BUILD A BETTTER BOY TRUISM #14: Ask him what he did today and honestly listen to what he says. Real communication goes a long way in establishing much closer bonds between the two of you.


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LAST TIME: Ricky allowed his mind to drift far away. He envisioned a dark, black forest full of densely populated trees that prevented light from entering their canopy. Never one with an overly active imagination, Ricky conceptualized what it would be like if he metamorphosized into one of his creations.

He foresaw a scenario where he snarled, thrashed about, and howled at the moon peering down on him. Not as a werewolf, but something much more sinister than that. The thought comforted him. Soon, the aberration of the beast appeared on his paper.

Finished with the drawing, Ricky thought the Eidolon was the perfect likeness of him.


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Ryan's bedroom was a memorial dedicated to the big kahunas of the United States Army. Posters that adorned his walls mirrored a Who's Who of American military heroes. These replicas included Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze's famous oil-on-canvas painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware. Another facsimile depicted General George S. Patton, who commanded the Third Army in France and Germany following the Allied Invasion of Normandy during World War Two.

Playing War since he was three years old, Ryan accumulated memorabilia of Army men like other boys his age collected video games. If the Army would have him, he knew he'd be just as distinguished a General as these men were some day. He fancied blowing up things for all the right causes, and his Number One target was ISIS, along with their vast multitude of hidey holes.

Ryan was not enthralled with certain classifications of people particularly snobs, fakes, shams, and charlatans. To his way of thinking, the whole world was becoming much more plastic. He seldom afforded these shady characters a second thought. His enthusiasm for the Army procured him.

The fads of the day did not appeal to him either. Ryan was addicted to living with a purpose, and high standards, in a universe where people genuinely cared about one another. People who valued truth, tradition, and honor. The same qualities he was being raised under as a member of the Darden family.

Ryan always felt his twin brother was talented, funny, frustrating, and especially flighty like a flock of canaries constantly twittering. He couldn't protect Ricky from bad things happening to him, but in the overall grand scheme of life, where insane dictators and evil humanoids existed, being a soldier was Ryan's way of protecting his home, his family, and his older brother, the kinder and more virtuous one of them.

Shirtless, barefooted, and fashionably attired in his battledress pajama bottoms, Ryan swiveled in his chair at his study desk. He watched the closet door in his room swing wide open. This was peculiar because no hurricane, or gale-force winds, blew in his room to make the door open on its own volition.

Ryan knew his family did not live in earthquake country, or on an active fault line. Neither did he feel the ground shake. That ruled the seismic scale out of the equation.

Although he was blessed with an ultra-vivid imagination, Ryan was not the kind to believe in chainsaw massacrers, or even the dreaded boogeyman-type of monsters. These beings simply did not exist in the real world. For Ryan, there were only two categories of annihilators a boy needed to worry about: fruitcakes and terrorists.

Fruitcakes were the type of people who never said, "Have a nice day!"

Usually high on drugs, or reeking of alcohol, fruitcakes always shoved a gun in your face and demanded, "Your money or your life?"

Then, they blasted you into next week.

On the other hand, terrorists, like ISIS, wanted to fly a plane through your building, or blast you away with nuclear bombs. That's why the Army was always needed, to stop them from wrecking havoc on scores of innocent people.

Neither type could have found their way into Ryan's bedroom closet. Of that, he was certain. Ryan pulled his tee shirt on over his head. Eggshell white, it had an olive green Sherman tank emblazoned across the front. When the door stopped opening, the soldier stealthfully investigated the source of its movement.

Ryan flipped on the overhead light that illuminated the walk-in closet. He was convinced he'd left the globe lit before he began his mathematical calculations homework requirements. He always did. School clothes hung along the two longest walls of the repository. Against the back partition was a long ago stored mirror.

Feeling like a proud, courageous, conqueror, Ryan smartly snapped to attention and saluted his bravery in checking the closet out. Something about his reflection in the mirror did not appear proper to the dedicated warrior. What he observed in the mirror did not copy his dapper presentation.

Appalled by what he noticed, Ryan commanded himself, "Soldier, toss that mirror in the nearest dumpster!"

Ting-a-Ling! Ting-a-Ling!






Cast of Characters:

Detective Sean Darden - Lead Investigator of the Larsen family murders.

Ricky and Ryan Darden - Detective Darden's ten-year-old twin sons.

Drew Larsen - Thirteen-year-old boy who confessed to the brutal slayings of his family members. The question remained, did he?

Notes to Readers:

-At the top of the page are blue numbers. In order to follow the action revealed in this chapter, you may wish to read them, even if you only review this one chapter.

-If you are planning to write a fluff, or cut and paste review, in order to quickly pick up a few Member Cents, I would much rather you did not review my writing. Too many FanStorians resort to fluff, and cut and paste reviews, for this purpose. However, fluff, and cut and paste reviews, serve absolutely no purpose and are useless for writers.