I've mostly ignored my interaction with Liz. I still haven't found Foxy's head, but I did find something else while returning to Liz's room to check everything else out. I found the picture Dad had taken from my room when I first woke up. At first, I thought about taking it back, but thought about how I really didn't have much of a use for it anymore. It was the least of my worries. I've also been too tired to go about the whole "what I am and who I used to be" thing, so I finally decided to take Dad's advice. Just be a normal kid.

I wasn't sure how to go about it, but one thing I noticed was kids all up the street played in the sprinklers. I found out pretty quickly that playing with a sprinkler isn't very fun by yourself, but laying in the spray of water proves to be a good use of my time. So that's what I did whenever the sprinkler turned on. I just laid in the grass and pretended it was raining. And when it actually rained, that was even better. It was just like a warm shower, but everywhere. Then I'd come into the house, soaking wet, and Mom would get mad that I'm tracking dirt all over the place.

That was what my days looked like for the next month or so. With Terry at school, there wasn't much to do.

But sometime in early June, Terry said he was out of school, so Mom started making the two of us go outside. Terry wasn't big on my idea of laying in the rain all day, but he did start with hose battles. We only have one water hose, so it's kind of a one sided battle. But I did find a stack of old buckets in the garage, so I've started filling all those up beforehand and sneaking up on Terry when he has his guard down. That never ends well. I was almost drowned in a bucket once. Now I understand what Mom meant when she said that Terry and I never got along.

We wouldn't even only fight outside. We still mess around inside, which would stress Mom out a lot.

Pretty soon though, the play fighting would turn into actual fighting, and because Terry is nearly twice my height and twice as strong, so I end up getting beaten and strangled a lot. I feel like I'm exaggerating how bad it is, because Mom and Dad don't do a whole lot. They just tell Terry to be careful, because I could possibly die again. I've been back in my room again a lot. Dad even inverted the lock when I complained about Terry, so now I'm the one who controls whether or not someone gets into my room. I like it better this way.

It was a Friday on a really hot day, and I desperately wanted to go outside and lay in the sprinkler, but that would mean I have to leave my room. I thought about opening my window before realizing it was sealed. So now I'm just locking myself in a box.

After a while, Mom called Terry and I for dinner. I made sure Terry left for the dining room first, so I could follow a few paces behind him.

I hopped up into my chair as Mom set a plate of leftover pasta from the other night in front of me.

"Is this still good to eat?" Terry asked, picking at his.

"Oh, shush, it's only been two days," Mom replied. I noticed she was dressed nicer than usual. Terry must've noticed too.

"You look fancy today."

"Thank you," Mom said. "I'm going out with your Dad tonight. Sorry, I would've ordered you two pizza or something, but we had enough leftovers as it is."

"Wait, you're leaving me alone with him?" I cried, leaping up in my seat.

"Michael, you'll be fine for a couple hours, right?" Mom sighed. "You're fine. Terry, don't kill your brother." Terry flashed a thumbs up. "Thank you."

"Alright, are you ready?" Dad asked, walking into the dining room from his bedroom. He was also dressed nicely.

"Yeah," Mom said. She then turned to Terry and I. "Just leave your plates here, I'll take care of it when I come home. I'll see you in a couple hours." She then took Dad's hand and they left to the car, which quickly drove off.

I continued to eat. Terry finished before me, and waited while scraping his fork up and down his plate. We have a rule that we can't leave the table until everyone is done eating, and I have recently made a point to bother Terry by eating slower than usual. I'm not sure if the fork dragging was to annoy me back or not, but it was bothering me enough to finish my dinner quickly. I wasn't even able to set my own fork down yet before Terry left the table and went off to his room. I sighed. At least I was alone now. But maybe I have a clear shot to the front yard.

I did make it outside, and the grass was still damp. The sun was setting, so the air was pleasantly cool. I always liked evening air. It wasn't scorching or freezing. No wind, nothing.

