Way Down I'll Go

Sparked Many Shades of Red

Navy blue.

He was floating in it.

Floating or sinking. He couldn't be sure exactly, and he didn't care. He'd be quite happy to stay here forever, however long that might be. The color enveloped him, pulling him in tighter and tighter, not unlike a black hole crushing its victims into a condensed ball of mass. It didn't frighten him though. On the contrary, he felt safe. Without a care. Without any thoughts really. Just a feeling. You're safe. I've got you and I'm not going to let anything happen to you, the color seemed to say.

In the corner of his subconscious, another color appeared. Green at first, which morphed into yellow and then orange. The feeling of safety had begun to tiptoe away, and when orange became a deep, thick red, it scurried off like a frightened mouse. The red lingered, toying with him until at last, a blinding white obliterated all. And then... His eyes opened.

Grey. Familiar. Foreboding.

As his eyes moved, he noticed the red had become abyss-like ocean, spreading out to an unknown distance until it met the dismal skyline. He blinked. Once. Twice. The colors began to assemble themselves in to shapes.

Blood.

A sea of it.

His head began to protest the hard wood floor on which it was laying. He tried to raise it, before realizing that the blood had glued the right side of his face to the floor. It took a brief eternity to pry his head off the wooden planks, and once his vision cleared from the effort, he surveyed his surroundings.

More red. More blood.

Bodies.

He stared for a few seconds at his baby brother's lifeless eyes, the light snuffed out before it had seen the passing of a full year. Next to him was the chubby leg of a toddler, draped over the torso of the another boy. Blood dripped off the arm of a fourth child, staining the hood of the hot wheels car clenched in his cold fingers.

It took him a few minutes to notice the noise. Though subtle at first, it soon became deafening. It was guttural, nonsensical, and altogether too close. A voice. A scream. He had to find it. Had to help. Make it right.

He realized too late that it was his own voice.

The rasping sobs were spurting from his throat, splattering the scene with raw agony. Staring back at him, indifferently, were the life-sapped faces of his failure. His weakness. He couldn't help, not this time. He couldn't make it right.

The colors returned. Red. Black. White. Blurring together, melting into the screams until-

"Jo."

He bolted upright, his hands groping through the black, looking for the voice. There was the sound of pattering feet and yellow light flooded his gaze. His eyes found Drew's form, standing patiently in front of him, eyes damp, hands fidgeting, face unsure. He reached for the boy, pulled him into a desperate hug.

"Oh, God, you're okay. Oh, thank God."

He drew back to inspect the teen's face and arms.

"You're not hurt anywhere?"

"No, I'm fine, Jo. It was just a dream."

"Thank God," he gasped weakly, pulling his brother down with him and tucking him into his arm as he sat on his makeshift bed, still panting, the sweat rolling down his face. Drew wrapped his arms around Jo's torso and Jo pulled the boy's head into his chest.

They sat like this for several minutes, Jo's breathing calming a little more each second. Eventually, he loosened his hold on the boy and looked down into his eyes.

"I'm sorry, kiddo. You should get back to bed. You have an early day tomorrow."

"It's okay. I wasn't sleeping very well anyway."

"Anything you want to talk about?"

"No, nothing like that. Jaime keeps farting in his sleep. Every time I start to drift off, he does it again."

Jo chuckled, absently running his fingers through Drew's sandy brown hair.

"Anything you want to talk about?" Drew asked quietly.

Jo took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

"Same old thing, kid. Nothing to worry about." He smiled with counterfeit confidence. "Come on, let's head to bed."

Jo stood creakily to his feet, wincing as the old aches made themselves known. Quietly, the two entered the tiny bedroom containing two sets of bunk beds and a set of drawers. Drew climbed into the bottom bunk next to the sleeping form of another child and Jo pulled the blankets over him.

"Jo, I'm 13," he whined.

"And?"

"I'm too old to be tucked in. If my friends knew, they'd tease the shit out of me."

Jo smiled. "Don't say shit. And I'll stop tucking you in when you start growing some facial hair instead of this peach fuzz," he said, playfully patting Drew's soft cheek.

"Jo!" Drew pushed Jo's hand away. Jo smirked, then leaned down and placed a kiss on Drew's forehead.

"You're growing up so fast, kiddo. But you'll always be my little guy, even when you're 50."

Drew smiled and turned over, mumbling something about having a sick beard when he was 50.

It was not until Jo had left the room and lowered himself down to his few blankets masquerading as a bed that the smile slipped from his scarred features. Five years since they had escaped that house and he still dreamed of it like clockwork, his subconscious reminding him of those horrors on a nightly basis. His only solace was that his brothers did not share this problem, their night terrors having ceased only months after their exodus. He could endure the nocturnal images as long has the little ones were spared. Their lives, their happiness were all that mattered.

This particular nightmare was his least favorite. Sometimes the dreams came to him with memories, as clear as the day they happened. Other nights the memories were skewed, mixing past reality with his deepest fears. Fears of what could have been. Fears of what could still be.

Those dreams left him shaken for days.

A police siren speeding through the street below brought him out of his thoughts and back to the present. The little sleep he had hoped to catch was quickly slipping through his sheet-clenched fingers. He relaxed his grip on the threadbare polyester enough to pull it over his shivering form. As he succumbed to the fatigue and the navy blue appeared once more on the horizon on his subconscious, he prayed it would be the only color he encountered for the rest of the waning night.