Life was a fairly normal one for much of my teens. It was the typical, the mundane even, and the upside was that all was going as planned. I do not have a sad tale to share, steeped in misery, despair, the standard tale of woe. My upbringing was not bogged with debilitating hardships to overcome. As already stated, life was as normal as one could get. My hardships were not those to which movies are made of, tragic, impossible odds, but somehow, some way… the protagonist comes out on top. No, that is not my tale to share. With that said, I will share of a very brief period of hardship I encountered in life, tied to external factors, but left a mark on me in ways nothing has since. It was an unrelated situation, one I never caused, but it found its way into my life. This all began with a series of tragedies that befell three siblings, none I knew beforehand. They lived in the city of Norfolk, Virginia, which was not too far from me. The year is 1995, and let's start with the most important story of this trio who is, Terrence Briggs. He's a young man who has seen quite a bit in his short life... and what happens to him will have a ripple effect that'll be felt by others. The seventeen-year-old black teen is an inspiring hip hop artist. He is the middle child of his family and is often seen as the oddball of the bunch. While his brothers are recognized for their attractiveness and aesthetic physiques, he is found to be the opposite of both. He is not the ugliest guy to observe, but he also did not inherit his sibling's good looks. His plain facial features differ from that of the others, making you question the validity of their relations. His dark-skinned heavy-set body that is riddled with tattoos is proportionate to his frame, and this surprises many when he goes shirtless. His looks could never do for him what his mouth has, as for the past two years his lyrical prowess has blown up on the streets. The buzz of his rap battles won, and incredible mixtapes have circulated within the Park Place neighborhood. Everybody in the surrounding area suddenly wants a piece of him. He starts to feel like a star, it goes to head a bit, and it makes him stand a little taller with pride. Egotistical, driven by his emerging success, his desire for more overwhelms him. The perks of fame doesn't come fast enough, his impatience creates restless nights; the funds are not coming from growing status alone. He wants more, he needs more, and he is not above supplementing to make ends meet. The love of money drives him to achieve it at any means necessary, and the side hustle he has always kept is drug dealing. This started before his rap career under the guidance and protection of his older brother, Mike Briggs. Mike is one of the biggest dealers on his side of the tracks. His intimidating presence compliments his no nonsense approach. A rugged dark-skinned individual in nature, and a tatted-up specimen who is muscular in physique; he has carved out a section of the Park Place area as his own turf of business. Though he may be small time in the world of organized crime, his ruthless tactics have garnered him a reputation of being someone you don't want to mess with. Being a high school dropout, this nineteen-year-old kid takes pride in the fact he is making it in life, albeit unconventionally. The road to his current level of success was not the easiest, and he has the facial scar down his left cheek to show this. Terrence owes his relentless pursuit of money from his brother's own determined lifestyle. He has followed in the footsteps of his mentor, driven, focused, and sharing most of the same values. Where they differ is in the levels they're willing to go for the sake of the mighty dollar. There's lines Terrence is not willing to cross, while his brother has crossed them all in this period of his life. Mike had more success pulling his brother into the life when he was younger. The naivety of Terrence led him down many paths, curiousness may it had been, but a jaded outlook that suspends disbelief was something he never had. His morality kept him more in line with the qualities of his younger brother, Alton Briggs. He is the only sibling Mike wasn't able to break, though he tried. The youngest of the brothers has always had a better plan than being a two-bit dealer, and this has kept him in school to achieve his aims. The educational route is the escape path out the ghetto, and his grades are good enough to have him college bound. This sixteen-year-old is an optimistic that has never let his circumstances get him down. When negativity in life arises, he'd always pass the obstacles set before him with flying colors. This highly intelligent, strikingly handsome, and gold standard child never gave his parents any issues growing up. Seldom did he need disciplinary actions towards him like that of his brothers; he just instinctively made the right choices. He is also a muscular kid from his sports involvement throughout his middle and high school time, specifically football. Though he is not as defined as his older brother, he is a little stronger due to his diet and lack of vices. He does not drink, he doesn't smoke, he has never done drugs; he is a square by all