Helios Beginnings (The Helios Chronicles #0.5)

by Tawa M. Witko

  “STOP! Mama, please, STOP!”

  She once again shook her head as the blade came down on him again. This time he was prepared and moved slightly so it didn't hit the same spot. It was just as painful though. His mother bore a straight face. No tears fell from her hazel eyes with the long lashes, the ones that matched his perfectly. She displayed no anger, no anything. She looked like she wasn’t really there. It was the same way she looked when she used drugs.

  She began a relentless pattern of stabbing him then herself, over and over. At some point his body stopped moving. There was no more fight in him. Death would be coming. He just never expected it would come at the hands of his mother. He was feeling lightheaded and the room began to spin His mind drifted, remembering happier times. He saw his mom and dad on one of those merry-go-rounds they have in parks. His dad was racing around it, spinning them as fast as possible and then he jumped on, lying next to him. The smile on his face was brilliant. His mother was screaming in laughter as she held on to him so he wouldn’t slide off. In his vision, his hand went to his chest, a red stain spread across his shirt and he gasped as he was brought to the present. The pain was unbearable. His eyes were drooping; he was barely able to keep them open. The weight of his mother collapsed on his chest. Andrew couldn’t breathe and the stench of blood, his and hers was making him gag. A moment later his mother rolled off of him and onto the mattress by his side.

  “Moon, gone, no more, moon, sun set, needs to set, can’t...” she muttered incoherently.

  Andrew willed his eyes to open and turned his head. His mother was lying on her back, her chest drenched in blood. His head whipped around until he spotted his ratted and torn blanket. Grabbing it, he pressed it against her wound and as soon as he did, the stench of fresh blood overwhelmed him. Little white specks spotted his vision and he felt that sense of lightheadedness again. Kimberly continued mumbling and crying for her husband, her love. Andrew swallowed hard, falling off the mattress and onto the floor. He didn’t have the strength to walk, so he forced himself to crawl. He crawled along the cracked floorboards, leaving a trail of smeared blood in his wake. When he reached the door, he pushed his shoulder against it. It opened and to his surprise, he saw a couple of guys walking across the street towards the basketball courts.

  “Help!”

  Andrew tried his best to scream, to yell at the top of his lungs, but he was sure his voice was coming out as some sort of whimper. Exhausted, his head drooped and he fell completely to the ground as he heard footsteps approaching.

  “Oh shit!” the first young man stuttered before turning to his friend, “Call an ambulance, man!”

  Andrew faded out of consciousness. The young man quickly shed his shirt and bunched it into a ball, pressing it against the young boy’s chest. He heard a moan came from inside the room, but he was afraid to leave the frail child he was cradling in his arms.

  “They’re on their way,” his friend said, kneeling down next to him. His eyes dropped to the young boy. “Holy shit, what the hell happened to him?”

  “I don’t know, man, but that’s a lot of blood. I can hear someone else crying or something inside. I think someone else might be hurt.”

  “I’ll go check and see.”

  His friend rose from his crouch to dart inside, out of view. The young man looked down at the boy in his arms. He could see the slow rise and fall of his chest. His cheeks were hallowed out. He was incredibly thin, his bones poked out in various spots. It felt like he could crumble and break at any moment.

  “It’s okay, little man. Hang in there, help’s on the way.”

  The ambulance sirens blared into the street and soon, there were people pouring inside the building. Andrew felt himself awaken. He could hear sounds around him and tried to move but couldn’t. His mother was screaming and crying in the other room. He suddenly became aware that he was now on some type of bed. He listened as his head turned in the direction of his mother’s voice. There were two men in uniform trying to help her but she was swinging her arms.

  “My moon is gone, my moon is gone,” she cried inconsolably.

  “Ma’am, you need to let us help you. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  Andrew closed his eyes again. His mother had always called his dad the moon and him her sun. Apparently the well-being of her son wasn’t nearly as important to her as her husband. Andrew’s heart ached. But this ache was worse than the actual pain she had inflicted on him. He suddenly wished that she had been successful, that she had killed him. He felt hollow inside, the emptiness overwhelmed him at the reality of what was going on.

  “Can you tell me your name?” The paramedic asked Andrew, but Andrew’s eyes wouldn’t open.

  The man continued talking to him but Andrew couldn’t hear him that well over his mom's wailing. He was aware that the man was holding something to his chest. Obviously trying to stop the bleeding but all he could hear was his mom screaming for his dad. Sadness enveloped him at the stark realization that she didn’t care about him or what she had done.

  “Andrew,” he finally said, or at least he thought he said it.

  “Relax, Andrew. You’ve lost a great deal of blood but we’re going to help you, okay?” The voice said kindly. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  Screams, blood curdling screams. That was all Andrew heard before he passed out again. The paramedic frowned when the young man became unresponsive. He checked the monitor. His heart was beating slowly, but it was still beating. He glanced in the other room and saw that the other set of paramedics had stabilized the woman. She was clearly in some sort of psychotic state. His partner came up to him and they loaded the young boy into the ambulance. He was extremely weak and would likely not survive the night. His slammed the door closed as his partner sped through the streets towards the hospital. He gently pushed a piece of hair out of the boy’s face thinking he looked like an angel.

