show them a new move he had learnt in his self defence class and wanted to wait up for them, naturally he made Caroline stay up with him. It was bordering on midnight when he heard the knock at the door and ran out of Caroline's room towards the front door, stopping in his tracks when he saw Mrs. Forbes talking to someone that definitely wasn't his parents. He recognised them as one of the Dauntless trainers. Stiles would have immediately walked back to the room if he hadn't caught the look on their face when they saw him standing in the hall.

He heard Caroline's footsteps behind him but didn't turn to face her, his gaze still fixated on the person in the doorway. He couldn't hear what they were saying and he knew he shouldn't be trying to eavesdrop but he found himself rooted to the floor, a sinking feeling in his stomach telling him something bad had happened. When the door closed Caroline moved towards her mother who still hadn't turned to face them and tugged on her arm. "Ms Forbes are you okay?" Stiles asked her as he walked from the shadows towards her. He didn't like the look on Caroline's face when she saw her mothers expression and immediately stopped in his tracks when he saw for himself. Caroline's mother was someone he had never seen cry or look sad, and here she was with red-rimmed eyes and a broken expression. For him.

"Stiles... honey. I-it's your mother." He didn't like the tone of her voice, or the way tears began to fall from his eyes before he even knew what she was trying to say.

"She died."

The next few moments would live on as a blur to him. He had suddenly felt it difficult to breathe and fell to his knees, tears streaming freely down his face. He barely registered Mrs. Forbes crouching down in front of him to wrap her arms around him and saw Caroline over her shoulder though he couldn't see her properly because of the tears clouding his eyes. He felt hollow, confused, disbelieving. Death wasn't a concept he understood properly, but he knew what those two words meant.

When you're a child you believe you're parents are invincible, they were always supposed to be around to yell at your when your shirt wasn't tucked in, to kiss you on the cheek in public and embarrass you in front of your friends, to hug you out of the blue because they knew it's just what you needed. When you're a child you believe they're always going to be there. The realisation that his mother wouldn't be hit him hard, like someone had dropped a two tonne weight on his chest. He couldn't sob or yell or find the strength to push her away because he couldn't breathe. Both Liz and Caroline were trying to calm him down but nothing worked. His head was spinning and the weight on his chest just kept getting heavier.

In a burst of anger, he pushed them both aside and ran for the door, ignoring both their calls for him as he sprinted down the halls faster than he had ever run before. He heard one of them trying to catch up to him, he couldn't tell who because he soon lost them around the narrow hallways.

She's not dead, they're at home. They're at home, they're waiting for me. He repeated over and over in his head like a mantra, his short legs taking his faster than he ever realised he could run and soon saw the door to their home. They're waiting– He shouldered their front door open and ran inside, breathing heavily as he ran from room to room. "Mom! Dad! I'm home!" He cried out loud, the tears already dry on his face. "Mom!"

He ran into his bedroom thinking that they were waiting for him there only to find it just the way he had left it earlier. "Mom! Where are you I want to show you something." His tone had come down a notch, from anxious to exhausted, exhausted to defeated. "Mom?" He pushed open the door to his parents room, expecting to see them sleeping in their bed but knowing in his heart that it was only wishful thinking. The tears had started streaming down his face again, this time he didn't bother to wipe them away as he crawled onto his mothers side of the bed and cried, holding her pillow close as if he were holding onto her herself.

His tears had dried by the time the door creaked open again, a few moments passing before Stiles felt the bed dip on the other side and immediately rolled over to wrap his arms around his father and clung to him. Neither of them shed any tears, though their eyes showed that they had shed them already.

These last few months had been very hectic for her mother. She was only home a few hours a day at most and sometimes she stayed in Erudite over the night. Eleanora was starting to get worried. The only thing her mother seemed to be able to talk about was how the government was about to change and for the better. She got odd vibes from it. Rumours had began to spread around Erudite and amongst her friends, but she doubted all of them. It was damn near impossible for Erudite to overthrow Abnegation, and why would somebody even try that to begin with? There was peace now, wasn't there?

Nora flew up from the chair she was sitting on when the sudden ringing of the telephone sounded almost throughout their entire house. She pressed her jaws together firmly, assuming it to be her mother. She was angry to say the least. She hurried over to the phone, picked it up and was just about to open her mouth to spew out unpleasantries when she heard an unfamiliar voice on the other side of the line.

"Is this the Matthews' household?" the unknown person asked. Uh oh. She took a deep breath, getting even more worried when it wasn't her mother. She would've contacted Nora by now, she would've made up some silly excuse for her absence and try to make it up to Nora with materialistic things. As always. She almost couldn't bring herself to answer, she just stood there, clinging onto the phone with trembling hands.

