There had been few occasions in which he had been so certain he was about to die.

The first was when he fell off of monkey bars as a kid. He hit the ground hard and it was the worst pain he had felt up until that point. He had been six.

The second was when he had been learning how to drive at sixteen and he had ran off the road. It hadn’t been his fault per se, somebody more experienced yet under the influence had been trying to pass him but didn’t quite get over far enough.

He ran into a tree head-on. He remembers now how it felt to feel his heart pounding in his head, to feel the scrapes and cuts along his arms and torso from the branches and glass.

How he was so afraid that his father sitting next to him was dead.

They both made a full recovery, but it had been so terrifying at the time.

And now, at a mere 20 years old, he was terrified that his father would beat him to death.

After the accident Oliver’s father relapsed into his alcohol addiction, becoming more and more violent as the years dragged on.

The smallest things were like a hairpin trigger, setting off a violent reaction that could be fatal.

His mother was lying on the floor, unresponsive and he knew that he would be next.

So he fired.