Silence Falls

"Wait, hold the motherfucking phone!” Bam exclaimed in alarm as he stepped forward until he stood in front of Cris, a look of disbelief twisting his face. “Let me get this fucking straight here, because I must not have heard you right. You’re telling me that YOUR best friend was EATING the kids in your neighborhood, and throughout that entire time YOU kept it a SECRET from everyone!?" Bam was completely disgusted by the tale Cris had shared with him, and he wasn’t going to try to hide it to spare the guy’s feelings. If Cris was genuinely honest about the crime he had committed in the past then he deserved to have all of his feelings hurt. Even more so he deserved to be beaten until he was black and blue.

Shamefully, Cris looked up at Bam through the strands of his long brown hair, his blues eyes shimmered with guilt. "Y-Yes, yes I did. I protected him. At the time when I was younger, it didn't seem so bad, actually it seemed almost harmless of me to do. By the time I had learned that I was moving out of town, I had already made up my mind to tell the police every single thing I knew about those missing kids...but when I stood outside the Police Departments double doors…I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Even with the images of those little bones buried at the bottom of our tree house burning behind my eyelids, I still couldn’t do it.” Cris lowered his eyes to the floor as he recalled that day as clearly as if it was only yesterday. “I stood out there in the rain watching through their glass doors as our friendly neighborhood cops went about their usual routine of the day, and I just...couldn't do it. And I swear it wasn’t because I just wanted to protect Connor anymore. I truly think it was because I just knew I had to protect those cops more instead of bringing justice to the bones of those many lost children."

If Bam wasn’t already so enraged he would’ve probably thrown up all over the floor due to his stomach turning, but instead he stumbled back to his assigned bed and took a seat. He had been so disgusted with Cris’s story he honestly didn’t think he could stand up anymore without risking the buckling of his knees. "J-Jesus Christ man, what the fuck is wrong with you!? Protecting a fucking MONSTER like that? Y-You're no fucking innocent here you bastard, you’re just as fucking bad as him! You deserve to die, you sick twisted fuck, and for all the lives you let that psycho take!" Bam shouted at Cris, pointing an accusing finger at him while also giving him a warning glare to keep his distance from him, or else.

Cris sighed in defeat. He should have known Bam would have reacted this way. Of course he was going to be horrified by both his past actions, he was after all, responsible for the disappearance of several missing children taken from the safety of their homes. Society would probably deem them both as monsters, so it was only fitting for Bam to think the same way. "You don’t understand, and I seriously don't blame you for it. I will say that you are right though. I did the wrong thing by helping a friend stay under the radar. I am not as innocent as I truly want to be in this case, and I do deserve to die for my part in all of it…and I will…right here, and with my brother.” Cris hesitated as he lowered his eyes to the floor. “You are absolutely 100% right, Bam, and I won’t argue with you against any of it.” Cris raised his eyes to Bam in pity while he stretched his legs and then crossed them so he was sitting cross-legged on the floor. “But despite everything I’ve shared with you, and how you might be feeling towards me at the moment, you still don’t have any other option in the position that you are now stuck in other than to befriend me."

Bam scoffed in repulsion before barking across the room at Cris. "Oh yeah, and what the fuck makes you think I want to become friends with a psychotic accomplice like you!?" Now that the nausea was gone, Bam was right back to business. He shot off his bed to stride back over to Cris so that he was once again standing over him, but this time he had his hands clenched at his sides in tight fists that were itching for a fight. “WHEN WHAT I SHOULD BE DOING IS BEATING THE LIFE OUT OF YOUR CHILD MURDERING ASS!”

Cris gave him a sad but knowing smile from where he still sat serenely on the floor with his back against the wall. “Because there isn't a lot of sane people in here with you, Bam. Most of the kids who have come before us were either innocent of their crimes or truly guilty of it, but it never really matter to the world above us, because they were still thrown here regardless of how serious their ‘felony’ was or not. Over the years, the majority of these kids began to go…mad down here. They’re becoming even more insane as the months go by. I believe over time, they feel like they have no other choice but to lock themselves within their own heads to prevent themselves from losing it what with having to live here in this prison. Somewhere along the way inside their own heads they’ve lost the key to ever getting out and rejoining society again. To put it more simply, they’ve lost their minds inside their own minds, and on the outside behave as if they’re severely mentally unstable." Cris explained, all the while feeling sympathy for Bam for having been thrown into this horrible place where he would inevitable die alone and sick like all the rest of them. Come to think of it, Cris wasn’t even sure if Bam had done anything to deserve being thrown down here or not. He had yet to hear the reason as to why he was in here with him. What if he had indeed committed a felony much like himself? Judging by his raging temper, Cris wouldn’t be surprise if Bam was guilty of committing a crime too.

"Say if you don’t mind me asking, why are you even here? I mean, what kind of crime did you commit to get cast off in here with the rest of us?” Cris asked him softly, tilting his head to the side in curiosity. Bam completely froze where he still stood towering over Cris. His face became pale as he took a step back. The memories came flying back to him and began to disintegrating his anger. No, it never happened, this is all just a dream, Bam repeated to himself as he started to shake his head in denial, hoping to banish those memories into nothing.

