Tim was standing in front of his home, searching in his pockets for his key, eyes pointed downwards, as if that helps. He did not notice the few drops of blood on the floor mixing with the rain water which was still dripping from his roof since the storm at night. After he found his keys he opened the door and entered his home.
"I'm back!" He yelled, but nobody answered. "Nobody is home? Hm." It looked like his parents were still at work and his 15 year old brother was probably out on a walk with their dog. His brother went for walks with the dog in the morning, because his school, let's say for special people, started at noon.
He dropped his jacket and boots on the dirty ground and walked into the kitchen. He looked through the fridge with a bent back, signalling how exhausted he was. "Forgot to eat breakfast, well at least the cake was good, even though it got cool." He muttered, taking out a small sandwich his mother placed in there for him to take with him to school.
Walking out of the kitchen, sandwich in hand, he glanced towards the door and saw his wet shoes drenched in a mildly red fluid. "Did he hurt himself while he was leaving—" Trying to come up with an explanation for the blood he got a headache. His vision started to get blurry and he felt his body temperature rising: "Shit! I thought it stopped."
The sight of blood called forth memories of the day Jake had vanished. He could still see him lying on the ground, breathing heavy while blood was coming out of a wound on Jake's stomach. He could still hear his suppressed please for help as tears stormed down both their faces.
Jake had been ignoring the wound, not trying to stop the bleeding. Jake was just holding onto Tim's T-Shirt as he was lying on the ground, while trying to comfort Tim instead of saving his own life.
Tim clutched his chest and fell to the ground in his hallway. He was gasping for air, trying to reduce the panic, so he could go into his room. "Think of something else, think of something else, think of something—" He got an idea, he could try replace the memory he associated with blood from the day Jake vanished, to the day before, the scene were Lukas had beaten the student to a pulp, "Think of Lukas, Think of Lukas." His voice trailed off as his breathing became steadier and he leaned against the wall.
After a few moments of silence he was finally breathing normally, just drenched in sweat: "I thought it was over. It did not happen yesterday in school." He started crying while picking up his sandwich and walking upstairs towards his room.
Sitting in his room, distracting himself from the thoughts which were flying around in his mind, he heard the door opening and closing down stairs. He quickly hurried to his door, closing it silently. He had already taken off his clothes from outside, now wearing something more comfortable. Tim jumped into his bed, back to the door and wrapped the blanket tightly around his own body.
He could hear footsteps coming up the stairs and a tapping noise hurrying through the halls. His brother had returned with their dog and was now coming upstairs. Tim just stayed put, trying not to alert his brother of his presence in the room, he had no energy left for any type of conversation.
The footsteps went past his room and so did the tapping of his dog. Thinking the danger of conversation had passed he sat back up. His eyes were now slightly squinted as if he had just awoken from hours of sleep. He scanned his room for any potential reason his brother might enter his room, not finding anything.
Relaxed, he dropped his feet to the ground, ignoring the tapping of his dog's claws on the wooden floor outside his room. A sigh escaped his lips as he glanced out the window, hand in front of his eyes to block out the hurting sunlight. Behind him, the dog started to scratch at the door, trying to enter.
Tim ignored the pleading dog. He pushed himself from the bed and sat on the ground, leaning against the bed's frame. He hugged his knees to his chest and rested his head on them, face down.
His brother's footsteps came closer to the door, stopping when they were the loudest and, after moments of silence, the door slowly crept open and the dog ran in. Tim tried not to move and just waited for his brother to close the door again.
The dog came running around the bed and started to rest against Tim's legs. He took his eyes off of his knees and glanced at his dog. One of his hands reached down, slowly petting the creature. It was a relaxing moment for him, all the tension in his body slowly left him and his mind wandered away from the memories he had tried so hard to suppress.
"Thank you." He whispered.