"Y-Yes, this is Eleanora.." she managed to reply. A long sigh could be heard on the other side and Nora leaned against the wall, her heart pounding hard in her chest. "What is it?" Nora demanded. Her face had now flushed in a deep crimson color and she silently stomped her foot against the floorboards impatiently. It felt as if time were beginning to slow down and she gritted her teeth, growing weary quite quickly.

"Your mother, Jeanine Matthews? She's passed away. This is Doctor--..." The voice faded out.

The grip on the phone loosened and it fell out of her hand, landing on the hard floor. She couldn't hear if the screen cracked or not. It probably did. She didn't care. The only thing she could hear was the loud sound of her pounding heart, ringing in her ears. Her mother was dead. Tears welled up in her eyes just as she, for the first time, felt her heart being torn to shreds in her chest. She let out a long, painful wail, her cheeks immediately getting stained with salty tears. Her mother was dead.

She could feel her knees getting weak, everything was fading away. Her chest began to pump searing pain throughout her body and she let out a loud scream, hysterically grabbing onto anything she could get her hands on and smashing it on the floor. She rummaged through every drawer, every cupboard until she collapsed on her knees in the middle of her room.

Her face was covered by her red, bruised and slightly bloody hands while she sobbed into them. Nora's body was shaking violently because of the physical toll she had just put herself through, but it had numbed the pain inside of her slightly. Destroying things made her feel better. She just hoped that this wouldn't end up with her eventually destroying herself, because that felt like the only thing she could do.

“He what?” He was still trying to escape the strong hands grabbing him, forcing him to walk back to the place he never wanted to see again, the place he had hoped they had left for good, but one thing among all that the men had said had landed. “My father’s dead?” He shook his head, not wanting to believe it. He couldn’t be dead. His father would always be there, he couldn’t be gone so suddenly. He thought back at that night, two days ago, when he had come home.

He had opened the door, carefully, like he always did. He never knew if his father would be home, if he had been drinking again, if he would be in one of his moods. If that was the case, he always tried to slip past him, taking little Stefan with him, to stay out of sight. If that wasn’t possible... he shuddered, involuntarily rubbing his shoulder, where he had hit the wall yesterday night after his father had lost his patience again. He didn’t know what to expect this time, but what he saw surprised him. His brother, apparently ready to leave the house, his father slumped at the table, his head resting on the wood, barely breathing.

“But... he was still breathing when we left...” The hands hurt him, but it didn’t matter how much he tried to wriggle out of them, there were too many, they were too strong. “STEFAN!” He called out for his brother, but he could see that they had found him as well, that they were bringing him back as well, although they weren’t as rough with the little boy as they were with him. “Don’t act like you don’t know what happened.”, one of the men said to him, but he really didn’t know, didn’t understand what they were talking about. He hadn’t been dead when they had left, hadn’t he?

He had walked over to the table, carefully, but that caution hadn’t been necessary. He only saw his father totally knocked out. He still had his glass in his hand, but the breathing was different when he was just passed out because he had drunken too much. Damon had seen that too often. He shot a look at his brother, the child standing there, ready to leave the house, ready to take more action than Damon had ever dared to.

“He’s really dead?” He finally looked the man dragging him in the eye, maybe showing a bit more relief than he should have. Yes, the man had been his father, but he had also been the man making his life a living hell, making sure he was never able to call his house his home, making sure that for the last ten years, he hadn’t been able to be a child, only the protector of his brother. He immediately regretted doing that, because the only thing it brought was that the hands gripping him tighter, was that people told him not to be happy because someone died, was that people told him he’d pay for it. He? Why he? He hadn’t done anything, hadn’t he? “But...”

He had run towards his brother, telling him he wasn’t going to leave alone, that he would take care of him, like he had always done. Together they had been able to survive their father. Together they could take on the entire world. Together they left the house. Before closing the door, Damon shot a look back, back into the building where he had lived. Looked one last time at the man he couldn’t stop call father, the man who scared him more than anything in this world could possibly do. Then he closed the door, leaving his old life behind him. He didn’t know what his new life would be, but it couldn’t be worse than this one had been. At least he would have his brother with him. He walked over to Stefan, grabbed his hand, and ran off to safety.

His feet were walking. Left Right Left Right Left Right. They were following a strict rhythm. A strict rhythm that wasn’t his. His hands were holding a gun. It felt cold and heavy, but he had it pressed against his chest. No matter how much he tried to put it down, he simply couldn’t. 

