Brothers (Cain and Abel)

You woke up on a cold bed. The first thing you became aware of was two different rhythms of breathing: rapid, bird-like, and heavy, underground. Then came a dull thud on the bed frame near your temple.

• Wake up. Wake up, you damned thing. Above you is Abel's sharp face with blazing eyes. Cain's massive head rises from the next bunk.

• What? —They brought a new one. —And why did you wake me up? "Get up, you bastard. You're the one in charge here. It's your fault, Cain. And he's an idiot."

Cain sat up, his heavy gaze falling on you. —There is some truth to that.

They looked in silence. Abel stepped forward with an empty smile. "We don't know your diagnosis. If you're a faggot, we don't judge you. If you're a monster, you'll figure it out yourself."

Cain nodded. "He's right. They don't treat here. They develop. Now you're ours."

“Now you are ours” was an act of appropriation.

That's how the everyday life began. The family was bound together by strange rituals. At breakfast, Abel, shaking, arranged the raisins. —Today it’s seven. Yesterday it was five. No wonder. Cain, chewing methodically, glanced. —Have you counted the salt? There were more crystals yesterday. They're sucking the moisture out of us.

You began to notice details: how Abel drew patterns on the glass, how Cain silently whispered the count.

At night, Abel slid onto your mattress. "They say we're sick. But what if it's all on the outside that's sick? It's clean here. Like a desert. Just us." From above—Cain’s voice:

• Leave it. Let it come on its own. —And if not? "Then he won't survive. Here, people only survive by finding their own delirium and clinging to it like an anchor."

They became your anchor. You began to see Abel's hysteria as a shield from panic, Cain's silence as a fortress against the world. You became a translator between two languages ​​of the same despair.

On a walk, Cain said, looking at the wall: "My parents wanted a son, like in the advert. We didn't fit into their box. There are no boxes here. Here you can be openly broken."

You looked at them—at fire and ashes. They didn't promise healing. They offered a place in their reality. Where counting cracks is more important than dates, and silence between brothers is the most intense dialogue.

Now at night you listen to their breath mingling with yours. Their madness has become your air. Is their cursed connection your only support?

THC