My brother lives in the basement. His room is small and dark, with only a single window that looks out over a stone wall. I have no idea who put him there or why, but he has been locked up down here for as long as I can remember. He’s never asked to leave. He doesn’t seem to mind the dark and lack of sunlight. It makes me think he must be used to it. I’m not sure what my father does when he comes home from work, but I know he brings food. My mother keeps asking questions about where it goes, how much we eat, if she should stop buying so many groceries. My father ignores the questions and keeps her wondering. He doesn’t know that I know the truth.
I started hearing him when I was a little girl. First a faint scratching on the walls. Then a tapping. And finally a voice whispering to itself in the darkness. The first few times I heard his whispers, I thought they were my own thoughts echoing back at me from the empty space between us. But then he spoke words. They weren’t the same ones I’d told myself every night before falling asleep. His voice sounded different—shorter and more abrupt. He didn’t speak in complete sentences; he barely said anything at all.
“You are not alone.”
And then I would hear nothing for hours until morning. Sometimes I don’t sleep, unable to shut off my imagination. In those moments I am certain that he is real, and that I live in a house that isn’t just a place to sleep. A place where people hide their secrets. That I’m living in a house haunted by my brother and his unending whispers.
I’ve tried telling my mother once, but she couldn’t understand me when I started crying. She kept repeating “Hush!” and swatting at my hands like I was trying to hurt her. Even now, after years of listening, I still struggle to tell her what’s really happening. I feel trapped. Trapped in this dark, cold house with two parents who won’t listen to me. Trapped in a life that I don’t want.
But even if I could escape, I wouldn’t go far enough to get away. I’ll never be free because my brother is always watching me.
The door slams open behind me, startling me out of my thoughts. My father comes through the doorway carrying a large box filled with packages of meat. My mother rushes past him, pulling her sweater tight around herself and shivering. There isn’t even any snow outside, but the temperature has dropped dramatically since yesterday, and she hasn’t yet adjusted to the winter air. She laces her fingers together and presses them against her lips to keep them warm. She glances at my father several times as he walks toward the kitchen. I catch her looking at his arms as well. He’s always covered in bruises. Sometimes they’re red and swollen, sometimes just black and blue.
The next day I find my brother sitting on the floor of our tiny kitchen, staring at an open box of cereal. This is the first time I’ve seen him. I don’t know how he has freed himself, but I know that it is him. I know because he looks into my eyes and repeats our secret phrase.
“You are not alone.”
He is small and pale and… wrong. I’ve been waiting my whole life to see him. I want to hug him so badly. Instead, I stare at him, thinking hard about what comes next.
“Why did you come?” I ask. “What do you want? Why haven’t we met sooner?”
His face contorts with confusion and he mutters something I cannot understand. He pulls himself up and stumbles toward me. I reach out, but he shoves me away.
“Go,” he says. “Go! Leave me alone!”
I am angry, but I let him push me away. He takes a step backward, then another, and then turns around. My father enters the room. He stands behind my brother and watches as he walks away. He then leads me out of the kitchen and shows me to my bedroom. I lock the door behind me and close my eyes. The phrase repeats in a thousand whispers.
“You are not alone.”
Years pass and I wonder if my brother will ever return to the world above the basement. I worry that my father has locked him away forever. I keep going through the motions of being a child, pretending to be happy when I’m not. Pretending that everything is normal. That this is my life and there is nothing else. When my father leaves for work and my mother is busy in the kitchen, I sneak down the stairs. I wait for my brother to appear, but he never does. I feel alone.
Then the smell begins. First a light odour, that evolves into an all-consuming stench. The stench of a corpse. I imagine it is my brother, rotting in the dark. I cover my nose and mouth with my shirt and breathe shallowly.
I spend the days hiding. I don’t go outside. I don’t play. I watch cartoons and cry. I wish I had never left the basement. The house is quiet. Father hasn’t returned. I run to my mother’s room and find her sitting on the bed. Her mouth hangs open, and there is foam on her lips. I scream at her, begging her to wake up, but she doesn’t move. I slap her face and shout louder, desperate to get some kind of reaction. The tears fall freely from my eyes as I shake her. But she remains still. Cold and lifeless. I try desperately to pull myself together, to get past this moment. That is when I hear it.
A scream fills the house.
It sounds like my father. In the basement. I hear him stumbling across the floorboards, and then I see my brother for the first time in years, His skin is grey and mummified. His hair is brittle and dry. His eyes are blackened and dead. His clothes hang from his body like he is made of bones covered in flesh. There is something inside him, crawling around on his back. It is a creature with many legs and red eyes. Its breath is foul and reeks of decay. My father stands behind it brandishing a knife. I turn and run. I don’t stop. As I flee, I hear the words I have always clung to, sung to me in a monster’s dying throes…
“You are not alone.”