accounts. Still, he is quite popular in his school, and is very much the biggest lady's man one could meet. There is not a shy bone in the kid's body when it comes to approaching the girls. The effortless nature of him always saying the right things to girls is truly priceless. This kid has everything going his way with exceptional grades, a promising football path, a solid social life, a dating life many would envy, and the list goes on and on. This would all come into question with one regular season football game, a game that would change Alton's life forever. A fourth and goal hand off that would have put his team ahead is stopped by a determined lineman, but that alone was not the life altering aspect. It would be the head-to-head collision that would send everything spiraling down a different path, steeped in broken dreams, and alternative thoughts. The tackle was quite a vicious one, and the impact leaves both parties in a state of unconsciousness for a period. The other kid would stand on his own accord after a few minutes, but it will not be the same outcome for Alton. He would be hospitalized from a nasty concussion, but the belief is his recovery should be quick, merely a matter of weeks. The Alton that emerged from the wreckage of this head injury showed signs of a different person; it slowly became obvious as time went on. The once upbeat personality he famously had was being replaced by a more paranoid and irritable individual, one that is losing his empathetic nature daily. This begins to affect his relationships, more so his romantic ones. He was too unpredictable, too scary with the things he would say and do; his appeal with the ladies greatly faded. His reputation for being extremely weird eventually became the dominant narrative, and this will get him cast to the realms of social outcast status. Despite the shift of personality, his grades will remain the same, nothing changed academically, so no alarms were raised by authorities to his bizarre behavior. He's simply viewed as harmless, the common assumption he finds himself often getting a pass with. He may not have raised any red flags at his school, but at home the difference in the kid was very apparent. Alton's sudden fascination in death was so out of character, so jolting in nature, it became too hard to ignore for Terrence and Mike. They remembered their baby brother a few months ago having a hard time sitting through horror movies, and now they are taken aback by his desire to rent some of the most disturbing ones. This may have raised an eyebrow for them… but no real concern yet. Alton's sudden interest in staring at dead animals was also something new, quite revealing, extremely strange to observe, but this too didn't cause his brothers to sound the alarm. It wasn't until the vampire talk came about that Terrence reached his limit; it became extremely uncomfortable for his neutrality. Alton's implication of believing he was a bloodsucking creature of the night was the breaking point. The pleas from Terrence for his eldest brother to heed the warnings started like an unending loop, but Mike would always dismiss his concerns. All the vampire talk was just seen as nonsense to him, chalked up as nothing more than the craziness coming about from the head injury. It is harmless jargon Mike will tell his brother to get used to, nothing more. His brother's wishes would never come easy for Terrence, for he was paying attention. All of Alton's new desires were escalating at neck breaking pace. His baby brother would go from freely watching a horror movie every other day, to watching multiple horror movies a night, to watching fringe gore movies on the daily, to finally watching documentary flicks showing real deaths every chance he could get. Dead animals occasionally appearing in his kid brother's room would also raise alarms for Terrence, even though Alton always had a readymade excuse deemed reasonable. Whether the animal was dead before Alton got his hands on it became the question, at least for Terrence. Alton would start to clear up any suspicions that may have been there over time. His motives became clearer the more unchecked he was left, and things he would say only sent chills down Terrence's spine. Alton's eager observation to open wounds was disturbing to his brother. It was like witnessing a dog sit before his master, watching, waiting patiently for a scrap to fall. You can see in the canine's eyes a desire to have what their owner is devouring. An enthralled individual gawking at open cuts like a five-star cuisine is all Terrence would see, and it would be at this point he'll realize trouble is brewing. Without question, Terrence is starting to see his brother as a psychopath, but is there any distinction of targets with his kid brother? Is he focused on a niche victim, or is everybody fair game; this is the question? This would be the thoughts that will plague Terrence's mind. The biggest hope is that his fears will not come into fruition, but the trajectory of such is in doubt. A ticking time bomb is bound to go off, and with hardly anyone heeding the warning signs; Terrence is left waiting on the inevitable to come about. How that will look… he dares not think on it.
