At a young age I always had a fascination with bones. I loved the way they looked, the way they felt. Father always disapproved of my interest in bones.

When I was six years old, I stood in the bathroom brushing my teeth beside my mother. I was staring at myself in the mirror, and stopped brushing my teeth. My mother patted my head, asked me what was wrong. “Our bones are important, right mommy?” She glanced nervously out of the bathroom. “Honey, be careful what you say, you know that if your dad hears you asking that he would get upset.” I nodded. “I know mommy. I just wanted to ask though.” She paused. “Yes, our bones are important. Very important.”

I opened my mouth and stared at my teeth, covered in toothpaste. “If our teeth are important as well, and we brush them to take care of them, why don’t we brush our bones?” I asked. My mother’s face turned into an expression of concern. “Our bones don’t need brushing honey.” I scratched at my arm, frowning. “Mommy, I want to brush my bones.” She slapped my hand off my arm and grabbed me roughly by the shoulders, staring me in the eyes. “Never say that again, understand? We’ll pretend we never had this conversation. Now rinse out your mouth, okay?”

“Wow, that was a random memory to have at all times,” I said to nobody but myself. I stared in the mirror, I was in the middle of brushing my teeth when the memory hit me. For the longest time I never forgot about my question, or the itch I felt to remove my bones and just scrub them clean. Of course I was never going to tell anyone I thought like that. However, I eventually stopped thinking about it. I was growing up, and the worry of when I would get to eat next or when I would get beat always filled my mind.

My mother and I were able to rent out a house in a small city. It had been a few months since we ran from my father’s. We had a hard time settling in. We were constantly looking over our shoulders in fear that one day my father was going to show up, but so far he hadn’t, and we were able to relax more about finally being safe.

I was attending the local high school. I had become very popular but I never got close to anyone, I didn’t want the trouble. Especially if somehow my father managed to find me I wouldn’t want anyone else involved. On this day I was heading home from school, but I first had to make a stop at the store for vegetables for dinner.

As I had opened the door to my house, food in hand, something felt off. The house was silent, which was unusual. There was always something running for there to be noise. Dread was grabbing me by the throat.

I stepped inside, setting the groceries on the tableside set up by the door. I silently closed the door behind me and made sure to walk as quietly as I could through the house. I headed straight to my mother’s room. She wasn’t there. Her room was ransacked. My heart began to race. ‘Where is she?!’ I was about to run out of her room when I heard the front door open. I froze. I heard footsteps walk into our kitchen. I had no weapon, but I snuck up to the kitchen doorway, sneaking a peek inside.

“Mom!” I screamed. She turned around, startled. I hugged her tightly. “Where have you been?” I asked. She returned my hug. “I went out for a walk, why?” I frowned. “Your room is a mess mom.” She looked confused. “A mess? I cleaned it up before I left.” My blood ran cold. “Go look at your room.”

My mother was silent as she glanced upon her stuff thrown about. She crossed her arms. “We need to prepare to move.” I looked at her with shock. “Why?” She stared into my eyes. “Because I’m positive that your father found us.” That was enough to make me run to my room and start throwing my stuff into bags.

“We’ll stay here for the night and as soon as the sun rises, we’re leaving.” I felt uneasy, but it was already getting dark and it would be hard to carry all of our stuff in the dark. “Okay. Should I sleep in your room just to be safe?” My mother shook her head. “No, just act as natural as possible. We need to get some rest before we leave in the morning.”

I should have convinced her to let me sleep in there. I should have convinced her to let us leave that same day.

I had woken up to the sound of glass shattering. I shot out of bed and headed towards the source of the sound. My mother’s room. There was glass all over the floor, a man wearing all black was standing against the wall, with a bag over my mother’s head, tying her arms behind her back. “Let her go!” I screamed as I lunged at him. I heard him snicker as a sharp pain exploded in the back of my head. My vision was turning dark. Before everything went black, I caught a glimpse of a second figure with a bat in hand. ‘Shit, I should have known.’

I woke up with a throbbing headache. I tried to touch my head, only to find my hands were bound. I looked down and noticed I was tied to a pipe against the wall. The room I was in was dark, it smelled old, there was an overpowering smell of something rotting.

I heard a whimper. “Mom?” I called out. “Are… Are you okay?” I heard her call out, her voice strained, as if she had screamed for hours on end and her voice had finally given in. “My head hurts, but I’m okay. Where are we mom? What happened?” She groaned in pain. My heart felt like it was being squeezed tightly. “Mom?” I heard her let out a breath. “Sorry, it hurts to speak right now.” I could hear the pain in her voice. I wanted to cry. “It’s okay mom, you don’t have to talk.” ‘Looks like it’s going to be a waiting game.’