  One week Later

  Andrew awoke startled. He felt himself coming back from a long and fitful dream. In his dream he was suffocating, unable to breathe. There had been a heaviness consistently pressed against his chest as if he wore a weight around his neck. He saw his parents, but they were blurry and indiscernible. He wasn’t sure where exactly he was but the bed was comfortable, which was at least pleasant. He heard the sound of people talking nearby and laid perfectly still, he needed to hear what they were saying.

  “He’s severely malnourished but his electrolytes are much better now. He’s slept well for the past three days and seems to be recovering better than expected.” A soft female voice stated.

  “That’s good to hear.” A second female voice replied. “Do you think he’ll be…” there was a pause that led into a sigh.

  “Better?” the first voice asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I think he will heal from his injuries, but the rest I don’t know.”

  There was another pause before the second voice continued. “I found a place for him.”

  “He has family here?”

  “No. We’ve been informed that he has no living relatives and none of his records indicated any next of kin. But I found a really nice family that’s willing to take him.”

  “That’s wonderful news.”

  “Yes, it is. I was surprised I was able to find a placement so soon. From the looks of things, it appears that he and his parents have been homeless for some time now. We’ve found no school or medical records, but if we can get him placed right away, then we can at least get some sense of normalcy in his life.”

  “I’m sure he could definitely use that.” The voiced cleared her throat before she spoke in a hushed voice. “He has a lot of old injuries.”

  “Have you documented them?”

  “Yes. How someone could hurt a child always surprises me.”

  “I always think I’ve seen everything and then …”

  There was silence for a long moment and Andrew almost opened his eyes to see if they were still there, but if it was on
e thing he had learned from his parents was how to stay completely still and quiet.

  “When are you going to tell him about his mother?”

  “After he wakes up, the sooner the better I would imagine.” He heard the voice sigh again, “I'm not looking forward to that conversation. This is the part of my job that I hate the most.”

  “Yes, I would imagine so.”

  “Thank you for the update, doctor. Please keep me abreast of his progress and when he can be released.”

  “I will.”

  There were footsteps that approached him and another set that seemed to leave the room. He wasn’t sure which voice stayed, but he didn’t care. The only thing on his mind was whether his dad was out of jail yet and what was going on with his mom that they didn’t want to tell him. Whatever it was, he suspected it wasn’t going to be good. The hands of one of the voices picked up his wrists and placed her fingers there. He wanted to open his eyes to see who it was, but then the reality of his situation would need to be addressed. He decided he’d like to stay in the dark for a little while longer.

  Helios, age 12

  “Andrew, aren’t you coming?” Mrs. Samson asked as she waited near the gate of the cemetery.

  Andrew shook his head and threw the flowers he was holding in his hand to the ground before closing the car door. Mrs. Samson walked over and stooped down to pick them up. She glanced at him briefly, but he wasn’t looking at her. She strode around the vehicle to the driver’s side of the car and slid in with a huff. She dropped the flowers between the two of them. Mrs. Samson had been Andrew’s case worker since his mom died last year. His father was in prison where he would be staying for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, that left Andrew alone and in the past year he had been in three foster homes. Mother’s Day had just passed and Andrew had thought that he should go to his mom’s grave, but now that he was there he didn’t want to do it.

  “Andrew, you said you wanted to come to your mom’s grave.”

  “I changed my mind.” The anger was clearly evident in his tone.

  “Andrew, I’m here to help you. If you would...”

  Andrew rolled his eyes and cut her off, “No, you’re not. You don’t care about me, just like the Morgan’s, the Dailey’s and now these fucking assholes the Meyers.” He turned to her and narrowed his eyes, “What’s the big deal anyway? She’s been dead for a year now, why do you care if I see her grave or not?” The words came out bitterly. His body tensed and the anger within him began to boil over. “Wait, are you moving me again?”

  “I know that none of this makes sense, Andrew, but if you would just talk to someone or allow these families to help you versus...” She started to say but Andrew didn’t let her finish.

  “Fuck you, just send me away again. I don’t care,” Andrew stated before turning back to the window to stare outside.

  Mrs. Samson stared at the troubled young man with pity. She had hoped that the damage his parents had caused would not be permanent, but she was not so optimistic anymore. In every placement he had been in, he refused to interact with anyone in a positive way, he stole money, he yelled. He frightened them with his fits of rage. He was only 12 and she feared that if he continued in this manner he would end up in jail, right alongside his father. She had thought him wanting to visit his mother’s grave was a good sign, maybe his way of having some sort of closure, but now she could see he wasn’t ready for it. She turned the ignition and pulled out into traffic.

  “One day you will care and when you do, her gravesite is in the fourth row on the southeast side,” she said as smoothly as she could, trying her best to stay calm and not shed the tears she wanted to.

  “That’s never going to happen.”

  She turned her eyes towards him. She watched as he rolled down the window and snatched the flowers from the seat, tossing them angrily into the street. She felt her heart ache; he was such a lost little boy right now. ‘Was it too late for him to find healing?’ She wondered to herself before turning her eyes forward. She hoped his new placement would be a better fit for him. If he would only let someone get past the hard shell he kept around himself then he would see that life can be better.

