Explosions were going on in my head that wouldn’t quit.

Miniature figures of me threw bombs across the frontline of my thoughts, eradicating the old me who didn’t stand a chance against the rage. The sky swirled in Technicolor and was peppered with paper planes roaring with static, adding to the clamour at no man’s land. Loud battle cries vibrated against the walls of my skull and chimed in my ears, causing me to bite my lip from the sting.

Both parties—the old and the new me—charged through the frontlines with bayonets of hatred and contempt. Shots rang out as cries left identical lips, but no blood spilled from the bodies of the wounded. They just...disappeared.

The new me fought for freedom, leaving the old me dead. Annihilated.

Onwards, men! The captain in my head shouted, who was really me but with facial hair. Don’t laugh. The war is not over. It’s never over. The enemy is not just you; it’s also everyone around you.

But I still couldn’t eat and I still couldn’t sleep; much less could I trudge through the thick mud of thoughts just to fight even larger armies.

Pathetic men are the ones who quit soldier! Is that what you want to be? Pathetic? You’re going to spend the rest of your life knee high in this soil, boy, allowing it to take over your every being like a swarm of parasites. You’re nothing but a worthless—

“So here’s what we’ll do,” Keenan spoke up, knocking me out of my imaginary warzone and back to reality. He sat right in front of me at the old wooden dinner table, watching me pick at the pancakes. “You’ll go help Cillian out, but come back ten or twenty minutes early. Say that you have diarrhea or something, I don’t know. I’ll get you the key. You question the woman and get out of there before he comes back.”

I didn’t answer him. He had been carrying a conversation with himself for the past twenty minutes, but it didn’t seem to bother him that all I found interest in was the war in my head. He didn’t make a show of it, but I knew he could see it. He could see everything.

“Cillian’s on edge. If you find something to use against him, it just might make him crack. Once he loses reason, you’ll have an advantage. You can twist his mind to let you escape. Cillian can become your doll, only if you play your cards right.”

I stabbed my fork through the fluffy pancakes, causing Keenan to jump. The table filled with silence as Keenan stared at me with hard eyes. I returned his gaze, something I never would have done weeks ago.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “You weren’t like this yesterday—”

He stopped short when I suddenly scrapped my chair against the hardwood floor, getting up from my seat. I grabbed the towel that sat beside me and walked away from him, heading to the front door.

“Wait, Jack! You know I’ve got to walk you there.”

Say your prayers, soldier. This enemy will be tough.

Keenan caught up to me in no time, keeping close at my heels as I opened the door and headed in Cillian’s direction. The sun was already beating down hard and made the air thick with heat. My stomach growled against the lack of food I had consumed, but I forced myself to continue onward.

I found Cillian in the middle of the field, one hand holding a basket full of raw corn while the other reached for more. He turned when I approached, his eyes rolling from the sky to the ground as he gave me a once over.

“Where’s your basket?” he asked. “How the hell do you think you’ll manage carrying—”

“Can I talk to you for a sec, Cill?” Keenan asked, gesturing to the house. I nearly puked. He never called him ‘Cill’. What kind of bullshit was that?

It didn’t matter to me, though. I ignored Cillian’s eyes as I began to pull the corn out of the stalk with rigid movements. Cillian made no comment about my sudden change in character, walking past me to join Keenan back at the house. I didn’t mean to be such an asshole to everyone, but I thought I kind of deserved to behave as such. I still think I did. Keenan knew it too, which was why he couldn’t do anything about it but watch.

You’re probably wondering why I was so mad that I was alive. To me, living is so much scarier than dying. I’d rather be six feet underground chilling with worms than up above, juggling one problem after another.

So what was I going to do, then? It was simple; I was going to continue fighting the war. I was going to sit down at the dinner table with Cillian and Keenan like the family we pretended to be. I was going to speak to that woman and carry on trying to find a way to get out. I was going to try to eat and sleep. I wasn’t doing that well with those two, really, but I was going to try nonetheless.

