whiskey cult

It was January, and beginning to get dark. I was in my room, drawing, and not thinking much about what might have been going on down the hall. I’d spent about half an hour working on the drawing of myself, and then I’d gotten bored and wandered down the hall to find my brother. 

His bedroom door was closed, which I thought nothing of; after all, he was usually hiding out in his room. I’d just knock, and he’d come out and play with me like he always did. I knocked, and nobody responded. Maybe he was wearing headphones, the noise cancelling kind he used to play games. So I knocked a little louder, and then I noticed the little trail seeping out from underneath the door. Could it have been blood? Then I was scared, and pulled the door open; looking back, I realise how lucky I was that our childhood bedrooms didn’t have locks on the doors.

There he was, slumped against the wall in the corner of the room. Blood was pouring from his arms and legs and pooling onto the carpeted floor. I started to sob, and ran into the room as fast as my six-year-old legs would carry me. ‘Finn?’ I nudged his shoulder and he didn’t move, and I panicked. What was I supposed to do? Home alone, with my unconscious brother bleeding out in front of me. 

I thought he was jedded. I really, truly did. When he’d gotten a job as a lifeguard, he’d told me how they’d watch a person’s stomach to determine whether they were breathing, whether they needed CPR or medical attention. I couldn’t tell, and I was sobbing too hard to see much either way, so I took the blankets from off his bed and wrapped them around the cuts. My mom had taught me that. She said the pressure slowed the bleeding a little until you could get the person medical attention. I didn’t know what else to do, but I knew that I needed to call somebody.

I wanted to call my mom. She’d know what to do, but she was at work, and likely wouldn’t answer. So I ran to the kitchen, and grabbed the phone, and called 999 as quickly as I could. I don’t really remember what happened next; I know that an ambulance came, and we went to casualty where my mom met me and hugged me whilst I cried. She kept saying that she had no idea he was planning something like this, and that everything was going to be okay, and it was, but I’ll never forget the terror I felt or the way he looked being pushed away in a stretcher.