John awoke from two extremely loud bangs coming from downstairs. He got out of his bed, and began to walk down.

“Mom?” he called out as he stepped down the last step. “Mom?” he said again. No sign of her. John walked around the house and saw something horrible in the kitchen. His father lay dead on the floor, surrounded by a pool of his own blood. “Oh my god, Mom! Where are you?” John sprinted to his parent’s room, making no noise. The door was wide open; he slowly crept up to the door. A man stood there above his mother, pointing a gun at her, slowly squeezing the trigger, until it went off.

John screamed; waking up from this horrifying nightmare of his parent’s death. The murder happened when John was only fifteen. He’s now nineteen. They still never caught the killer. He sighed, “Guess it’s time to get up then.” John pulled the blankets off of him and got dressed. He pulled on black basketball shorts, an olive green shirt, a grey sweatshirt, and black converse shoes. After, he walks to his brother’s room, and opened the door. John checks to see if Nick is home sleeping. Like always, he is. John closes Nick’s door, and leaves the house to go for a walk. As he locks up the house, he is threatened and bugged by the neighbors, but he just ignores it. John walks to the mall with $10 for a Subway sandwich, two miles away. It takes him about an hour to walk to the mall. He hangs out at the mall for about two hours, just walking around looking at everything. After he gets tired of walking around, he decides to go home. When John reaches home, he is tormented by the same neighbors, using the same threats and words as before, and continuing to ignore the words. As he walks up to his apartment, Nick is coming out of the door.

“Where are you going?” John asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Nick replied.
John sighed, “Why can’t you just stay home today?”
“Cause, I can’t. John you know this.” Nick declared.
“Okay, well, you better be safe,” John demanded.

“Yeah, whatever,” Nick whispered. And just like that he was gone. John dragged himself inside. He turned on the television, threw the remote onto the couch and sat down. Eventually after about a half an hour of TV, he rose from the couch to make dinner. John searched through the cupboards to find at least something to eat.

“What happened to all of our food?” John said to himself. He opened the fridge; all he could see were drugs, obviously belonging to his brother. “Really?” he thought. John closes the door, searching the rest of the kitchen until he found soup. Speaking aloud he said, “Is there two of them? Oh there is.” John always makes extra food just in case his brother comes home early. The soup was corn chowder, his favorite. He took the two cans, putting them in separate bowls, and threw them into the microwave for five minutes. Once they were done, he grabbed his bowl, leaving the other there, and went back to watching TV. In his mind, he was having a debate on whether he should go to the gym or not. John ended up making a deal with himself; he wouldn’t go tonight, but he will work out much longer the next night. John went to bed early that night, and had an odd dream. Something was missing, but he couldn’t figure out what. He walked all around the house but, had an empty feeling. Eventually, he woke up, fully energized. He put on purple shirt, cargo shorts, and black shoes. The same as the morning before, he went to his brother’s room and opened the door. Nick wasn’t there. John felt scared. For two years now, Nick was always sleeping in his bed. This is the first time Nick was not there. John tried convincing himself that maybe he got up early to go buy some more food, but that thought quickly vanished. Nick had once done this, but left a note on his door. John decided to check if he was outside. He went to the apartment next door, to the only person that was nice to him, and knocked on the door.

“John, what are you doing here?” a girl said.
“Allie, have you seen my brother around?” John quickly asked.
“No, why?” Allie responded.
“He’s missing; Nick wasn’t in his bed sleeping. I got to go. Sorry to bother you,” John said as he walked away.
“Well I’ll look out for him. Good bye,” she called to him.
John looked all the way around the apartments but had no luck in finding him. So he decided to go back and check the house again. John searched through his room only finding cigarette butts and empty alcohol bottles. He returned to the living room, sat down on the couch, and began to cry. This was the first time since his parents’ funeral that John had ever cried. Nick was always gone, but every night he had returned. John had no idea where he could have gone. He took off his shoes and put his legs up, setting himself into a ball. There was no phone in the house to call Nick or the police with, so he had no way to find him. Maybe the dream was a way of warning him of what happened, that the thing that was missing was Nick. He ended up crying himself to sleep. When he woke up, it was already night time, the time he goes to the gym. Instead of staying home, he settled on going out and letting some of the built up sorrow and anger be released. So John changed into his workout clothes and left. He was about half way and proceeded through a new short cut he had found the other night. It was an extremely dark alley. John was startled when he heard a dragging noise and saw something move.

“Who’s there?” John called.
A faint voice replied, “John? John is that you? I need help,” It was Nick.
“Nick! Nick, what happened?” John asked.
“Just get me home John. Please,” Nick cried.
The two men walked half a mile back to their residence. When they reached the apartment, they noticed the door wide open, and the windows shattered. John brought Nick by the door way outside, and made sure to watch for anyone. He sprinted through the house to his room, opened a case that rested under the bed, and pulled his M9 Beretta pistol. As he loaded it, he slowly left his room and checked around their home. The person was gone. The apartment was clear but completely trashed. All the glass was broken; the chairs, tables and beds were thrown around, the television completely destroyed.

“Nick, help me clean up a little bit,” John said quietly, “Nick what happened?” Nick stayed silent but got up and went to the fridge.

