Chapter: 4

Clearance:

When Abraham came out of father's room with whip marking, I instantly new that our father was a dangerous person. He had no remorse for foolishness, but I mostly felt sorry for Abraham he didn't deserve that whooping. I wanted to understand though why he'd lie for Simon?

I didn't ask him though because I was so afraid that he wasn't gonna look at me the same anymore. He wasn't gonna protect me like he always did. Abraham was the only person I could rely on to make everything better. He was considerate, kind and empathetic. He had no animosity against me, like my other brothers. Him picking me up to protect me from that mermaid when it tried to attack us, proved to me that he actually did care about me. Maybe that was just part of who he was, he was always protective over us and he would take the beating to protect anyone, even a Simon for that matter.

"This is your fault, if you didn't become so persistent in ruining our lives, non of this would have happened." Simon whispered it in my ears.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, appalled. His contempt of me was Insidious.

"Yeah, from today going forward you'll sleep on the kitchen floor and guard rats. We can't have you sleeping in our room." Daniel added. It was like non of them cared if I died or not, they just felt superior than me. Abraham didn't even look at me. He stared away, going to our room to make his bed.

" Don't look at him, you want him to take another beating for you?" David asked watching me, in aggravation.

"I'm going to tell dad!" I said.

"Go ahead and see what will happen? And wipe those sissy tears, dad doesn't like seeing any of his boys crying!" Samson said, him being the older guy and being more brutal was weird.

It felt like a salt to a wound seeing all of them talking against me. Non of them saw me as one of their brothers, in that moment I felt alone. Was I really an outsider in my own home? This might have been what it felt like for Ganuku to live in this house, he always felt like an outcast. They probably always looked at him like he had a leprosy too. These people were outrageous.

I tried to avoid them, I followed Abraham to our room, to make my own bed. (We slept in bunk beds. We had three bunk beds: Abraham way sharing his with Samson, David was sharing with Daniel and I was sharing mine with Simon.)

Simon followed me and he aggressively shoved me away from the bed and out of our room.

"What are you doing?" I asked, but he closed the door behind me before I could even protest.

My other brothers made their way to our room and avoided me. I tried to follow them, but they blocked me on the door way, "Go and sleep on the kitchen floor, if our father will attack us because of you, you don't need to be around us anymore. Just go and sleep on the floor!" Samson said. He hushed with contemptuous stare. He was a sassy boy, but non of that did matter to me, I just wanted to find my bed and sleep in peace.

Simon came holding an old looking sponge with blankets, they looked like they came from hell.

"Another thing you should find out is that this was Ganuku's sleeping bed. He slept outside, on one of the back rooms. If you don't take this now, we'll tell dad that you're crying and he will make you sleep outside to toughen you up. Take!" He shoved them on me, before he closed the door aggressively.

I took them and made a slow walk to the kitchen. It was dark and scary. I kept thinking that maybe I wasn't gonna find something sinister there and it wasn't gonna terrify me. I was thinking about the rats and roaches, I placed Ganuku's sponge on the floor, but my heart still ached. I couldn't believe that my own brothers were doing this to me. I continued to make my bed on the floor, I had to be strong.

When I laid the blankets, I felt that there was something there. I tried to look at what it was, it looked like a snake. I pushed myself away from it, I now had something to fear. This thing wasn't there when I took the blankets from Ganuku, or I didn't notice. It was dark and I wasn't seeing clearly. I saw someone standing behind me and pulled myself away trying to scream, but my voice was muffled. It muted.

The boy looked the same age as me. He had these bulging eyes, he looked like a ghost. In fact he was a ghost. He hushed me, but I went to the sponge and I covered myself with the blankets, I didn't know why this was happening? Why God, why?

"I'm the silver lining to your dark cloud." The boy said. All your problems will vanish if you let me in?" His voice was haunting, I had never head anything like it, in my whole entire life. Maybe this was the day when I was gonna die, I was going to die in the hands of a ghost.

I did not even attempt to speak, I just kept silent and praying that it would go away.

"I am Ganuku." The boy said.

In that moment my soul shattered, my eyes welled up with tears. I didn't know what to say. I opened the blankets slowly and I looked at the boy who was standing right in front of me. He did resemble my features, he looked like me, but his silhouette was bigger, than mine.

"I thought you were dead?" I whispered to him.

"My physical body is dead, but my spirit remains. My spirit can't go anywhere if they don't perform a ritual to bury me properly. My soul is wondering around, that the result of a premature death. Don't worry, I'll explain everything to you" He said.

That left me puzzled and confused, my dead brother was always here.