Winning the war meant winning against myself and others, after all. So showing that I was okay would be the first step.

When I had enough corn to build a house in my hands, I began to walk out of the field and towards the barrels Cillian had set up to put the corn in. It was only then that I noticed that Cillian was approaching me without Keenan at his side.

His footsteps were heavy.

I only got half of the corn I was holding into the barrel before Cillian grabbed me by my tee shirt, drawing me closer to his body. “You broke my wall?” he fumed. “You had the nerve to break my goddamn wall?”

I was dumbfounded to say the slightest. I was expecting him to tell me sorry, or at least lie and say it would be alright. Not yell at me about a stupid hole in the wall.

“Is that all he told you?” I asked him, trying to pull away from his grasp. “Or is that all you care about? You won’t even ask how I’m feeling or at least have the courtesy to tell me about the day I died! What kind of brother are you?”

He let go of me. “Get into the house and fix it, Jack.”

I couldn’t believe him. I stood staring with wide eyes, watching as he bent down to pick up the corn I had dropped.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. Cillian looked up at me with threatening eyes.

“What did you just say?”

“No,” I repeated, louder that time. “Go fix your own goddamn wall. In fact, pick your own stupid corn too. That seems to be all you care about. I bet you wouldn’t even notice if I never woke up!”

Cillian stood up and straightened his back. “Watch your mouth, Jack. You know what happens when you step out of your place.”

I laughed at him frostily. “You think I’m still scared of you? You think I’m afraid of dying?” I laughed again and kicked down the barrel for a good measure. Corn toppled over and spilled at Cillian’s boots, but he never took his eyes off of me.

It was the best thing ever, believe me. It felt like a scene from one of those teen movies where the protagonist finally grows some balls and stands up to the bully, making the guy so scared that he runs off.

It felt that way. I felt powerful for the first time in a while, stomping on the corn as Cillian continued to glare. I expected him to run off and maybe take that woman to the police station and apologise, but he never did. Instead, he hit me.

It was one of his hardest punches yet. It was even harder than the time I tried to run off or even when I asked for him to turn himself in. I hit the ground in a millisecond, the sky above me dotted with specks as my jaw throbbed in pain.

Get back on your feet, soldier!

But the thing is, I didn’t really want to. I wanted to stay on my back forever and watch the sun morph into the moon and the moon morph into the sun over and over again until my body decayed and melted into the earth. It seemed like a blissful way to go.

No, soldier. You’re just weak. You’re nothing but a pathetic man.

I accepted it. I let my mind enter the darkness it so desperately wanted, blocking out the sound of Cillian’s voice, Keenan’s shouts, and the birds singing above me.

Bombs and static. That’s all I heard before everything went black.

 ***

I remembered something.

I remembered a tall, lean, middle aged man with a hearty laugh, rosy cheeks, and soft brown eyes. His structure was rigid from years of working as a lawyer; face engraved with deep wrinkles and laugh lines.

He looked down at his fourteen year old son; his youngest. The oldest, only three years apart, didn’t look like that one did. The oldest, only three years apart, was enclosed in a carcass of jealousy and anger, the origin unknown. The man didn’t understand how three years could make two siblings completely different. At times, he found himself asking, where did we go wrong?

He touched his son’s hair, stroking it softly. The young teen blushed in discomfiture, nearly laughing as he muttered, aw dad, what gives? The man smiled, but it was sad and weary. Be careful of who you trust, Jack, he told him. The person you love the most may be the one who will shoot you.

I shot straight up in bed, sitting at a ninety degree angle. My clothes were soaked with dirt and sweat and the more I tried to breathe, the harder it became to control.

Keenan was sitting at the side of my bed. He took the napkin from his lap and began to dab at my forehead lightly, like a mother caring for her sick son. I hated it when he did things like that; pretending to care enough about me and my wellbeing. It made me want to throw up.

A lot of things made me want to throw up.

“How’d you know what was happening?” I asked him, my voice still groggy.

