This is my first contribution and I will continue this story with more volumes written on my free time. They will be uploaded volume by volume. Any feedback will be appreciated so I can improve on my writing and the story itself. English is not my main language, so I apologize for any misspellings or incorrect sentences I may have written.
The distribution or copy of this text is prohibited unless you have my previous authorisation.
Volume One
Chapter One
It was raining. The sky was preparing a perfect atmosphere for the news that were about to come. The lights at the cold room were flickering with that yellowish tonality, as the phone started to ring. Tina answered. "How did it go? Please, tell me he's alright... Please..."
"Tina... I'm... I'm sorry. We have done all that was in our hands..." said a voice through the phone, "Brad has passed away, his wounds were too..." Tina hang up the phone. She sat on the chair that rested side to side with the wood table upon which the phone was now quiet, as tears started to caress her cheeks. She gave a glance on the crib with the slept baby that had no more than a few weeks. Poor child. She stood up, and approached to the baby. She caressed the hair and face of that little hazel haired angel. "It seems we are alone, now, Chris... I won't let you walk alone on this world." She undid her nurse uniform and let it fall on the floor, feeling the cold winter night deep on her nude skin. She grabbed her dark blue dress, which rested upon one of the empty beds and her blue cloche hat, and dressed to leave from that hell of a place. She had to do it fast, since if she got caught the baby would be taken by the government. Carefully, she put Chris on the portable bassinet in which they had brought him – kind of heavy – and, putting some extra robe over it, she grabbed her umbrella and her coat. Before leaving, she took a glance to that room in which she almost had lived 24 hours a day for many years. That week... maybe they won the war, but she had lost the two most important people in her life... and now she had to take care of the one who surely would become the third.
Chapter Two: Chris
I opened my eyes and I found myself covered by the blankets of my bed, looking at the ceiling of my room. I felt like if someone had been playing pool, and my head had been the ball. Touching every inch around me, I tried to get my alarm clock on my bedside table, just to find out I had been sleeping all day. It was 16:00 on the afternoon.
"I know I always say it, but I won't have another alcohol drink on my hands for years, I swear," I thought to myself. I turned on the light with the switch next to the bedside table, which gave me a first glance of my room. At least at first sight, after my birthday party, it seems that I got to my bed without breaking anything... though I remember not much at all from the night before. I stood up slowly, and looked at the mirror that I had on the wall at the feet of my bed, just to see if I looked decent so I could avoid to hear my mom yelling at me for being so irresponsible.
My face and skin looked pale, as it used to, but the bags under my eyes betrayed my history of being a good boy. My short dark brown hair was a little bit tossed, but not anymore than the hair of anyone who would have been sleeping all night – and all day. My beard, of the same color, was in its perfect length – I try always to shave so I leave it long enough to make the impression it has been shaved like two or three days ago, even if it means shaving a little bit every two days.
I turned a little, just to show myself my side so I could see the gut that had been there the last couple of years. Forcing it so it would get bigger, I grabbed it with both hands and gave it some slaps. It was not a huge belly, but for sure it wasn't sexy. Maybe if I kept the promise of not drinking anymore alcohol it would disappear or, at least, it would do it faster. In this view, however, with my pyjamas' blue trousers having a morning wood, whatever my body would look like I wouldn't be sexy at all.
I put the pyjamas' shirt that was upon the bed on, turned off the light and left my room, closing the door behind me so my mom wouldn't see the mess. I walked fast all along the corridor to the bathroom – I didn't want to find my mom face to face with a hard on my pants – and I relaxed while trying to remember something from the night before. The only thing that came to my mind were some flashes of my drink on my hand and... nothing else. I closed the bathroom door, once inside.
My angry mom was waiting behind the bathroom door when I opened it, with her arms crossed and her black dress-like pyjama on. She was young – in fact was the youngest mother of all those that I've actually knew, and the prettiest, too – , only seventeen years older than me.
She was a little bit shorter than me – just half a handspan, and I was like 1.75 meters, so she would be about 1.65 meters in height. Her long black hair, curly at the tips, fell covering her upper body until the height of her D cup breast nipples, that were hard because of the cold temperatures of that time of the year, and visible through the cotton clothing and resting upon her arms. She was fit, with wide hips that would have been the main focus of her entire body along with her breasts if it wasn't for her fleshy lips, reddish even when the rest of her skin was as pale as mine was. Her face right now, however, wasn't very pleasing.
"What are you looking at? Do you think this is an inn? Do you think it's normal to wake up now, the day of your birth, a day you're supposed to spend with your family?" she said frowned.
"Well I... I was tired of..."
"Yes! I know very well this answer! Always tired. You don't seem so tired when your friends ask you to go out!" Her words were stabbing my head with each syllable. She turned and started to go downstairs, "Anyway, the TV seems to be broken. Take a look at it!" finished yelling from the distance.
Since I was a child, I've always loved technology and all that it embraces, so in order to be able to make my own projects, I read almost every book I had the chance to read about. As a result, I had to take care of nearly everything that had a plug on it if it stopped working.
I went down through the stairs, passed the kitchen door where my mom was doing something I had no interest in, and arrived to the dining room. The TV was on a small table, a few meters in front of the sofa. I took the screwdriver that was inside the first drawer of the table, and started to unscrew the TV back. Then, someone ringed the door.
"Don't worry, I'll open the door, I wouldn't like you to do anything that would mean an effort to you," she said, clearly angry.
I saw her walking to the main door with what it seemed a glass of water on her hand, while I was kneeled in front of the TV. Before opening the door, she took a gulp of the liquid and let the glass upon the entrance hall table. She opened the door.
The TV wasn't damaged, at least at a first sight. The main cable was simply disconnected from the power connector. However, before touching anything, I had to discharge the device's accumulated electricity, so as not to get electrocuted. I stood up and went to the
bear room
, next to the kitchen – we called it that way because as a child, I had a teddy bear which was always on the washing machine as I got dirty very often. I needed to take a jumper cable and gloves, so I opened the toolbox and started to search for them.
"... you know we have our methods, Tina. And you know you are in debt with us," a male voice at the door was speaking.
"I don't care any of the bullshit you say! You won't enter in our lives, so get the fuck out of here!"
"Tina, don't make us do it the hard way... We've been waiting so much for this moment, and you know it. His father started this and he..."
"Fuck you, Charles!"
"Does he know it?"
"Get - the fuck - out!" After yelling this, I heard how the door closed furiously.
I stuck out my head from the bear room, looking at my mom.
"Mom? Is everything alright?"
She turned and looked at me.
"Yes, darling... everything is..." but she stopped as a paper went through under the door. "Everything is alright, babe. Is the TV repaired already?"
Without waiting for me to answer, she picked the paper on the floor and went to the stairs. She looked at me.
"Chris, c'mon, babe. Everything's alright. Just someone that I hadn't seen in years, and it wasn't expected for him to come right now. Just... just forget it, ok? I'm ok... I will be on my room, I need to rest a little."
She came to me and, suddenly, she kissed my forehead.
"Happy birthday, darling."
Chapter Three: Tina
Chris was looking at me with that confused face with which he used to look at me when he didn't understand something when he was a child. However, he was so clever right now that I couldn't remember the last time I saw it. I grabbed the paper on the floor, and I headed for the stairs. Chris was still looking at me.
