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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Jay_Tee13 on 2024-07-31 16:25:59+00:00.

No one's allowed to look at my brother when he eats

Sometimes, trying to remember is like picking a scab. You pry at the callous bits, twisting, peeling, until it ruptures, and all the nasty spills out. Before long an even harder shell forms over the wound.

It's just like that when I remember my brother Matty. Like one big gaping scab leaking nauseating glimpses of the past.

I tried to focus on the dark pavement that ran like a treadmill under my car. Mom's house was close.

There was an image in my mind. A row of worn leather seats. The tinted window of a school bus. We were stopped in front of an enormous building and the driver was waving us off. There was someone else on the bus with me. I stepped outside and waited for the mechanical lift to lower.

The rest of our class had arrived before us, buzzing around the entrance. The mechanical lift shuddered to a halt. I turned and there was Matty, snug in his wheelchair, a fuzzy blue blanket draped across his legs.

He hated riding that bus alone. It was a stubby thing, but the only vehicle at our school with accommodations for Matty. Our teacher, Mrs. Gavin, allowed me to ride with him and together that short bus became a limousine.

Matty and I brought up the rear as the field trip’s teeming mass of children funneled into the building. We were accompanied by Ms. Riya. She was a resource teacher, always next to Matty and keeping him company and making him laugh. She was very young, probably freshly graduated, and very pretty. Matty and I loved her.

"Ms. Riya, what is this place," I asked.

"This is where scientists work,” Ms. Riya said. “They do experiments here, and invent things to help people all over the world."

She looked down at Matty and squeezed his hand, "Come on."

The class ooo'd and ahh'd at the things they saw. Their squeals rebounded off the curved walls to create an echo chamber of wonder and amazement.

"Look," Ms. Riya pointed.

The area we entered had all sorts of infographics: Diagrams showing the steps of cellular mitosis in the human body, the stages of decomposition taken place in a small fox, a series of photos depicting a middle-aged amputee whose missing limb seems to grow from a pathetic stump, to a small nub of flesh, to eventually a glistening raw baby-arm.

"Isn't that amazing?" Ms. Riya shook her head. She grasped a crucifix hanging from her neck. "They're miracles, you know."

Some of these displays made my stomach do somersaults and I looked towards my brother. His eyes shone with burgeoning curiosity.

At the front of the river of kids, a squat woman in a lined suit was speaking with Mrs. Gavin. Mrs. Gavin waved over Ms. Riya. While they spoke I turned to Matty.

"This is cool, right?"

Matty nodded, shifted in his chair. His fuzzy blanket drooped from his knees but he was fixated elsewhere.

"Do you believe in miracles?" he asked softly.

I adjusted the blanket to cover his shriveled legs.

I followed his aqua blue eyes to the timeline photos of the amputee. The magically regrown arm was shaded a disgusting red and had strange blisters on its skin.

"Maybe."

Ms. Riya appeared next to us wearing one of her beautiful smiles.

"Matty, I've got a surprise for you," she beamed at him. "Do you wanna see something cool?"

He thought for a second. "As long as my brother can come with."

The three of us followed the squat woman in the lined suit. We listened to her heels click against the cold floor, making our way through a labyrinth of hallways and doors.

We avoided stairs, taking an elevator that descended a few floors before stopping.

Soon, we had arrived in front of a door. A window filled the wall next to it where we could satisfy our hungry eyes. Inside, a laboratory; three long tables with an assortment of tall glass tubes, microscopes, and other equipment. In the corner, a fume hood, refrigerator, IV stands and blood pressure cuffs. In the back were four large plastic panels from floor to ceiling, creating a transparent cell with a chair in the middle.

There were four men in oversized white coats, one of them with a familiar face walking towards the door. It clicked and opened.

"Dad!"

He smiled and bent over to hug Matty and then me.

"Hey, kiddos. Want to see what Dad's working on?"

"Yea!”, “Yes!" Matty and both chimed in.

Dad smiled.

He told the squat woman in the suit thanks. She nodded and left.

"I'm sorry," he turned to Ms. Riya. "With the boys now, this room exceeds its recommended capacity. Is it alright if I ask you to wait outside?"

Ms. Riya hesitated.