Cris frowned in concern and raised his hand up towards Bam to help calm down his rising panic while simultaneously readying himself to get up off the floor. “Hey Bam, it's ok, you can talk me, man. I promise you I won’t judg-”

“NO! No no no!” Bam grabbed fistfuls of brown curls on both sides of his head as he abruptly yelled at the kid he had only just met. He couldn’t seem to bury his memories of Emma no matter how tightly he squeezed his eyes shut. “No, it is not ok! I...I didn't mean to. I honestly don't even know what happened...I don't! E-Every time I close my eyes I-I can see her face, staring at me in fear. Fear, of me. I know it was my fault, b-but it wasn't my fault at the same time! I can't explain...” Bam's voice got quieter as his panic began to die down with every word. His hand began to scratch at the back of his head as his words started to shift into incoherency that only he could understand. Cris decided to give him a nod of warm assurance and comfort. He had taken whatever he could get out of Bam’s confession without judgement, not that he was given a lot of information to go on anyway. He had managed to piece together that Bam had done something to a woman, and that she had feared him for it. Cris was satisfied either way that at least he got some reason to go on, no matter how short it was.

“Hey look, you don't have to explain everything to me right now. Trust me, we’ll have plenty of time in the world to talk about it again when you’re ready. How about instead we forget about all this for now, and I’ll introduce to you to a few friends of mine. Don’t worry, they're pretty sane in comparison to everybody else around here, so you’re in safe hands.” Cris assured him with a confident smile. He was hoping Bam would say yes, and would be open to becoming good friends with a very small group of people that were lucky enough to have still sustained their sanity after all this time. Bam merely gave him a shrug in response, unsure of how to go about his day anymore after all he heard. A few minutes ago, he was looking for a weapon to defend himself against the very men that captured him and brought him here, but now…now he was beginning to believe that he wouldn’t be able to protect himself from them, and going out that metal door would only end with him getting his ass kicked or worse.

Cris opted Bam’s weak shrug as a ‘yes’, and quickly jumped to his feet in excitement. “Wonderful! Trust me, you’re gonna like these ladies, especially when you’re forced to consider the other candidates around here. Also just so you know, this place has two dorms next to each other that are kept separated majority of the night and day. The boy’s dorm is obviously where we are right now, and the girl’s dorms are over on the other side. The only way to get back and forth between our two dorms is through these huge double doors that face each other in down the hall. Unfortunately, only the staff has keys cards to freely come and go between our dorms and there’s, but sometimes they forget to lock the doors behind them which gives us all an opportunity to mingle amongst each other. That’s actually how I met the girls in the first place.” Cris broke into the happiest grin Bam had ever seen, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t make him feel a tiny bit better. “Luckily for you, they brought you down here at that right opportunity. I’ll be right back so don’t try going anywhere, ok?” Cris kindly ordered as he walked over to the thick metal door and heaved it open himself, allowing a symphony of howls, screams, and groans to spill in from the outside. Cris stuck his head out and looked both ways before giving Bam one last smile. He then quickly slipped out of the room and into the hallway filled with the sounds of crazed humans.

"Fucking hell, man." Bam muttered under his breath as a cold violent shudder ran through him. He was surprised to see that the door hadn’t been locked this entire time he’d been listening to Cris and his tale, and now that he knew that he could make a somewhat easy escape, he couldn’t bring himself to physically do it. He had forgotten what the hallway had sounded like, and now that he could hear it again he was too scared to move. Literally shaking in his shoes, Bam raised his hands up to cover his ears so that he could silence the screams of torment. He forced his mind to think back to Cris’s tale instead in order to distract himself from the sounds that threatening to take his sanity from him.

Bam was beginning to think Cris was right about some of the things he had said, despite the monster that he was due to his past actions. It may be true that Cris hadn't killed those newborns with his own bare hands, but neither did he do anything to save them, or help prevent the future victims from being taken. As much as Bam didn’t want to speak to Cris ever again for his participation in the many deaths of innocent children, Cris could possibly be the ONLY sane person left in this place from what he can clearly tell by the sounds coming from the hallway. Not to mention that Cris was also his roommate, which meant it would be difficult not to communicate with him because he’ll always be around. How was he supposed to ignore his very existent when he was so close? Bam didn’t have to go outside of his room to see that he had to have been in some kind of asylum of some sort, and that it was only a matter of time before he too went crazy himself, especially if he tried hanging out with the kinds of people that were responsible for those horrific noises. No doubt he’d catch their psychotic disease, but then what about Cris? What’s was the worst that could come of hanging out with someone like him? Well, all I can say is at least he didn't outright kill anybody, Bam thought to himself, much like myself.

“I found them!” Cris exclaimed in happiness as he walked back into their room with four young slender girls following close behind him. The first girl that stepped in was the second shortest out of the bunch: she had light tanned skin with long brown hair that fell past her shoulders and had some blonde highlights hanging on near the ends. She had brown eyes, and light dust of freckles over her nose. Her small lips were a pale pink and he noticed that she also had a gap in between her two front teeth when he caught her giving Cris a smile right before she walked in.

The second girl was the tallest of the four: She had light brown skin, and black short kinky hair that she kept back with a white head scarf that looked like it had been ripped from another material. Her lips were very full, and her eyes were a deep brown that’s shape gave off the idea that she was possibly mixed race with some type of Asian because of how slanted they were. Her arms were covered in tattoos too, which Bam admired because his arms were too covered in ink. The next one was a beautiful African American young woman that didn’t too look happy to see him either. She had deep dark eyes filled with a hidden but dangerous strength, brown flawless skin, and a wide full mouth. Her black hair was also kinky and was held back in a similar head scarf that was also torn much like her friend. She was slender like the others but was adorably the smallest of them all. The last girl was also beautiful with light caramel skin, and long sleek black hair that was braided and swooped over her right shoulder and fell down her chest. Her eyebrows were thick beneath her heavy bangs and her eyes were a honey brown shade. Her lips were full and her face had the kind of proportions agents would seek out for modeling. All in all, they were each beautiful women from different cultures that just so happened to have been thrown in the same pitiful pit as Bam where they will reside until they die.