After a long and frustrating wait, just when I began to lose hope, one of the rats finally crept close. I could hear it sniffing around me, cautious, alert. My heart started to race as I fought to keep my breathing steady. I didn't want to do anything to cause it to run away. I suddenly felt its warm breath on my toes.
This was it!
Without hesitation, I lunged, snatching the rat off the ground. It sank its teeth into my hand, but I held on. My legs were numb from sitting so long, and standing felt heavy and forced.
I stared down at the rat, its tiny body squirming between my hands. I knew what had to be done, but the thought alone made bile rise in my throat.
Gritting my teeth, I shut my eyes and tightened my grip. Then I stepped down. Its skull gave way with a sickening crunch. Blood and brain matter splattered out beneath my heel, forming a crude, crimson star.
Eyes brimming with tears, I staggered up the stairs and cracked the door open. Memories of the last time I passed through that door clawed at me, and fear anchored me in place. I didn't dare to take a single step outside.
I slipped my arm through the gap, dropped the rat, and fled back down the stairs.Two hours later, the old woman returned with a plate. On it lay a perfectly fried rat.
Whether it was hunger or her twisted talent in the kitchen, I couldn't tell—but that rat smelled like something meant for a king. The aroma drifted up to my nose, rich, warm, divine.
'I can finally eat!' I thought, practically drooling.
I rushed toward her, arms outstretched, eager to grab the plate—but before I could reach it, her hand snapped across my face.
Slap!
"Control yourself," she scolded coldly. "No matter how strong your urges become, you must never give in to them. We won't have you acting like an animal."
She held the plate just out of reach, eyes sharp with judgment.
"Don't you understand? We've been given a second chance with you, Grayson. This is a good thing. We couldn't properly enjoy—" she paused, correcting herself, "—educate Michael. But with you…? It will be different."
That smile returned, the same spine-chilling grin the old man wore. It didn't match her voice. It didn't belong on a human face.
After a five-minute lecture on the importance of controlling my emotions, she finally placed the plate down and turned to leave. I didn't hear much of it, though.
"I'll continue to bring you water from time to time," she said, glancing back as the door creaked shut. "Make sure you keep those urges of yours in check when I return… or next time, I won't be so nice," she added.
Once again, I was alone. I stared at the plate in silence before slowly beginning to eat. I couldn't believe this was my life now—eating rats in my grandparents' basement.
But I didn't cry.
Not that day. Not anymore. My tears had dried up. All that remained was hunger. Hunger and survival.
From that day forward, everything revolved around my next meal.
For a while, that meant the same routine: hunt down a rat, crush its head. But over time, something inside me sharpened. After two months, I began to notice sounds others would miss—the soft skittering of claws, the faint squeaks behind the walls. Patterns emerged. I could predict where the rats would come from, what cracks they preferred.
I stopped waiting.
I started hunting.
It was still difficult, but no longer impossible. I could hear them before they even emerged, track their steps through the walls. Patience was the key. Always patience.
But they adapted too.
Soon, they stopped using their usual paths. They avoided the cracks I'd ambushed before. I had to dig into the walls, gouging new openings with my bare hands just to stay ahead of them. My fingers bled. My nails fell off. But I kept going.
Because I had to.
Because I was starving.
A week later, I realized crushing their skulls was wasteful—and messy. Cleaning up was getting harder. So I switched methods. I began breaking their necks instead.
Efficient. Clean. Quiet.
Eventually, they started bringing me bigger prey—sometimes a cat, sometimes a dog.
At first, I hesitated.
But the hunger always won.
The cats weren't a problem, but I was a little hesitant about killing a dog. They used to be one of the only things I still had love for. So, naturally, I failed to kill the first dog they brought to me and decided to keep it. I then began hunting for two.
I was only 5 years old, and wasn't the most creative child. So, I decided to name my new friend 'Woof'.
At first, we lived off the cats they brought down, then we relied on the rats to replenish our energy. However, for some unknown reason, they never brought down another dog.
I didn't pay it any mind as it was good for me. I then began to leave two rats by the door instead of one. Each time the old man would come down to drop another rat, I would hide in the bathroom with Woof.
Woof made this whole experience so much more bearable, he gave me the much-needed love that I longed for. We ate together, hunted together, and he would always sleep by my side each night and that gave me comfort.
Sometimes I would find myself crying in my sleep and Woof would lick the tears off my face and sleep even closer to me. This went on for 6 weeks, but the old man surely must have noticed by then that I had never brought the dog back up.
Perhaps he always knew. In fact, I now believe he was counting on it. There's no way he would have just let me keep Woof for so long without noticing and without a purpose. Not to forget the barking and howling that he did often.
