The Orphans in a Box

The Orphans in a Box(Zachary) It was November 24, 2005 and I was sitting in my room playing on my gaming station when something outside on the street had caught my eye. There was a little boy rummaging through the trash cans along the alley ways and sidewalks. He was barely clothed and was extremely dirty. I saw him turn down one of the snowy alleys and then immediately jumped up to get my coat and shoes on. I ran out the front door and towards the alleyway. The boy, to no surprise, was huddled in the back corner of the alley and was shivering to death. I grabbed the boy without question and ran him back to my home and ran him inside. I grabbed some of my old clothes and then had him stand in front of the stove. I tried to warm him up before my mother awoke and came downstairs to find us. When the boy was warm I lead him into the living room to eat the soup I made him. Then I heard it. Loud stomps trudging down the stairs in our direction. I feared my mothers reaction to the unwelcome guest and sat in terror as she got ever so closer. Then she appeared in the doorway with her hands on her hips and tapping her foot on the hardwood floor. All I could do was stare at her blankly but finally managed to spit out the words "Mama don't, it's ok, the boy was freezing to death outside so I brought him inside to get warmed up again". She said nothing just turned and walked back out of the room and back up the stairs. I had decided to let the boy crash at our house that night and had him sleep on the couch. When I left him he was already fast asleep and so I headed to my room to blissful sleep.

The next morning I awoke to the sun shining over all of the glistening snow. I headed downstairs to greet my guest hoping that he would be in better conditions. When I entered the living room the blankets were sprawled out over the floor but the boy was not under them and was nowhere else throughout the house. I went outside and looked around my yard but I couldn't find him anywhere at all. It finally came to the point that I thought the boy got uncomfortable and went back to the alleyway where I had once found him. I approached the dark cut off area and looked around but didn't see him around anywhere. As I turned to head back to my house I heard some rumbling in a trash can towards the back of the alley. I walked back towards the container, cautiously, not wanting to startle whatever was inside. When I lifted the lid off of the can I saw that the boy was shaking inside the can. He was also holding something... Cradling it. I lifted him out and I pried his arms loose and what I saw sickened me. He was holding an even younger child that looked extremely sickly and was skin and bones. I ran back to my home and immediately began the warming process and almost had to force the youngest child to eat. It took a while to get the younger child warmed but the older one had stayed in my house so he was mostly good, just a little cold. I sat in the couch and watched as the boys sat together in front of the fire huddled close. I could tell that they were obviously brothers but the only thought that plagued my mind was where did they come from... And who did this to them. I made the pallet back up and set it up for the both of them with two insulated heated blankets hoping they would stay warm and headed up to my room once again after a day of being a savior.

The next morning the same thing happened. Both of the boys were missing. I immediately went to the alley thinking they would be there but they weren't. Then I went back home and asked my mother where they went. She had a look of disgust on her face as I asked the question again but she gave me an answer "darling don't worry about those street trash, mommy took care of them... Now go get ready for our Galla". My mothers tone worried me and I didn't settle for no as an answer. I asked again in a much stricter tone and then she grabbed me by my shirt collar, pulling me close saying to me, "listen, they are gone. I put them away like the trash they are. Somewhere in the woods there's a box containing two disgusting street rats edging ever so closer to death!" My stomach dropped with disgust and I kicked my mother back off of me. She fell back and smashed her head on the corner of the table and blood leaked out onto the floor. She looked up at me with a face of pure demonic rage. She grabbed the first thing on the table she saw which to my misfortune was a huge ceramic ash-tray, and chucked it towards my head. I ducked as the ash-tray came spiraling towards my head. It smashed against the wall and shattered into pieces. I ran towards the front door but my mother picked up one of the ceramic shards and jabbed it through my leg cause me searing pain. I kicked my leg back and my foot cracked into her nose flinging her back. I jumped up as fast as I could and grabbed the door-knob. I fled out the door and towards the woods to save the poor boys before they had to suffer through my mothers cruel torture another minute. I got to the edge of the woods and peered deep into the dark snowy branches. As I stared out into the void I feared I wouldn't find the boys and that their last minutes would be spent in a cold dark box. As I stood at the tree line I sat there thinking of what I could do to find them. I immediately jolted into the woods and tore through the branches in a frenzy to find the boys. I tripped over a root and gashed my cheek on a branch but jumped up and kept going thrashing through branch after branch. Finally after minutes of searching I came to a huge clearing with a metal shed in the middle of it. The shed looked just like a oversized rusted box with only a door in the front of it. I ran to the box looking for the handle but there wasn't one. As I searched every inch of the box I heard gunshots in the distance an knew without a doubt they were coming from my mother. I searched even faster and finally found the lock buried under a small pile of snow in the lower left corner of the box. I pulled at the latch and struggled to get the door up. It felt like the door weighed a ton but my adrenaline helped me to lift it. I got it opened just enough to get the boys out and they both scurried towards me. I got them outside and we began to run back towards town... towards safety! Then it happened... I saw my mother running at us with a shot gun getting closer and closer with every second. I pushed the boys in front of me as if to be a shield over them. We continued to run towards civilization when we heard one final gunshot. All three of us stopped in our tracks. The two boys were unharmed but as for me... The bullet went straight through my chest. I fell to the ground in searing pain but I signaled the boys to keep going. They ran ahead and in my last moments I saw my mother standing over me with the shotgun pointed directly at my head... Then she pulled the trigger.........