He knew where he was going. His feet started running, his hands grabbed the train, opened the door and one second later he was standing in line. His father in front of him, his mother behind him. Everyone had the same empty look in his eyes. Everyone had that same lifeless expression on their face. Everyone was holding his gun in the same way as he did.

He knew where the train was going. It had been going there the last three-hundred-twenty-seven times he had been going through his fear landscape. It would probably be there for the rest of his life, for the next thousand tries and the next thousand and the next thousand.

His feet started walking again, jumping out of the train. His body was rolling, not caring about the sand in his hair, the breaking sunglasses, the bleeding nose. His knees pushed him up again and his legs started running, faster and faster, nearer and nearer towards the simple grey houses of Abnegation.

His fists were knocking on the door. His voice was screaming and yelling. He had no idea what he was saying. He only knew it were words he didn’t want to say. He knew that he didn’t want to be here. He wanted to turn around, wanted to go back home, go back to bed. 

When the door opened, his hand grabbed the neck of a girl. She must be around his age. Her eyes widened, her mouth screamed, but he didn’t feel anything. His ears were deaf for her begging. His heart was numb for her fear. No matter how much his brain screamed that this was wrong, that everything about this was wrong, he couldn’t stop it.

He dragged the girl with him, forcing her to sit down on her knees. His arms were lifting the gun, pointing at her forehead. The usual tremble wasn’t there. His hand was steady, certain, as if it knew exactly what to do. He felt how his finger pulled the trigger, until there was nothing but a loud bang. 

In front of him was the lifeless body of the girl. There was blood. There was a huge wound between his eyes. Jackson was screaming, but his lips didn’t scream along. He had killed a girl and he would kill another one and another one and another one. Until whoever controlled him would decide that it was enough, that it was over.

Jackson took a deep breath, without his lungs breathing along. He knew what to do. He didn’t want to do it, but he knew that he had no other choice, he had to do it anyway. Giving in. He couldn’t do anything but giving in. Giving in to whoever was controlling him. Accepting that whatever he was doing, wasn’t him. Knowing that he couldn’t change this, that he didn’t have to change this.

He opened his eyes. His entire body was sweating. His hands were trembling. It was a good thing that no-one saw him like this. It was a good thing that no-one stood up this early to do what Jackson was doing. It was a good thing that only a Whittemore would go through his landscape every day over and over again, only to see if he was improving. 

He wasn’t. Jackson Whittemore still had the same fears as he had had during his initiation. The same fears, plus one.

Matt’s hands were sweating and he swallowed, staring at the flower in his hand and the small little cross in front of him. He had made the cross himself and he remembered how he had cried while doing so. 

His lips curled up into a painful smile. No-one knew that this place existed. In his old faction he wasn’t allowed to have anything just for himself. In his new faction they believed in letting the past rest in the past. So he had not told anyone and he didn’t plan to tell anyone. The only people he should maybe tell about this place didn’t even care. Not about him and not about his sister.

“I’m so sorry, Vic.” He bent down and placed the flower on the dirty ground. “I wish I could have done more to help you.”  

He had found her in this spot once. Her eyes red and bloodied, her body trembling and shaking, her lips trying to speak words but just rambling non-sense. She had told him about the strangest things. Maybe those were the things that made her world a little brighter. He would never know. 

People kept on repeating that it wasn’t his fault, that he couldn’t blame himself, that he shouldn’t blame himself. He knew that they were right. He had tried everything he could. He had tried to be her mother, her father, her brother, everything at once. It had not been enough. How could it ever be enough?

Vicki had been dealing with the same crap he had been dealing with. Their life was a unknown father, an addicted absent mother and never being allowed to ask for help. They had to help themselves. He couldn’t blame Vicki for helping herself the way she did, for trying to escape, for reaching out to a world where everything was better, brighter, happier.

He wondered if maybe she had been the happiest of the two of them. He had always imagined that she had died happy. That she had died while being in the world she wanted to be in, with a smile on her face, that she didn’t know that she was leaving the land of the living. Believing that was better than the fear that she had been in pain, afraid, scared, that she had known that she was dying. 

For a short second, after her dead, he had hoped that things would change. That his mother would see that she couldn’t go on like this, that she would be afraid to lose her other child too, that maybe she cared about him, that maybe she would even show that she had cared about Vicki. But nothing had happened, nothing had changed. 

Until he had transferred to Amity. Until he had left all his memories, all his pain, all his worries and sorrows behind. Apart from this one. Apart from Vicki. No matter where he would go, no matter how happy he would be, Vicki would always be with him and he would always be with Vicki.