The Friends

Many unfortunate events took place in our town. A flood cut us from the town centre, and for two months we were not able to go school. The following year a typhoon took my aunt, she was our schoolmistress. And in less than a month, 40 more casualties took place; the entire town was in mourning.
Cornelio and I lived in the same house, though he lived in the upper floor. We were both seven and found ourselves more like bothers than friends. We went to school together. Understanding lessons were easy for him, but I knew he generally hate school. While with me, I loved school but I found learning difficult. Out of us two, Cornelio was the more favoured one. Our mothers assumed he was bound to become a saint. Though, whenever I caught him praying he would always try covering it up as if he was embarrassed.
Whenever I would upset Cornelio, he always retaliated with violence. He got angry when I took his pencil case one day, so he hit me and then scratched my face. Cornelio then said to me that if I ever touched his belongings he would pray for me to die, I laughed. To convince me, he said that the fatal events that occurred were his doings. He prayed for the typhoid to kill my aunt so we wouldn’t have to go to school. As soon as I had the chance, I went and told my aunts they laughed at my worries. Except for Rita my cousin that looked like an old lady, stated that Cornelio made a pact with the Devil. She asked me to retrieve Cornelio’s bible and so I did. When we opened his book, we found strange characters written and demoniacal scribbles.
To prove there was a pact between Cornelio and the Devil, I would have to get him angry. So instead of putting the book back into his drawer where I got it from I placed it in my pocket and took the thing that was most value to him, a watch with moving plastic hands. Then Cornelio walked in the room, I threw the book and watch at him, he stood there in silence. He reached for his things and knelt down. He was eagerly reading through the pages, he didn’t seem to be ashamed this time. So I took a step back, and the floor board creaked than gave way. I hit my head against the iron bars of the railing.
It took two months for me to fully recover, supposedly Cornelio prayed for me. Things went back to how it was before the incident; Cornelio being praised over me. However people began to see state that he was either a saint or a warlock. One day we went to Willow Brook and I remember after muttering a few words, he made a man collapse. After this, when Cornelio and I walked down the street people whispered.
I wanted to punish Cornelio for the things he’s done, but I was afraid the cost would be my life. So we found ourselves at the Willow Brook again so we decided to swim. There was a spot in the brook where we couldn’t touch the bottom, I knew where it was because it has sort of whirlpool. We were running along the bank until behind I saw Cornelio fall onto his knees. Cornelio was struggling in the water he couldn’t swim, he was sinking. After many years did I understand that Cornelio changed his prayers to save me, instead of asking for my death which might have been granted, he had asked for his own.