Page 36 of Kadra: The Unfeeling

Past

“Mikey, don’t touch that.” I grabbed my little brother’s much smaller hand in mine, stopping him from picking up the dirty syringe off the ground. Mikhail is a curious kid and thinks of our time on the streets as this big and great adventure when in reality it is a nightmare to us and a punishment to Papa.

“Papa is not here, Tali.” My little brother who looks nothing like Vlad and I, says with a big smile on his face and a light in his eyes none of us except him possess. While Vlad and I had seen and lived in darkness no kid should ever have to, Mikhail was sheltered from it all by both of us. Much to my father’s dismay.

“Just because Papa is not here, does not mean you can do as you please and put yourself in danger, brat.” I gently reprimand my little brother.

Mikhail frowns, his big doe brown eyes like mama’s water like every time he doesn’t get his way.

Sighing, I grip his hand affectionately. The softness was beaten and taken away from me in the most brutal of ways yet I’m able to muster affection for Mikhail. He’s a sweet soul. I remember our mother telling both Vlad and I that. How we should always look out for her little prince. The boy that looked just like her and nothing like Papa. The boy who was the shiniest star in our mother’s sky.

Not us.

We reminded her of the dark.

The darkness Papa was in her life.

“Come on, brat.” I hold onto my brother and walk towards the back alley that is currently our home till Papa and Vlad come back from doing business. Whenever they’re both gone, I’m in charge and I’m supposed to stay hidden and away from the bums who surround this area but it’s almost impossible when Mikhail slips away chasing useless dreams and forces me to step out of the shadows to follow him. That’s what happened now and what will continue to happen because that is who he is. A dreamer. A light. I’m the shadow and the darkness that follows making sure that light shines bright. “Well, lookie here. I didn’t know there were two of you.” A sleazy voice whispers, making me stop dead and my body locks tight.

No…

It all happens so fast that I’m helpless to fight it.

I was so lost in the haunting memories while looking at the man with the red thin hair and dirty clothes with the ugly smile that fooled me once, I didn’t notice Mikhail’s tiny hand slip from mine. The demons hold me hostage while my world is slowly crumbling into tiny pieces around me.

I spent half my life protecting my brother from the same darkness that consumed me and it only took one second to break the promise we made to our mother.

Finding the strength to break free from the paralyzing fear that took hold of me, I turned away from the man and looked all around me frantically for my brother. I run and scream his name until my throat gives out. He’s nowhere to be found.

I searched everywhere.

The alley.

I search every carton box he used to think of as tiny houses but he’s not in any either.

I searched for him well into the night and when Papa and Vlad came back we searched some more but Mikhail was nowhere to be found.

That day was the last day I ever saw my brother and the man who appeared out of nowhere both times in my life and made a nightmare of it.

Papa carried on as if nothing ever happened which made me hate him a little bit more but not more than I hated myself for failing my brother. Vlad too never stopped looking but he did change the way he looked at me. I saw it in his black eyes.

The pain and the disappointment.

My hero was disappointed in me and it cut deep. So deep I keep bleeding for years to come.

But I never lost hope. I lost everything else except that because the moment I lose hope is when I accept Mikhail is gone forever and that’s a pain I’m not able to bear.

But then in my search for my brother, I found something else.

Someone who made the pain in my heart bearable.

Someone who painted the world golden for me, washing away all the black and gray without ever realizing it.

My little piece of heaven in this cruel and dark land.

* * *

Mikhail.

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