  Helios, age 14

  “What are you doing, Harrison?” Ben asked as he walked into the room.

  Andrew sat on his bed against the wall, using the blade he had broken off from a plastic razor, to go over the heavy scar he had on his chest. He’d been in the group home for a month. It was his fourth facility in two years in addition to the five foster homes he’d resided in. All in all, nine placements in a three-year time period, which he recognized wasn’t a good number. He had reluctantly decided that this home was alright. It wasn’t as hideous as some of his other placements and his roommate didn’t seem completely horrible.

  “Harrison! What the fuck are you doing?” Ben asked again as he sat on his bed.

  After everything that happened three years ago no one knew what to do with him. As far as Andrew knew, he had no family to step up to the plate and take him, so he ended up in foster care. According to Mrs. Samson, he had not ‘connected’ in any of his previous placements so far, which he didn’t disagree with. The counselors kept telling him he needed to talk about everything that happened. There was no way Andrew was going to do that. He had no intention of reliving that nightmare. The blade cut deeper into his skin causing him to flinch.

  “Mind your own business, Ben,” Andrew said through gritted teeth.

  “They're gonna send you to the mental hospital if they see you doing that.”

  “I don’t care,” Andrew replied nonchalantly.

  All Andrew knew and cared about was that he needed the scar to be gone, but he couldn’t seem to dig deep enough to make another scar to cover it up. Tears started to escape his eyes as the pain became too much to bear. His hand was shaking uncontrollably as he dropped it into his lap. His breath hitched at the sight of his blood but he swallowed back the bile. He never wanted to remember what happened to him, but he couldn’t figure out how he was supposed to forget it when there was a constant reminder permanently etched on his skin. His eyes shut tightly as he moved the blade back to his skin.

  “All you’re doing is scarring it up more,” Ben said, concerned, watching the blood drip down his roommate’s chest.

  Andrew shrugged, thinking that it wasn’t scarred up enough because he could still see it. Ben didn’t get it. No one did because no one could comprehend his pain or begin to understand that every time he saw the scar, he remembered. He remembered in every painstaking detail what his mother did. He remembered being in the hospital and he remembered how his body shook, as if ice cold water had been poured over his head, when the social worker told him that his mother had committed suicide and that his dad was going to be in prison for the rest of his life. But mostly he remembered the sorrow in his heart knowing that his own mother had wanted him dead. The whole thing made him want to throw up.

  “Why don’t you just get a tatt to cover it up?” Ben suggested.

  Andrew looked up at him curiously. “Who is going to give a tattoo to a 14-year-old?” he stated angrily.

  “Steve has a gun, he can do it. It’s better than what you’re doing now. ‘Cause that shit is just gross and if you keep doing that, they’re gonna send you to the psych ward. I’ve been there Harrison, trust me, you don’t want to end up there. It’s fucked up and once you get in, they don’t wanna let you leave,” he said, tossing a towel at him.

  Andrew grabbed the towel and blotted the blood off his chest. A tattoo was a good idea. If he marked it like that then no one would notice the scar. Ben sat down on his bed. Andrew could feel the weight of his stare. He didn’t look at him though. Instead, Andrew lay down. The towel pressed against his chest as his eyes closed. He just needed to sleep. If he could sleep, maybe it would be okay. Although, he knew that things would never be okay for him.

  "Moon, gone, no more, moon, sun set, needs to set, can't..."

  Andrew star
tled awake. The room was dark. His eyes shifted to the side. Ben was sleeping on his bed with his back facing him. Reflexively, Andrew swallowed and took a deep breath. He still had the towel on his bare chest but when he tried to move it, he realized that it was now stuck to the dried blood.

  “Shit,” he muttered and gingerly removed the towel from his wound which bled slightly.

  He switched on the small nightlight to get a better look at what he was dealing with. After dabbing at the wound to stop the bleeding, he reached for the notebook he had stuffed between his mattress and box spring. He wasn’t sure why he hid it. No one really cared what he did, but he didn’t want it to fall into unwanted hands. He glanced once more at Ben to ensure that he was indeed sleeping and then turned his attention to his notebook, flipping to the page his pencil held. The pencil moved almost immediately. Andrew didn’t know why, but once he started drawing everything seemed to fall into place and the hurt seemed more manageable. Before he knew it, there was light coming in from outside the bedroom window and movement in the other bed in his room.

  “Been up all night?” Ben asked groggily as he rubbed his eyes.

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  Ben yawed and tore his tired body out of the bed. Words could not describe how much he hated his bed. It was too small for him and the lumpy mattress made his back hurt almost every night. He raised his arms and stretched his long torso and in doing so caught a glimpse of what Andrew had drawn.

  “Is that an eclipse?”

  Andrew closed the book and glared at him. “A what?”

  “An eclipse. You know, it’s when the moon covers up the sun. It’s some rare phenomenon I read about, it doesn’t happen very often but they say it’s cool when it does,” he said, scratching at his boxer briefs before exiting the room to the bathrooms.