"Don't worry," Dad soothed her. "Nothing in the lab can harm them so long as my colleagues and I are present."

"Of course, Doctor."

Then we were moving, under the stinging fluorescent lights of the lab, past the black-top tables with their arsenal of tools, towards the back where the plastic cell stood. As we approached, the three scientists searched Matty with greedy eyes.

"Matty, do you remember what we talked about? Last week, before bed."

Matty remembered and nodded.

I turned around and saw Ms. Riya watching from behind the window. She gave a reassuring wave.

"These are my friends, Matty. We've been working for a long, long time."

Dad flipped a lever on the plastic cell. One of the walls slid open.

"Now, I can promise you today, you'll walk out of this building all by yourself. On your own two feet."

The wheelchair shook.

"Really?" Matty asked. He looked down at his useless limbs. "I will walk? You promise?"

"Soon, buddy. Promise."

“I will walk…” he repeated it, a statement this time, carefully studying each word as it came out of his mouth.

"How?" I asked.

Dad motioned into the cell. An invitation. The chair meant to hold him was equipped with restraints.

"Will it hurt?"

"No, I promise. You're not going to feel anything."

Dad's coworkers avoided eye contact.

Matty gripped my hand.

"Can -"

"No, Matty." Dad said, beginning to sound impatient. He came close, lowered himself to eye level with us.

"Son, you are more important to me than anything. It kills me when I see you looking at the kids on the park. Don’t you see? My heart aches when the soccer ball bounces to you on the sidelines. I will make sure nothing, nothing bad happens to you. I'm trying to make you whole again. Do you want the same thing, Matty? Do you trust me?"

Matty hugged Dad with tears in his eyes. He took his hand and allowed the scientists to roll him into the cell. He trembled as they removed his blanket, scooped him up, and gently set him down again.

Then the restraints. The final strap went tight across his forehead.

A rapping sound came from behind me. Ms. Riya knocking on the glass, her lips making shapes with no sounds.

"Dad?" Matty looked uncomfortable.

"It's okay." He looked at one of his colleagues, and nodded towards me. "Take him with you."

The disappointed scientist grabbed my hand and led me out.

Ms. Riya pulled me away as soon as we were through the door.

"What are you doing to him?"

She tried to slip past into the lab but the scientist pushed her back and shut the door.

"Get off!" Ms. Riya shouted.

"Stop," the man in the lab coat said. He held his hands up, more interested in getting a view from the window. "He asked his father to do it. He wants to see what it feels like strapped in."

From here we could only watch as Dad began to work faster. He and his remaining colleagues rushed to put on gloves, masks, and gowns before Dad hurried to a far corner.

"What is that?" Ms. Riya questioned.

One of the colleagues in the room had grabbed a syringe filled with black fluid from the table.

"Hey," Ms. Riya grabbed the shoulder of the scientist.

He sputtered, pulling away, "I said stop!" He snapped his attention back to the lab. "Finally, we get to see our results. You will see, too."

Marching back to Matty was Dad, gripping an odd shaft of wood in his hands. He hefted it onto his shoulder.

"Oh my God," Ms. Riya's eyes widened.

An axe, three feet long and with a steel head. Glistening and winking with each step, it glittered brand new in the sterile light. When Dad re-entered the cell, the color drained from Matty's face.

"Matty!"

Ms. Riya was running down the hall.

"Shit."

The scientist next to me banged on the window and took off after her. Dad must've known because the next thing he did was raise the axe over his head.

Matty thrashed against his restraints, splayed his fingers out to reach for something, anything. His ankles were wrestled and his legs pulled taut beneath the blade. Someone jammed the syringe of black liquid into his thigh. In those few seconds, the only thing more chilling than the horror on Matty's face, was the look on Dad's. He was looking directly into my brother's eyes, smiling like it was Christmas morning.

The axe flashed.

 ---

I had to swerve to avoid smashing into a mailbox. I slammed on the brakes. When I saw the address in the rearview, I realized I was stopped in front of my childhood home.

It was the early morning, earlier than the sun, and the lonely street had no lamps to illuminate it. My old house hid in the dark, shifting restlessly.

I didn't want to. Maybe if I hadn't had those drinks before making the drive I wouldn't have even put the car in park, just taken my foot off the brak...

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