The War Within #1: Victims

Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “Fate shuffles the cards and we play.” Thomas Polansky experienced the real meaning of these words when the world changed. Not that Thomas actually knew what was happening in the world – he was touring in Brazil, he was a preteen, with the concerns of a preteen.

Concerns such as not being beaten by a girl.

They were playing videogame for nearly two hours now, and that Halo deathmatch tournament seemed far away to reach its end.

Or at least that’s what Thomas believed.

“I killed you again...” the maid said. Thomas showed his teeth as the match restarted – a few hours of digital violence can turn even the quietest boy into a rabid dog.

He and the maid were sitting on the floor, on top of an old carpet they’d stained with juice and fries, popcorn, more juice, and soda, evidently. Thomas’s mother was in her way home, which meant they’ve time for just one more match, then Olivia would clean the mess and destroy the evidences of their “crime” – it would be better if Thomas’s mother didn’t find out the maid was “poisoning” her son with crap.

And his mom wouldn’t take too long to return, they both knew it. Not with that odd disease out there. Thomas knew that mother was worried – especially since they are trapped in the country, with all planes on the ground and the entire South America in some sort of state of emergency. She only got out home because she had to buy some stuff for them to eat.

And “home” was a funny word. They moved on to Brazil only a few weeks ago, and everything in that city and residence was new to Thomas: the rooms, furnishings, even the people. He couldn’t watch TV either – national programming, besides being in Portuguese, was foul-tasting – and Thomas was sure he’d spend days talking to the walls, if it wasn’t for the fact that Olivia was fluent in English. Not that he didn’t know Portuguese, but there were times when it was more gratifying to speak his native language. Besides, he had no friends, apart from the maid – there isn’t much time for friends when you spend most of your life surrounded by doctors and nurses.

Olivia was the only person in the world that he dares to call friend – his parents weren’t in the “friend equation,” of course. The maid had been well instructed about his “special condition” as his mother liked to say.

Yeah, Thomas’s mother liked to pretend that he was still a child who had no idea how things worked – she didn’t seem to understand that, when his private teachers said he was brilliant, they meant that he was indeed brilliant.

A genius, but still unable to beat a girl!

Five minutes later and his soldier was already dead – again. Thomas snorted and Olivia got up to turn off the video game.

“Okay, that’s enough,” she said. “I’ll clean the house and—”

They heard the thunderous barking of their dogs, followed by the sound of a car pulling up before the house. Olivia grimaced, going to the window and seeing Sarah Polansky’s Land Cruiser.

“Eita...” Olivia muttered.

“Good luck,” Thomas said, going to his bedroom with a smile. Thomas entered the room and closed the door. On top of his bed were his books on Mathematics and History, among others. He tossed the books to the floor and picked up a comic book.

Like any normal child, he hated studying – unlike most, he’d read the books a dozen times, completing all the calculations and answering all the questions. The first time he did this his teachers doubted his integrity and thought he was trying to fool them. Only later did they realize that he was very intelligent – the kind of smart boy that learns to speak a foreign language in a week. They even talked with his mother about putting him in a school for prodigies, but Sarah Polansky didn’t more than say that she’d think about it.

Thomas snorted, thinking about it – his mother would never let him go to a regular school in first place, and he’d already asked for it a hundred times. For him, it was not about the place or the significance of learn and become a great man in the future – it was about being in the place where the other children were, about making friends, playing ball with kids with the same stature and doing the same crazy things than he.

But nooooo, Mom would never allow it, and every Thomas had pressed and asked why, Sarah dodged the subject. Maybe his father had a different opinion – that is, if his father was present, right? Thomas only saw his dad twice a month, his absence being coldly justified by his work, though Thomas didn’t know what kind of work it was.

It was assumed that his father was a doctor, since every time he visited his son he’d bring Thomas’s medication and pass the boy through a battery of tests. Once, when his father told him he had to leave, Thomas asked why he and Mom couldn’t go with him.

“It’s complicated, son,” Antoine Polansky didn’t have the same evasive skills as his wife, and soon that was his favorite answer.

Not complicated, but boring, Thomas thought, and then he dropped the comic book. What’s that? Was anyone shouting his name or was only his impression?

Then his bedroom door opened and his mother came in, hysterical. Thomas glanced at her and made no more than a face, confused. It was true that Sarah Polansky was overprotective – in that particular week, she was even more paranoid about the new flu that people were catching – but that was too much.

