Violent sounds filled the once peaceful domain and both brother and sister were awoken from their wistful dreams to slide out of their beds and infest the hallways, lurking in the shadows. They watched as the two adults screamed at each other, threats escaping their tongues at speeds almost incomprehensible to their ears. Foreign words seethed in the cool air, that caused them to cling close together, finding comfort in the warmth of their small undeveloped bodies. It was not enough however to stop the two from crying, though they were both silent for fear of their own petty lives.

James Tell and his sister Jessica had been watching their parents fight in the living room again and he winced as he watched his dad throw a punch into his mothers gut winding her. However she was a strong Irish woman and would not comply to his will as easily, and thus struck back with fiery intensity in her general visage, pushing him backward through the living room. They ended at the entrance to the open kitchen, his back at the counter, her nails digging vigorously through his face.

It was there, the source of all his fears, sitting flat against the counter waiting to be manipulated. In James¢‚¬„¢s dark undeveloped mind he could see him grabbing up the knife and plunging it into her breast. It would cause her to bleed like the day that he fell off his bike and scraped his knee, and it would cause her to die like the family dog Skippy that had only left a week ago. Such complexities didn¢‚¬„¢t escape the young boy and he could do nothing but cry out loud, unlatching from his twin and running into the living room, joining their screaming.

It was the knife that stayed with him more than the fight, a fearful symbol of primal qualities as he grew up in the unsteady household. Unnoticeable to anyone James began to latch onto the fear he had embraced that night, becoming obsessed with it, letting it become close in his development as a youth. There were more fights, but his memory always harkened back to that night, when he had uncharacteristically put himself at risk for the sake of his sister, had known real fear for the first time in his life.

She however, grew up much more ambitiously; she knew no fear and often protected her silent and moody twin from school bullies. This earned him scorn as a sissy, but he didn¢‚¬„¢t mind, he knew he would never fend for himself, and was glad that his sister at least had grown some form of a spine. Needless to say, those events of one protecting the other kept them close.

Things had changed however, and Jessie had been left alone at the cusp of her womanhood, never to see her dear sibling again. She harkened back to those memories of fear once more as her naked body was embraced by the cold darkness. Somehow, she had been suspended, metal cuffs biting at her wrists and ankles, a layer of sickly sweat speckling her skin. From training she could pick up about sixteen others in the room, though her eyes were blinded by some sort of fabric. It was their shoes; all of them wore leather soles, screeching like sirens against the tile floors.