Hello! This is based around my first story, Scars Appear.

Please note: I have tried to write everything as accurately as possible. I am not trying to offend anyone! If you have a problem with something I've written, please PM me.

Further note: This is NOT Jaylos. If you would like to read it as such, fine by me. But this was never intended to be Jaylos nor will it ever be.

Trigger warnings. This applies for the whole story, but I will try to remember to write it at the beginning of each chapter.

P.S. This is a working title and may be changed eventually.

Enjoy!

"Carlos, dear, are you finished washing the floors?" Cruella de Vil asked her son sweetly, glancing at him like a hawk.

"Yes, mother," Carlos replied, hoping against hope the floors were to his satisfaction. He didn't know if he could go more than four more days without food.

Cruella closed in on him, grabbing his chin with her tallons and forcing it upward. "Not. Good. Enough," she spat in his face. She let go of his chin only to slap him across the face hard enough to knock him to the floor.

"Yeah, not good enough," his voices spoke mockingly. "Do better next time or things might get worse," one warned.

"When you're done with that," her voice had become sweet again, "you can scrub all the cupboards. Oh, and no eating tomorrow. I'm sorry, dear, but that's what happens when children misbehave." She left the room.

"Get up, get up, get up, GET UP!" the voices screamed. Carlos closed his eyes, gathering his strength, then stood. The effort was exhausting, but he needed to keep going.

His mother poked her head into the doorway. "Oh, by the way, I'm going out. There's a little list on the safe of all the chores I want you to accomplish." Suddenly her voice was menacing. "You better be done by the time I get back." And she was gone as quickly as she had come. "Ta-ta!" Carlos heard her call cheerfully, and then the door slammed shut behind her.

"You better do those chores," one of the voices stated.

"Hey." Carlos turned to see Jay standing behind him. "You ok?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Well, I'm done stealing for today."

"It's only noon!"

"Noon," the voices spoke, overlapping each other. "It's not noon yet. What is noon? He's done stealing? We need fooood. Haven't eaten in four days."

Jay's voice came through the fog of voices. "I got up early. Couldn't sleep anyway." He shrugged. "So I figured I should get up, finish my job, and then I'd be able to hang out. What's on the list today?"

"Dunno. Haven't looked yet. It's on the safe." Carlos turned to the sink and began refilling the water bucket for scrubbing the floors as Jay went to go find the list.

A voice decided to interject its thoughts. "Clean that floor..."

"It says here..." Jay began, then paused. "I think she's setting you up for failure, man. I honestly don't know if it's humanly possible to accomplish this much work in half a day."

"You got any food?" The question surprised Carlos more than Jay.

Jay searched his pockets. "Here." He pulled out a chunk of bread.

"You sure I can have it?" The question was hesitant.

"Ooh, food!" The voices began to get excited. "Take it. Take it!"

"Take it." Jay shoved the bread into Carlos's hand. Suddenly he froze, looking at the inside of Carlos's arm. "Did she do this?" His voice was low with threatening anger.

"Run," the voices warned. "You don't want him to know. This is your fault. Run away."

"Some of it." The smaller boy shrugged it off. "It's nothing."

Jay was persistant. "What about the others."

"Run away," the voices called.

Carlos turned away. "I made them," he replied quietly, looking down at his arm.

Thanks for reading! Please leave a review and let me know what you think.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I'm always up to new ideas :)

-FlatFox

P.S. It gets better!