“Mom, you—” Thomas went speechless when he saw the blood on her shirt. “Mom, what happened?”

Olivia appeared in the doorway behind Sarah a second later, equally horrified by the red stain on the once immaculate shirt. But Sarah Polansky didn’t give them any time to speculate. Wide-eyed and almost hyperventilating, she had the look of someone that had left to buy some milk and witnessed hell, instead. Bad things were happening and she had to be fast. Sarah grabbed Thomas’s arm, lifting him with the force of a gale.

“We’re leaving now,” her tone was so strict that Thomas thought she was possessed with hidden hatred. He’d never seen her altered like this as his mother was the iconic sweetness, always docile, contented and concerned for his well-being.

Only that it wasn’t anger that drove Sarah – it was terror.

“Mrs. Sarah, you’re bleeding,” Olivia said, following them. “You must go to a hospital...”

Sarah stopped at the house’s front door. She grabbed the handle and pulled it open. “We’re going, Olivia, you can come with us or—” Her eyes widened with something out there and then she slammed the door shut with all her force and locked it.

Before Thomas or Olivia could ask what was happening, they heard the screams and growls. Then something slammed against the door. Olivia jumped back and Thomas flinched.

“What was this?!” Olivia asked, but Sarah didn’t answer. She grabbed the maid’s hand and led the girl along with her son to her room, while the banging on the outside of the front door redoubled, becoming more intense and desperate.

Sarah locked the bedroom door as soon as they entered. She looked around, searching for something. Maybe it was a way out, or a gun, Thomas couldn’t tell – he’d never seen such anguish in his mother’s face, and it almost frightened him as much as the screams he was hearing.

“We need to call the police,” Olivia said. Sarah glanced at her, but didn’t seem to have heard the maid’s words. Then they heard the crash of glass breaking and noise of people invading the house. Olivia gave a little shriek, but Sarah just ran to the wardrobe, throwing everything on the floor, searching for something with a intense amount of despair.

Thomas felt numb, not knowing what to do or think. He grabbed the brim of his mother’s shirt, trying to get her attention as he used to do when has smaller. But Sarah continued to rummage through the wardrobe, until she finally found what she was looking for so eagerly: it was a backpack, and inside the backpack there was treasure.

Sarah turned to Thomas and bent one knee so that her eyes were on the same level as her son’s eyes. “Whatever happens, don’t make a sound,” she told him, handing him the backpack.

Even without understanding, Thomas couldn’t do more than nod with his head. Sara smiled big at her son and embraced him, so tight that Thomas tried to get his breath back. After what seemed a eternity later, Sarah led him to the bathroom with Olivia.

“Mom, what’s going on?” Thomas asked, but Sarah was too busy talking with the Olivia, giving a series of instructions. She had to slap Olivia’s face twice so she wouldn’t panic, and when she finished, they all could hear screams and disorder in the hallway outside the bedroom, and soon there someone was striking the bedroom door.

Sarah glanced at the door, the fear seeming to freezer her for a moment, only to disappear with the her final decision. She hugged her son again. “I love you, I love you, I love you...” she said, and Thomas realized that his mother was crying uncontrollably. That only made him more terrified. Why was his mother crying that way? And who was out there? What was happening? He tried to ask, but she didn’t let.

“Shhh...” she cut him, kissing his forehead. “Stay here, and don’t make a sound. Don’t make a sound, Thomas, do you hear me? Promise me,” she spoke in a voice of stony anguish. “PROMISE ME!”

“Yes, yes, but—”

“Good,” she kissed his forehead again and hugged him. They heard the door of the room crack. Sarah Polansky released her son and left the bathroom. She swallowed a heavy lump in her throat, and closed her eyes, getting ready. Then she looked at Olivia and Thomas with no fear in her face, only resolve.

“Silence,” Sarah said to them, her voice solid as ice. And then, under her son’s wide eyes, she closed the bathroom door and locked it outside.

From within, side by side with Olivia, Thomas heard the screams and barks storming the room where Sarah was waiting, death written on her forehead. Then there was the peerless sound of wood cracking, the bedroom door ripped open.

Thomas couldn’t stand it and he ran to the door. Olivia tried to stop him, but Thomas wasn’t trying to open it, only to see what was happening. He had to know.

He bent down, peering through the keyhole.

And he witnessed, in a sepulchral silence and paralyzed with horror, his mother being torn to shreds.