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It was spring, almost summer. School would be out soon, giving the students of the local elementary school free reign over their days until fall came around again. Impatient children shifted and squirmed behind short wooden desks, earning them shushes and pointed fingers from the teacher. No one seemed to care. Unbeknownst to anyone, a small paper slipped from the hands of one boy to another. Their matching eyes twinkled mischievously. They stole glances at each other and giggled. Sam opened up the paper his brother had passed him and peeked inside. There was a grade-schooler drawing of the teacher depicted as a monster with massive talons and razor-sharp teeth.
The little boy burst into a fit of laughter, unable to control himself, letting the drawing flap to the floor. Eric jumped, startled by his twin’s sudden reaction before promptly joining in, falling into a gleeful hysteria. Immediately, the class followed suit and the teacher swiped the art from the ground. She looked at it in total and utter confusion. What in the world was this supposed to be? Sam had to hold his mouth with his hands to refrain from howling with laughter, and Eric was wiping tears away from his eyes. He saw his brother’s happiness and joy and wished in his heart that it would never end.
After more puzzling and eventual tossing, the teacher carried on with the lesson. Eric started doodling again. It was the only way to keep his mind from completely blanking and falling asleep, so he did it almost every day. He had a little portfolio of scribbles smushed at the back of his desk that no one bothered to search for and unearth, so there it stayed, getting crumpled more and more with each paper he stored away.
Drawing after drawing, he skipped around the paper to apply more graphite until he had filled both sides chock full of little creatures and vehicles. One of them had big bat wings, but tiny doggy ears. He snickered to himself, and as per his own little tradition, he passed the paper to Sam, who he had determined had to approve of every single thing he drew. His neighbor took the paper and grinned before folding it up and keeping it for himself. He turned and gave the little amateur artist a big, encouraging thumbs up. A few more papers later, the teacher closed her books and dismissed the class to move seats and have a snack.
This was Eric’s favorite time of day because right after snack time came recess, and after recess, came the last lesson of the day before home dismissal. He couldn't be any giddier.
A couple of girls sidled up to the twins and set down their snacks.
“Do you mind if we join you?” one of them asked. “I liked your drawing earlier. It was funny. Was that supposed to be the teacher?”
Eric brightened. “Yes!” he exclaimed, popping a blueberry in his mouth from his lunchbox. “I’m going to be an artist when I grow up. I want to make characters like that when I'm bigger, and people will love me!”
The girls agreed eagerly as they pulled up seats on either side of Sam. “I’d be your biggest fan,” said the other girl. “What do you like to do?” she turned her attention to Sam.
“Well, I do like computers. I think I want to play on the computer when I get older too,” he rolled the idea around his head.
The children chattered like birds about all kinds of silly little kid things until recess approached. Eric strapped his lunchbox back to his bag and helped his brother do the same. After lining up neatly in front of the door, the instructor took roll call and lead them out of the classroom and outside onto the playground.
There was already a class playing, the twins’ seniors by one year. Eric and Sam always played heroes with a large congregation of classmates in the back corner of the playground near a big tree stump that poked out of the ground. A group of older kids had already invited the younger ones to join their hero game, so the two siblings wasted no time in following suit. Eric was a hero every time he played. He hated being a villain and the mean things villains said.
Both the twins had incredible senses of justice and loved the feeling of being appreciated, so they spent every recess saving others from the play-villains and showing how honorable and brave they were.
One of the little girls they had talked to during snack was cowering under the shadow of a senior boy. He held up a twig and swung it harmlessly toward her, and she screamed in mock terror. Sam heard this and rushed to defend her, his own twig whizzing through the air as he ran. At the moment he reached the girl, he tripped over his feet and crashed to the ground.
Well, not to the ground-- he had landed on the legs of a tall boy with black hair and ruby red eyes. The feet he tripped on weren't his at all, he realized. Eric caught sight of his twin on the ground and started to bound over to help, but before he could touch Sam, the older kid punched the underclassman sprawled out in front of him, warranting a yelp and a few shocked tears.
“I'm sorry!” he cried, holding his palm to his head. The two children who were playing behind them scrambled to their feet and ran. The people surrounding the violent scene stared in shock before retreating to the other corners of the playground, leaving the twins to fend for themselves. Eric realized he would have to sweep up this mess by himself.
“How could you? You jerk!” Eric lunged forward and landed a weak hit to Red Eyes’s shoulder, but it happened to be completely ineffective. He froze, ice chilling his veins as he realized what would come next.
The tall, dark-haired boy said nothing. He must not have felt the need to say anything, because in his silence, he stood up and smashed Eric into the chain-link fence, and another cry rang out into the trees. No one even looked their way.
A teacher called out furiously in the distance and ran in their direction. Red Eyes wasted no time fitting in more savage kicks and blows to the helpless boys’ bodies with inhuman growls before he could be restrained until they were a bloody mess, huddled together against the fence like kittens searching for warmth. The man who had come to rescue them grabbed the dark-haired boy by the torso and dragged the struggling, screaming child away. Eric noticed that he managed to get a solid fist into the staff member’s mouth, splitting the lips and drawing an abundance of red fluid.
None of the students acknowledged what had happened. They knew what Red Eyes could be like and what would happen if they interfered. He was noticeably stronger and tougher than his peers and the look in his gaze was subzero and murderous.
Sam said no words, only sobs and tears rolling across his bruised cheeks. Eric held him in his arms, wiping the dirt away from his forehead. What had made Red Eyes so mad? Was it even any of his business? He seethed and practically smoked with anger. Nobody had come to save them before the teacher, and those two cowards had run away for their lives. Eric let out a frustrated sob of his own and felt the burning of betrayal. The same girl who had told him she would be his biggest fan hadn't even looked at him when his brother was beaten.
He wouldn't forgive her, he decided, and he would destroy the boy who had done this. He would destroy everyone in the world for being too scared to help his brother. He would destroy anything that dared come near Sam again. It would just be the two of them forever and ever, and he didn't want to have anybody else but his brother by his side until he died.
Eric pressed his head to his brother’s and felt the warm redness spill slowly over his brown hair. He held the awkwardly bent hand of his twin in his own and wiped the blood away from Sam’s broken nails. Was his hand cracked? Fractured? Eric began to sweat more profusely than before and horror seeped into the marrow of his bones. Sam fell silent, unable to bear the pain in his wrist and ribs, and Eric held him tighter and closer than ever.
They were all villains, and he wouldn't forget it.