He jumped because of the insistent sound of the alarm-clock, watching the red light that marked 3:00 am, he sighed. He had been four months living in the same routine, going out of his house on Mondays to return on Fridays. He was exhausted and it was painful for him to leave his family, but the job opportunity was way too promising to let it go.
He got out of bed carefully, kneeled beside his wife, holding her hand and whispering an “I love you” to her ear. He went out of the room to his son’s bed chamber and stamped a kiss on his forehead, then walked into his daughter’s bedroom who was sleeping quietly on the cradle. After staring at her for a few minutes, he glanced at his watch and got out of the house, looking through the rearview mirror as he drove away to the city.

It was dawn, and the Sun devoured darkness with its rays, lighting the fields from the horizon. The woman woke up and looked at the empty spot on the left side of the mattress. Wirth regret she remembered not waking up the previous day to say goodbye to her husband. She always walked him to the door, gave him a tender kiss and hugged him tightly, then, walked to the car and waved until it was out of sight.
With the few strength she had recovered during her sleep, she got up and started to do the house chores.
At noon she called her son’s name. She was about to serve lunch when she felt a sharp pain in her chest and left arm. She knew what was coming, the doctor’s diagnose which she had kept to herself was accurate. A few more seconds of pain and it would all be over…She fell on her back.
The boy came into the kitchen and when he saw his conceiver on the floor, he ran away looking or a place to hide. His innocent naive nature made him believe they were playing hide and seek like they used to.
When the Sun was setting, the boy heard a distant crying. Still sleepy and feeling his eyelids burning, he stood up, got out of the closet and walked in the direction where the sound was coming from. He found his sister on the confinement crying her lungs out, desperate for attention. The boy was touched and shocked for the mother not giving importance to the baby.
With a big effort the child carried the infant in his arms, and took her where the body rested. He lifted the inert head carefully with one arm, as the weight of the girl fell into his other one. Then, he moved his mom’s shirt upwards and leaned down on her chest. The baby held on her mother’s breast and fed until she was satisfied. The ki took his sister to the cradle and left her there as she felt asleep.
The boy turned on the lights to get rid of the darkness that consumed the entire house. His stomach started growling, he had skipped lunch and needed something to eat in order to calm his hunger. Making the slightest noise possible, he heated the soup his mother had prepared earlier, served it on a bowl and drank it with big sips.
When he was done, he could feel sleepiness taking over his body. Before going to bed he took a pillow to the kitchen and placed it below his mother’s head, covering her body with a blanket, so she wouldn’t feel the cold air of the night.

The next day, the boy woke up late. In the kitchen he saw his mother still sleeping. “Wow, she must be really tired”, he thought.
He went to his sister’s bedroom and found her awake, playing with her hands. As he got closer to the cradle, he perceived a disgusting odor, a mixture of urine and heces which came from the girl’s diaper. Since his mother had no intention of moving, he decided to clean her up himself. There would be no problem, he had seen his mom doing it many times before.
He opened the tap and let the warm water flow, putting on the drain plug on the bathtub. He took off the girl’s clothes and placed her inside the water which’s level had already reached half of the quantity needed. He grabbed the sponge, and suddenly remembered a detail…the bubbles! Silly him, who had forgotten to put in the soap. He turned around and looked in every single cabinet, but had no luck. When he returned to the bathtub, he found his sister floating with her head consumed by the water. “I can’t believe it, she fell asleep”, he told himself. He wrapped her in a towel and placed her gently on the cradle.
The boy proceeded to heat up some of yesterday’s soup again, having lunch silently.
When he finished, he stared at the woman whose corpse laid on the floor, he laid beside her and started dreaming. He spent the whole night sleeping there.

When he woke up, the Sun had come out again. The boy went out to the backyard, kicking his soccer ball  back and forth. He got bored quickly and went inside the kitchen again. Sick of being and feeling alone he sat on one of the chairs looking at the woman.
He remembered the Sleeping Beauty tale she used to tell him at night and he kissed his forehead, cheek and hands but nothing happened. She remained still.
After thousands of thoughts crossed his mind, he concluded she probably didn’t have energies, he hadn’t seen her eating a thing the past couple of days, it must have been it.
He reheated the last portion of soup left to feed it to his mother.
He kneeled beside her, spoon in hand, opening her mouth with it. The bowl fell to the ground, shattering in little pieces all over. The kid, with his jaw wide open couldn’t keep his eyes off the mouth fulfilled with worms.

On Friday afternoon, the father came home. He found it odd to see the lights off and turned them on. Instantly he looked at the horrifying scene. The boy was shivering on a corner, and the man had lost it all.

Took four days to bring madness to his four years of life. He’d spend the rest of his miserable existence in the sanatorium, trembling every night and locked up in the cage of his mind.