“I was watching through the window,” Keenan answered, still cleaning the sweat from my face. “I didn’t mean to make him angry. I just wanted to warn him about your behaviour and that he should let you be angry for at least today. When he asked how mad you could be, I used the wall as an example. Then he stormed off. I didn’t mean for anything—”

I pushed his arm away from my face and shushed him, a migraine forming at the corners of my brain. I was confused. I was confused, I was scared, and I was angry. I ripped the sheets off, prepared to leave, but was stopped by Keenan’s warm hand.

“Rest for now, Jack,” he said. He pulled out the skeleton key from his pocket. “I have it right here, see? But rest first. You’ll faint if you move too quickly.”

“Get your hand off of me,” I growled. Or at least, I’d like to think it was a growl. It was more like a whine, really. Like a dog scared at midnight.

“But Jack—”

“I feel like everything is crashing around me,” I stated, my words tumbling over each other as my breathing became rapid. “Everything is getting worse and I can feel it. I can feel it, but I can’t stop it. I’m in the dark and it’s scaring me. I need answers to get my head out of this gutter, so I’d advise you to get your fucking fingers off of my arm before I lose it again.”

Surprisingly, Keenan obeyed. He stepped away from the bed and headed to the door, muttering, “Come on. I’ll help you get that bookcase out of the way.”

I followed Keenan down the stairs and to the basement door, where I did little work with the bookcase. Keenan handed me the key and stepped aside for me to go down.

“I’ll fix the wall,” he said, smiling slightly. “Someone’s got to do it or else he’ll freak.”

I didn’t say anything else to him and gave him a small nod before heading down the staircase.

The woman was still sitting in her usual spot, but she had collected more bruises than the last time I saw her. Her head hung low with her hair tousled and knotted. Blood stains were all around her like a morbid piece of artwork and decorated her skin with angry gashes and scraps.

She looked up when I approached and smiled like she had a reason to. Most would feel proud to be seen as a saviour in another’s eyes, but it just made me feel shitty. Angrier. I grabbed one of Cillian’s empty beer bottles on the floor and sent it flying, crashing against the black wall.

I expected her to scream, but she didn’t. So instead, I grabbed another bottle and sent it to the wall behind her, the bottle whizzing past her face dangerously.

The woman stayed perfectly still, watching me pant as if I ran a marathon. She looked over to the broken glass and said, “I’ll tell him I did it. Don’t worry. I don’t want you cutting yourself trying to clean that up quickly.”

I prepared myself to yell at her. I wanted her to be scared, or angry, or something. But instead, I dropped down right in front of her and cried.

Boy. What a saviour I am.

The woman didn’t say anything as I wiped away tear after tear. She didn’t try to comfort me or tell me lies like it’s going to be okay. She merely watched until I collected myself, wiping my snot on my grey tee shirt.

“Rough day?” she asked.

“Rough life.”

“Have you found a way out? Is that what’s scaring you?”

I shook my head to her disappointment. “I had a dream...or a memory rather. Of my father.”

She nodded in understanding. The woman sighed and leaned her head back against the pole. “What do you want to know this time?”

“Do you know how my mom died?”

She went stiff for only a second, soon letting out a breath. “Car crash. She ran off after she found out.”

Cillian told the truth.

“And you don’t know about my dad?”

She shook her head. “No. I do know that he was with Cillian the last time I saw him. My co-worker told me that he died shortly after your mom passed. Like, in weeks or days time.”

He lied.

“He was such a loving father,” she continued, her voice growing sad. “He would drop anything just to help his boys. You guys were his pride and joy. It’s sad that I had to be the one to ruin it.”

“Loving father?” I asked in confusion. “Cillian told me that he pounded—I mean, beat us both. He said that you were the reason he hit us all the time.”

The woman pulled her eyebrows together, shaking her head. “No, I was the reason he felt guilty all the time. He did everything for you guys in hopes of you forgiving him when you found out. Your father never laid a hand on you, Jack.”

Lie.

Cue the static.