"CORRODED"

Octo was in a state of complete self-loathing. It seemed to him, for many months now he was a burden to his family. Yes, a burden, even to them. He ate little and slept through night into day. Every time he looked out his window, made of continuous rainfall, he remembered why he wanted it just that way. So that he alone could always see the world in its eternal maelstrom.
It was more appropriate then ever today. Poor octo would press his tear soaked cheek to the glass and wish to disappear.
His rabbit C.C. would sniff curiously at his weighted heels and look up to him. Through his little oxygen mask, he would breath and glare.
“ What’s wrong with my parent today? What ails him so?” Octo could not answer but go back to bed, and sleep the day away.
He awoke again at noon. His brothers were having fun. Vaughn had captured Emmett again. And they were bickering through the barred walls of Emmett’s cage.
“I have just had it this time!” shouted Vaughn “One slug bug is too many! And they are mine you hear! MINE! You an that wretched Rubella have savored the last of my friends!”
“Yours?!” spat back Emmett “I practically breed them! They come from MY Mine, while you live in your fancy quarters I am exiled to the south wing in all its Corroded glory! Poor Vaughn must eat Venison every night! Well what do you think I have to eat?!”
Octo glided in quietly behind them and watched. His presence went unnoticed, as it often did, until he spoke in his silent and loving manner.
“Vaughn? Emmett is hungry and there is so much deer on the grounds, we could share some most certainly”
The captor and captive stopped their cold war and looked his way. Vaughn in astonished disgust. Emmett at the sight of Octo’s state of teary disarray laughed manically in his face.
“My, even Emmett, who is trapped in a cage is laughing at me” thought poor Octo.
This infuriated him quiet a bit and he grew angry.
“What are you laughing at?! Maniac! Your trapped, Vaughn finally caught you and will probably never let you out! He’ll starve you for eating his pets! That’s what he’ll do!” he stammered.
Emmett Continued to laugh “Ehehehehehe! Oh! I will get out of my cage! I’ll get out! ehehehe but you, you will never get out of YOURS! Eheheheehe!”
Emmett was always disturbingly perceptive.
Defeated and nauseated with fury and sadness Octo returned to his study and slammed the door. He slumped against it and slide down to the floor. Tears swelled silently in his enormous black eyes. No sooner were two shed then a tremendous crash was heard. Emmett had indeed broken free of his cage and he and Vaughn now ran down the hall in maniacal laughter and shouting after one another. Surely destroying the mansion walls along the way.
“I am a joke” Octo thought. “even to my brothers…No one cares to even look my way, Nor will she whom I love return anything….close to love. It is not working…but…” He begin to cry louder “ I’ve tried so very hard. I’ve tried…” trailing off he looked down now to C.C who crept onto his lap. He pet the barely breathing creature. C.C. Licked him through his mask and Octo played with the tubes that attached to his little oxygen tank.
“I’m going now, do you want to come with me C.C?”
The bunny would breath and glare, looking up to his parent and wonder “why?”
Octo went to his desk and retrieved his rice paper and a pen and wrote;

I have thought often of this day. I always imagined something would indeed send me away, as in a final hurrah! of pain. But that is just it you see, today was a day like all the others. Today no one looked at me and smiled, or reached to stoke away some tears. No one spoke nicely to me or asked me how I felt. I Know the mines have changed us all. And coming to live in this house was a mistake. It is not to late for anyone but myself. I know with Vaughn and Emmett’s genius minds, together, you can find a cure for this…malformation that we have become. If only you could work together, as once we all did. Even if to stuff a squirrel or two. Remember those day? I do.

I go, breath spent and dying
Into the world next
In which I hope will not await me
With the pain and the suffering
I have sustained here
At the hands
Of those I love



Octo put down his pen and went towards his closet, stopping first at the window of rain. For once he thought to turn it off, end the glamour that trickled down its glass. He wondered if he did, would he see the sun? Or would there be darkness and rain still? Perhaps, he thought, if the sun were shining, feeling the warmth on his face would dry his tears. He waved his hand over the window. The glamour sizzled and seized but no sunshine awaited him. It was raining outside. The window was no different.
In his closet he gathered the rope and tied it around the high beam of his study. He kissed C.C goodbye and made his noose. He faced the chair toward the massive window. For the first and last time he saw the real rain fall. He Spoke;

“Illusion or reality, My world has stayed the same,
I was nothing to anyone…anyway. I fall now with the rain”

Octo kicked the chair out from under him and hung. The noose tightened around his neck and he was paralyzed with fear and choking. He hung there gasping for air as the body instinctively will do, whether the heart wants air or not. He soon calmed to the point where death was accepted and eyes bulging, took his last glance out into the world.
Then silence. Blackness. A crack and a fall. He lay breathing again on the floor. His thoughts in time grew clear and he realized the beam had broken. The beam had broken because Vaughn must have known what he was going to do…No…the beam had broken because Vaughn had sawn it through. It was another trap set for Emmett who was known to spy on them by crawling through the ceiling like the toxic rat he had become.
No one knew he lay there, No one cared what the thunderous crash was. He lay on the floor in silence, save for the rainfall. The real rainfall. Then he heard a crinkling of paper. C.C was eating his suicide note.