A waiting game is sure what it felt like. It felt as if hours had passed before light shined into the room. There were stairs about ten feet away from me. The light was coming from there. I heard footsteps walk down the stairs, then a sudden bright light blinded me.

The room light was now on. I looked around. I gasped when my eyes landed on my mother. She looked beaten, blood was dried to her head and nose. She was in a fetal position, her expression full of pain. I looked up at whoever walked down and growled.

“Father.” I spat out. My father stood before me, arms crossed. “I finally found both of you. What made you think that you two could run from me?” Hate boiled inside of me. “Let us go! We aren’t yours to control!” I saw anger flash in his eyes. He walked over to where my mother laid. Without warning, he kicked her as hard as he could on her side. She cried out in pain. “Stop that!” I screamed out. I tugged against the rope binding me to the rope. My father looked at me, his eyes looked empty.

“You can’t stop me.” I shut my eyes tight, hoping this was just a bad dream. “Shutting your eyes won’t make this go away.” I glanced up and my father now stood in front of me once more. “You best behave if you want to live. Of course, I’m going to kill both of you soon for running away, but you can enjoy life a little longer if you behave.” ‘Kill us? Is he serious?’ Before I could speak, he was already back up the stairs, slamming the door shut behind him. “Mom?” No answer other than a cry of pain.

I slumped against the pipe. “Ow!” I felt something prick at my arms. I rubbed my fingertips over what I felt. It was the pipe. Part of it had rusted away, leaving a sharp edge. ‘This might be my way out!’ I began rubbing my hands against the edge, listening as I heard it cut through my binds.

After what felt like forever, my hands were free. I untied my feet and ran over to my mother, rubbing her back. “Mom? I’m going to get you out of here. Okay?” Only a groan. I knew there was no way I could escape right now, I had to wait for my father to come back down. I dreaded the moment that he did. Luckily, he never turned the light off when he left so I was able to see around the room. I caught a glimpse of an axe out of the corner of my eye. I grabbed it. ‘Gotta find an easy place to hide.’

Right at the bottom of the stairs happened to be a crawl space big enough for me to squeeze in without being noticed right away. ‘Now, I wait.’

I woke up to the sound of the door opening. My heart skipped a beat. ‘I fell asleep?!’ I gripped the axe tightly. “What the? Where the hell is he?!” I gulped as I watched my father approach where I had been tied up. I quickly got out of the crawlspace, careful to not alert him until I was on him.

I held the axe up, then brought it down, aiming for his head. I’m not sure how it happened, but he had managed to avoid me hitting his head, but the axe went down into his shoulder and he cried out. He stumbled back. I watched him stumble, then saw the handgun in his hand. I walked closer to him, his eyes widened. He looked behind him, seeing my mother still lying there.

He backed up into her then pulled her up, placing the gun to her head. “Drop the axe.” He barked at me. My grip tightened. “I won’t hesitate to shoot her, son.” I knew deep in my heart that he meant it. I wasn’t willing to lose my mother. Not yet.

I dropped the axe. His shoulder was profusely bleeding, The cut was deep enough that I caught a glimpse of his shoulder blade. He was rocking on his feet, he looked ready to fall over. “You’ll die of blood loss. Now, back away from my mother.” I watched as he gritted his teeth, either from anger or pain, or both, I couldn’t tell.

“You really think I would let her go?” He hissed. I had no time to react. The next moment the gun went off. My mother’s body went limp and dropped to the floor. I screamed. Tears filled up my eyes. “I’ll finish you off before I die!” My father yelled, pointing the gun at me.

I could tell he didn’t have the energy to pull the trigger. I grabbed the axe once more and walked towards him. He backed away. “You die now, fucker!” I swung. His head hit the floor. Blood splattered against my shirt. I looked down at my now bloodied clothes, then at his body. Then, the switch was flipped.

I remember next peeling back his skin, pulling out his insides, breaking apart bones and separating them. His bones were all I wanted. I felt dirty. I needed to find a way to be clean again.

I ran up to his bathroom, grabbing his toothbrush, and a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide. I also grabbed his phone. The date on his phone showed it had been about a week. Oh well, I had bones to clean. I knew that it wasn’t the proper way to clean bones, but to hell with it.

I sprayed the toothbrush, sat next to his body, and grabbed each of his bones and began to scrub every inch of them with the brush. I wanted them to be clean, I would keep them as a way to remember this day.

I was also able to do what I always wanted in some way.

Brushing bones.