As predicted, one day, the old man came down the stairs with a belt in his hand and the old hag following behind. Thinking that it was just another day when he would drop off a rat then leave, I hid in the bathroom with Woof as usual.
However, this day was different. Without warning, he opened the bathroom door, grabbed me by the neck, then pulled me out. He threw me towards a wall and began to beat me senseless with his belt. All the while, I never cried once. This seemed to bother him and motivated him to beat me even harder.
Woof was growling and barking at the old pair the entire time. Then, he foolishly attempted to attack the old man. The old hag, however, got in the way and started to beat Woof with what seemed to be a metallic rod.
Once the old man had gotten tired of beating me, he then said the life-changing words that stick with me to this day:
"There is no joy in this world that lasts forever, there are only fleeting moments of it. The only true constant is pain. This is something that everybody feels without end, even in their fleeting moments of happiness. Pain is not selfish, it does not choose one and leave the other. Pain is for all and all is pain," the old man said with that same spine-chilling smile on his face.
"Burn these words into your mind, child, and make them your philosophy." The hag then pointed at Woof. "Now kill it!"
She then handed me the metallic rod. Without hesitating, I took it and tried to attack her with it. However, the old man was quick to react and caught the rod, snatching it from my hands. He beat me a few more times, with the rod this time, then said, "You had your chance, now you will do it with your bare hands!"
I immediately got on my knees, crying and begging for forgiveness, but my plea went on deaf ears.
The only response I got from him was, "Kill it! The only person you can rely on is yourself. Remember that boy... kill it!"
"Please, don't make me do this. He is my only friend. I'll do something else. I'll kill anything else you want me to kill. Just don't make me kill Woof!" I pleaded with tears now finally rolling down my cheeks and snot began to drip from my nose.
The old man looked at me with a smile. Clearly amused by the sight of me finally crying.
"Do you still not get it, boy? It's either you or the dog!" the old man shouted all the while, beating me with the metallic rod and never losing his smile.
"STOOP STOP! I'll do it; I'LL DO IT!" I said defeated.
I then walked up to Woof with a limp. He looked at me with pitiable eyes. Each of his legs was now broken or fractured. All he could do was whimper in pain. Seeing me come closer, he tried to get up, but failed to do so with his injured legs.
I then wrapped my bruised hands around his neck and slowly tightened my grip. He did not resist in the slightest. I was unsure whether it was from his lack of strength to do so, or his reluctance to attack me.
"I can't!" I said to the old couple before receiving another strike to the back from the old man's belt.
Gritting my teeth, I finally pressed down on his neck with the intention of killing him.
After a while, I could feel his pulse slowing down. His eyes widened and looked like they were about to bulge out. Tears came out of his eyes, but all the while he never resisted. His body wiggled and twitched uncontrollably, until he was finally dead.
Tears ran down my face, like a river, as I held Woof's now lifeless body in my hands.
On that frightful afternoon, I strangled the life out of the only friend I ever had. I looked up at the old couple with teary eyes and saw the most frightening, satisfied smiles on their faces. They then picked up Woof and headed up the stairs.
"I'll be back with your lunch," the old hag said, patting the dead dog in her hands.
Although I felt pain all around me from the beating I had just received, there was a different kind of pain this time, growing within me. This pain caused me to cry all day and all night without eating or drinking. The pain of losing the last thing my emotions held on to.
This pain was different from the physical abuse I had gotten accustomed to. It was consuming, suffocating, and made me feel like just giving up on everything...but I didn't…I couldn't. Not after all I had been through. Ending it now would have made everything I went through meaningless.
Still wiping tears from my eyes, I began to think about the reason I was kept down here. There had to be a meaning as to why all this was happening to me. It was at that moment that something within me broke. Suddenly, my tears stopped flowing, and I finally realized everything the old man had been saying was true.
The only true constant is pain. It was the only thing I felt that never ended. I will probably carry this pain till the day I die. This pain is the only thing that will always be with me, everything else will cease.
'It's good that I killed that mutt myself; it would have died anyway...at least it died on my terms. That's right, I probably did it a favor.... Everything-Will-Cease!' These thoughts went through my head at that time.
By the end of those two years, I came to realize the only person I needed to rely on was myself. My parents weren't coming to help me. They were the ones who left me there, and for what? Nothing but personal gain. One wanted knowledge and success, and the other wanted glory. As for me, I wanted what everybody wanted. I just wanted to live, and that's all I could do.
Two years had passed, and my mother finally came back. She stayed with us for about five months before leaving again to get her PhD. Seeing her for the first time after enduring this hell for so long....
I felt…nothing!
Nothing but hatred towards her. Hatred for leaving me there; hatred for her inability to save me from this hell; hatred for coming back to me with such a bright smile on her face.
Although I was feeling all these negative emotions towards her, I was calm and never acted towards them.