OOM [.001]
For years Silas has been able to put up with the abuse his father doles out. He hasn't ever liked it, hasn't ever even started to like it, as sometimes happens. He stayed because he wanted his mother safe, and she stayed that way until one evening.
Dinner was fish. It was a Friday, and not out of the ordinary; white wine, capers, lemon. It should have gone over fine, except for his father. He was upset at something, shouting at them both and knocking things off the counters. He turned over the table, dishes breaking and turning the floor slick and slippery. Silas pushed him against the sink when his fist shot out, connecting with his mother's jaw and sending her head snapping back with a sickening thud against the tiled wall next to the refrigerator; he didn't pay any mind when she slid to the floor, shoving his father away, against the sink. He yelled more obscenities at them both, and didn't stop even when Silas stopped shouting back for him to shut up. She wasn't responding to him, not the pat on her face or when he lifted her chin and it fell right back down. Silas didn't have to be a doctor to understand that those things, and blood on the back of her neck, meant nothing good.
He didn't think about what happened next, sliding the long carving knife out of the block and jabbing it downward, feeling the shock in his arm from the connection with his father's shoulder. His grip slipped and it sliced his palm, blood spurting and wetting his fingers, making him lose his grip. The knife clattered on the floor and it rang like a bell in his ears as he backed up, hands bloody even as he scrubbed them on his shirt, hissing at the pull on the cut in his palm.
It was really only luck that the door out of the house, once he'd grabbed the clothes he had clean and folded on his bed and the box with his jewelry and bible in it, led into Milliways.
Dinner was fish. It was a Friday, and not out of the ordinary; white wine, capers, lemon. It should have gone over fine, except for his father. He was upset at something, shouting at them both and knocking things off the counters. He turned over the table, dishes breaking and turning the floor slick and slippery. Silas pushed him against the sink when his fist shot out, connecting with his mother's jaw and sending her head snapping back with a sickening thud against the tiled wall next to the refrigerator; he didn't pay any mind when she slid to the floor, shoving his father away, against the sink. He yelled more obscenities at them both, and didn't stop even when Silas stopped shouting back for him to shut up. She wasn't responding to him, not the pat on her face or when he lifted her chin and it fell right back down. Silas didn't have to be a doctor to understand that those things, and blood on the back of her neck, meant nothing good.
He didn't think about what happened next, sliding the long carving knife out of the block and jabbing it downward, feeling the shock in his arm from the connection with his father's shoulder. His grip slipped and it sliced his palm, blood spurting and wetting his fingers, making him lose his grip. The knife clattered on the floor and it rang like a bell in his ears as he backed up, hands bloody even as he scrubbed them on his shirt, hissing at the pull on the cut in his palm.
It was really only luck that the door out of the house, once he'd grabbed the clothes he had clean and folded on his bed and the box with his jewelry and bible in it, led into Milliways.