* WARNING *
This story contains dark psychological themes, emotional manipulation, and mild depictions of non-graphic abuse. Reader discretion is advised.
They say cats remember everything.
That we never forget a scent, a face, a soul.
And they're right.
Because I remember everything.
I remember the shape of her last breath.
I remember the warmth of the house before it learned to scream.
And I remember the moment I stopped being a boy.
You expect me to speak of guilt.
But I feel nothing for what I became.
For what I did.
For what I am.
You see, love is not soft.
Sometimes love comes with stitching needles.
Sometimes love is forcefully fed to you raw, like meat.
Sometimes, it wears your mother's face.
She wasn't my mother. Not by blood.
I arrived at the House on Townson Hill when I was fifteen .
The orphanage said I was special, clever.
That i would now be in good hands.
That's when i met her.
She said I looked like her dead husband.
She said she had a spare room.
She said she'd take me in.
She lied about the room.
There was no room.
There was only a basement.
She called it The Silent room.
The floor was always wet. And red.
I don't know why. I never asked.
The first night, she touched my hair.
The second night, she took off her ring and whispered,
"You won't call me 'Mother.' You'll call me love."
I learned early that disobedience was a bloody teacher.
Every rule broken earned a stitch in the tongue.
Literally.
She had a sewing kit she called "Red Discipline."
She stitched it into my mouth.
The skin.
The muscle.
She did it while singing lullabies.
When she kissed my stitched lips, I learned to be still.
When we bathed together, I learned to keep my eyes low.
When she whispered,
"You're growing into a fine man. Just like him,"
I learned to just smile at compliments.
There were others before me.
A boy named Ellis.
Another named Tom.
I found their eyes and pieces of their skin in the walls of her bedroom .
Each carved with numbers.
She had kept count.
But I wasn't like them.
I didn't beg. I didn't cry.
I watched.
I waited.
Because she wasn't the only monster in the house.
There was something else.
The son, Dellen.
He was younger than me.
Pale and graceful like a shadow pretending to be human.
Always watching.
He never spoke in full sentences.
He called me "Brother" but not with warmth.
He would cut the heads off his dolls and nail them to the wall.
He would drag a dead sheep across the floor every day and whisper,
"She's coming for you."
I didn't believe him then.
I do now.
The turning point came on the 98th day.
I had grown tall. My arms strong from hauling buckets of red water up the stairs.
My voice long gone from stitched punishment.
And she—
The Woman who made me like this—
She came to me with a wedding suit in her arms.
It smelled like vinegar and roses.
"You'll wear this tonight,"
she whispered.
"We'll be married before the silence swallows us."
I laughed.
That was my mistake.
She immediately slit my throat with a sewing needle.
And walked away in disgust.
But I didn't die.
Not properly.
You see, the son had other plans.
He dragged me to the attic.
Lit candles in a circle.
Painted runes in his own blood.
And he sang.
Not lullabies.
No. These were different.
Older. Spine chilling.
He called out a name.
Liyha.
Soon it felt like fire was burning under my skin like iron.
It was so painful.
And it came.
The thing that lived in his eyes.
The thing that curled around his soul.
The thing his mother feared, but never understood.
Liyha.
It took me.
It peeled away my bones and nerves and voice.
It made me small.
It made me perfect.
A black cat.
Soft. Silent.
Ageless.
Dellen stroked my back and said,
"There, all better now. You'll never leave me, brother. "
You were the only one who didn't see me....as a monster "
And I didn't.
Because in that moment, as my blood soaked into the runes,
I understood everything.
He wanted a brother. Someone to comfort him.
.
A brother that remembered his words.
A brother that knew what his mother had done.
A brother that would never, ever tell.
And now I watch.
On windowsills.
In moonlight.
On his lap.
I watch him grow up.
I watch as he turns into the thing his mother tried to create.
And when he is complete, I will still be there.
Watching.
Purring.
Reminding his in every silent blink—
That I was the first.
Do I regret anything?
Not a single purr.
Because I survived what others didn't.
Because I'm still inside this house,
long after mother screamed her last breath.
She tried to kill me before she died.
But I was always meant to be more.
Dellen threw her body inside a pit
And now,
I am.
The house never stopped screaming.
But now it screams with pride.
Because I am its favorite son.
And Dellen's only brother.
Stream Commentary; Tape# 24. "Brother"
@Jaija: oh….]
[@Oviesix: so this….is what happened to Brook. He was once human…]
[@Oviesix: I need bleach for my brain. That woman wasn't just evil—she was a hungry flirty breast. The way she stared at my poor boy made my skin crawl.]
[@Oviesix: I kept hoping it was just emotional manipulation, not... that. But no. She wanted him. A mother figure who preyed on his vulnerability. I feel sick.]
[@Jaija : I honestly wasn't ready. I thought this was going to be a fun story maybe an alien or a skinwalker. Not a psychological descent into child abuse and twisted obsession.AndBrook….]
[@Enchomay The way she justified it… "You remind me of my dead husband ." She didn't want love. She wanted a replacement. A substitute for her past sin. How flirty. How disgusting]
[@642:Mixed feelings. Beautiful writing. Vile woman. Pitiful boy(cat). And that house—like a womb that never let go. Not sure I'm okay after this one]
[@Jaija: someone hug those boys. Please.]
[@Enchomay:Brook's 's story feels like someone turned trauma into poetry.
The calm way he talked about what they did to him in that basement, about how he never screamed— it makes me wonder…
How many monsters are made in silence?]
(Kai appears from the shadows, his black goggle lenses glowing faint red as he sat cross-legged on his desk.)
Still here?
You should be upset.
You should feel disgust.
You should feel torn.
Because this one…
Wasn't just horror.
It was a truth.
No cursed dolls. No demons in the closet.
Just a woman.
A memory.
And a boy who thought he had found family.
But instead found a broken brother and a monster .
This is your warning:
Predators don't always growl. Some smile and welcome you first .
If this story made you felt something crawl under your skin—good.
If it made you looked away at the end—better.
Because someone out there is living in that house,
Right now.
And they're still calling it home.
(He leans in closer. His voice softens to a whisper.)
Tell someone.
Listen to someone.
And if your house ever starts whispering a name that's not yours—
Run.
Before it starts screaming.
(The video glitches for a second . A black cat appeared on his lap, then vanishes.)
Next story.
Elina.
STREAM ENDED