MY NAME IS ALEXANDER

My name is Alexander Murray. Ever since I could remember, I had always worked on a small little farm my family owned. No, not my family, my foster family. My foster parents were overly strict and sociopathic. They never let me out of the house. I had to kill my curiosity of the outside world, spending each and every day tilling the soil.

I never once despised the life I lived, neither did I like it. I just did what I was told so I could get what I wanted and live to see the next day. My only major problem was Fred. He is the first-born son of my foster parents. He and his other siblings would occasionally bully me. They would often throw away the leftovers meant for me, just so they can see me eat out of the trash can. Or they would break my farm tools, so I had to dig the ground bare-handed, since they knew I could not request another farm tool because my foster parents would gravely punish me for breaking the tool.

From what I could tell, we lived in a remote area where nothing but the television set worked. Years ago, when I was eight, I learned about the outside world for the first time through the TV screen. I had seen gigantic buildings made of lights. Since then, I slowly developed the urge to visit the places that had those buildings. I also wondered day and night what the people who lived in those buildings ate or how they got to the top of those insanely huge buildings. I always wondered what it would feel like to stand at the top of the light buildings. I always wondered what the view was like there.

When I thought my escape to paradise was drawing closer and closer, my foster parents brought in another child. At first glance, she looked at least two years younger than me. She had scars and bruises all over her body. She was wearing old, worn-out rags. I felt some sort of kinship towards her because I, too, was covered in bruises and I was wearing old, worn-out rags too.

Over the next few months, I found out that my foster parents were receiving money from someone for taking care of us. I discovered this aching truth when Mom was yelling, after the man in big circular glasses had just left. She said, "This month's pay is not going to be enough to feed these maggots."

In the past and till this day, every three months, a man in a black suit who wore circular, gigantic glasses would often come to visit. On that day, I would be dressed in one of Fred's finest clothes. He disliked it and would always make a disgusted face while burning the clothes. It always gave me a little bit of satisfaction to know that in some way, I was hurting Fred. Eventually, I started looking forward to my next encounter with the man in black suit.

Fred's hatred increased as his tolerance decreased. He soon started torturing me in different ways, whether it was eating the leftovers or repeatedly cutting me with a knife. Fred had suddenly turned diabolical, and so did his siblings. Once, when the man in black suit visited, I tried lifting my sleeves slightly so he could see my scars. After staring at them for a while, he stood and said goodbye to my foster parents, handing them a white envelope. He was about to open the door and leave when I realized that the man in black suit was my only ticket out of my infernal prison.

"Are you, my father?" I asked. That was the first and the last thing I ever said to the man in black suit with big circular glasses.

He laughed hysterically.

And left.

As time passed, the new girl was entrusted to me. And soon, she and I became friends, she told me her name. She said she was called 'Ria' by her first parents. She told me all about her life from before she came into the custody of my foster parents. Turns out that she lived in a place called a city where the light buildings are.

During the day, Ria and I worked on the little farm, and at night, we would practice reading together under the cover of a worn-out bedsheet with a candle in the shed where we stored farm tools. Every night, we would both read different books. Ria was an expert when it came to taking things unnoticed. Because of Ria's art of hand, we were always able to procure food from the house, even when Fred and his diabolic siblings had hidden every grain of food from our sights. One thing kept bugging me, though—it was the increase in bruises on Ria's body. Once, I asked her if anyone in the house had hurt her or was hitting her. She said not to worry about it, that she fell when trying to get food, and somehow, I believed her.

One night, while I had fallen asleep in the shed waiting for Ria to return, someone tapped me on my leg. I quickly rose up, grabbing a hoe. "Who is there?" I spoke.

"It's me, Ria," said a slow whisper.

I quickly lit the tiny candle in the shed and discovered that Ria had a knife in her tummy. She was also bleeding from every other part of her body. It looked like she was cut repeatedly in the same spots with a sharp object, presumably by the same knife buried deep in her stomach.

I held onto her, tearing a piece of my ragged clothes. I tried covering up her wounds. During this time, all she could whisper was, "I'm sorry." She kept saying it over and over again. I could not control the tears that ran down my face. Soon, I was done covering up the wounds I could see. So, I went into the farm to look for herbs or anything that could help stop the bleeding, at least temporarily. When I got back, the candle was out. Ria was lying on the ground, lifeless. I rushed towards her, dropping everything I was holding. At first touch, she felt cold, really cold. I placed my ear on her chest to hear if her heart was still beating.

No heartbeat.

Ria was dead.

At that moment, I knew who could have done this. I knew who was responsible for this. But I kept it all hidden and buried inside of me. My foster parents never asked about Ria after that night. While I tilled the soil, I would occasionally see Fred smirk.

A month had passed, and in no time, two months. I knew my opportunity would come when the man in black suit visits, and he did. After the usual meeting, I sneaked up to Fred's room, stole a new outfit, and hid myself carefully in the trunk of his car.

And then...

I DIED.