“They’re gone. They took them. John they took the drugs back.” Nick said with fear.

“They took your drugs. Good, I told you to get off that crap.” John responded.
“No. You don’t understand. They weren’t mine. They were the Big Dog’s,” Nick quickly said.
“Uh, the Big Dog?” John asked.


“The Big Dog is a drug lord. I stole some of his stuff for myself. They searched for ever for them. I just recently put them in the fridge. But, now that they got them, they will kill me. John, please don’t let me die. I know I’ve been horrible to you, but please, stop them.’ Nick cried and cried. This was the first time John had ever seen him cry like this.
“I will Nick. I promise.” John cleaned up his room and the living room stepped outside, and sat on the steps. It was his turn to cry. As soon as John began, Allie walked up.
“John what’s wrong? Oh my God, what happened to your house?” she asked. John couldn’t answer, he was crying too hard. Allie put down all of her belongings and sat next to him.
“John, what going on?” she asked again.
John lifted his head to look at her, “Someone broke in, and destroyed our house. That’s not the worst part. Nick told me there are people trying to kill him now.”
“Now why would someone want to do that?” Allie questioned.
“Something about stolen drugs. I can’t let Nick die, I just can’t. He begged me to save him, but I just don’t know what to do.” John began to cry some more.
“John, you’ll figure something out,” Allie let out a sigh. “Look, if you need to stay here at my place, you can. You know, just to get away from all of this. My mom would be okay with that.”
“John. Where are you?” Nick stood at the doorway looking at the two.
“Hi Nick,” Allie said politely.
“Hey, uh. Allison. Sorry I forgot your name. I need John. We have to figure out how to keep the door shut. The lock’s broken,” Nick said to her. John and Allie got up at the same time.
“It will be okay,” she said to John as she hugged him. John turned around and followed Nick inside. They decided to put tables and chairs against the door to block it. Then they went to bed.
“John! John!” John suddenly woke up to Nick screaming at him. “John! Get up! We have to go!” He didn’t realize what was going on until he smelt the smoke.
“Nick! Where are you? Where’d you go?” John called through the smoke. No answer. So John ran out of his room as fast as he could. He began to run for the door when suddenly a huge part of the ceiling fell on him, burning his clothes. John screamed from the heat trying, to get it off of him.
“I got you!” Nick yelled to him as he was pulling off the debris. John flipped himself over to his stomach and started to crawl through the door. He thought he was finally safe, once out of the smoke, until he heard Nick yell.
“They got me! Help! Someone! John!” Nick was quickly silenced, John watched as a big man threw Nick onto the floor, headfirst, knocking him out, and put him into the back of a black truck.
John roared, “Let go of him! Come back you cowards!” But the men continued on driving. As soon as John raised himself onto his feet, he was hit across the head, with something sharp. While John was on the floor, everything slowly became dark. There was a man.
The man said, “Shut up.”
John eventually came to, remembering everything that just happened. He tried to move but he couldn’t. There was rope tied around his wrists and legs. Suddenly, two masked and armed males grabbed his arms, and dragged him to a cave-like room. The room was extremely dark, and it smelt like his brother after coming home really late at night. Lights suddenly flashed on, half blinding John. A voice broke the silence.
“Big Dog approaches!” a man yelled followed by six others. One of them was no longer walking with the others, and was walking towards John. It was him. He wore a suit, stood at least six feet tall, had lots of muscles, and he had scars all over his arms and face.
“Do you know who I am?” Big Dog asked him. He had a Spanish accent.
“The Big Dog,” John stated.
“Wow, very impressive,” he smiled, “So tell me, why are you guarding this man?” the Big Dog questioned.
“Nick is my brother.” John stated.
“Do you know what your brother has done to me?”
“Yeah, he took your drugs,” John said angrily. He didn’t bother to look at him when they spoke.
“Look at me when I speak to you!” Big Dog screeched, “He’s done more than that. He owes me $500,000 in drug money.”
“Is that it? Nick and I can pay off the debt,” John said.
“No my friend. It doesn’t work that way. I run a business. Besides, owing money and stealing my drugs is just the beginning of it. He left my wife and kids to die. I will not get into that though. Instead, you will witness the punishment of your brother.” Big Dog ranted on.
“What are you going to do?” John asked.
“You’ll see, what is your name? Oh right, John,” Big Dog pointed to his left, “Bring him out.” Two armed men pulled out Nick, who left behind a slight blood trail.
John got up onto his knees, “Nick? Nick!” One of the guys behind John hit him on the back with his rifle and John fell down to the ground.
“Its okay, let him be comfortable while he watches his brother die,” Big Dog said to the man who hit him. Big Dog walked over to Nick pulling out a revolver, and made sure there were rounds in it.
“No. No! Please don’t shoot him. Don’t. He’s all I got left. My parents are dead. I don’t have other family,” John cried out, tears rushing down his face.
“That’s touching, but I can’t do that,” he replied
“Stay with Allie John,” Nick barely could talk.

“Well Nick, that’s your final good bye then,” Big Dog aimed the gun towards Nicks and slowly squeezed the trigger.