I laid down on my back and fixed my eyes on a small pink flower. It wasn't too pretty, but it was there. I thought about plucking it up, but was stopped by a bee flying over and landing on the flower. I watched it sit there for a second before slowly reaching out my hand, just to see if the bee cared to approach me. A minute or so passed, and the bee quit with the flower and scanned the area. It crawled across the petals that were closer to me, and hopped onto my finger. It walked around for a bit while looking for anything valuable, and I had expected it to fly off just then. But I guess my finger twitched the slightest bit, and the bee stung me.

"Ow!" I cried, flailing my hand around to remove the bee from it. I ripped the stinger out, and was just left with a red mark on my finger that was swelling up fast. My finger was throbbing and my hand was shaking, so I clenched it into a ball.

I stood up and made my way back inside. All I could clearly think of doing was running the sting under water with hopes that will do something. It helped a little bit, but only because the water was freezing. When I turned the water off, my finger would go back to hurting again.

"Could you do our dishes while you're in there? Or waste more water while you're at it..." I heard Terry at the door.

"Shut up Terry," I said. "I got stung by a bee." Terry then started laughing, and I groaned.

"Okay, I'm sorry," He said after recovering. "But you can't just run water over it and wash out the infection that thing might have."

"Well what do I do?" I asked. Terry walked past me and opened a higher up cupboard and pulled a bottle of something out of it.

"Here, turn off the water, idiot."

I turned off the water as Terry popped the bottle open and pulled my hand towards him.

"Hold it over the sink," He instructed. I did as he said, and he poured the stuff in the bottle over my finger. It was cold, but it quickly started stinging.

"Ow, ow!" I cried, pulling back.

"Hold still!" Terry took a tighter grip on my wrist and stopped pouring the stuff all over my hand. "It's gonna sting, so chill out." The stinging didn't matter so much anymore because the blood flow was being cut off from my hand.

"Let go of me!" I tried to break out of the vice Terry had my wrist in. He eventually let me go, and I watched as my hand turned back to its normal color.

"Stop being an idiot," Terry said while leaving. Now it was just me again. I waited for Terry to shut his own bedroom door before leaving to my room. I slammed the door and locked it, moving to a corner of my room while holding onto my finger tightly.

Idiot. Idiot. I repeatedly hit the back of my head against the wall as well, because I had been pretty pissed off for a while. Terry's a jerk. My parents are somewhere else and I can't get Terry in trouble through them.

I told myself to stop hurting myself and to go read a book or something. I've gained a pretty huge supply over the summer, just so I had something to do for the hours I was locked in my room.

I had gotten a couple books as gifts from Mom when I told her what I was doing, and Dad even gave me a book he said he really liked. I decided to go back to it, since I really liked it too, having read it six times already.

It's about this opera house that's being haunted by some ghost or living dead person who also falls in love with a young soprano, then kidnaps her fiance and almost kills him. It's pretty interesting. Phantom of the Opera, I think it's called.

I read it really quickly since I was overly-familiar with it, and checked the clock on my bedside. 08:47. Mom and Dad should probably be home soon. It was six when we had dinner? Yeah. It's been a couple hours. They should be on their way back. I waited for the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway, but it never came. I waited some more.

09:16. They really should be back soon.

09:39. Anytime.

10:03. I yawned and tried to keep my eyes open. It was getting pretty late, but Mom and Dad still weren't home. I'll just wait a little longer.

10:55. I drifted off. I couldn't stay up for a second longer. And in the time I was sleeping, I dreamt about living friends and a living sister and a family that could get along.

I was shaken out of these dreams by someone shouting and pounding on my door. I was scared and confused, so I didn't get out of bed right away.

"Michael!" It was Terry. "Michael, wake up! Unlock your f- unlock your door!"

"Oh, okay!" I called back, leaping out of bed and staggering to the door. I opened it and saw Terry who looked panicked and tired.

"You need to come with me! Mom and Dad are in the hospital, and I don't know what's going on!"

"I'm not dressed-" I started, but Terry grabbed my arm.

"No time, let's just go!" Terry yanked me out of my room, but once he figured I couldn't keep up, he threw me on his back and ran down to the hospital while I tried to wake up.

The darkened sky was beginning to turn blue. It seemed so peaceful for such a panicked moment.