A soft glow flickered in from under the door of my bedroom. The low hum of conversation, Lars’ and Magnus’ hushed voices drifted in from the living room. They were barely audible, too faint for me to be able to make out any words.
Stripping off the clothes that Kristina had helped to dress me in, I pulled the silk nightdress over my head. I gasped as the delicate fabric fell around my thin frame. It slid over my skin, the sensation was soft and alien to me after so many months of mistreatment.
Collapsing onto my bed, I pulled my duvet around myself, and as my eyes fluttered closed, I drifted into an unsettled, dreamless sleep.
****
A sudden, sharp click jolted me awake.
My bedroom was dark, no light shone in through the curtains or under the door. A frigid winter chill had crept in, cutting through the air as I pulled my duvet tightly around myself for warmth.
My mind tumbled over itself, the events of the day played over and over in my head. One by one, like a terrifying montage, they flashed before my eyes. Intermingled with the images of Skyggespor were the dark memories of that basement.
I found myself wrestling with the truth. Were my parents truly gone? Could that really be true? And what about me? What had really happened to me during all those chilling months? Could it really be as Lars had said? Could it really all have been in my head, some ‘delusional episode’ as my brother had calmly claimed? A breakdown caused by the stress and anguish of Mum and Dad’s death. Not just a death, but a murder, an event that I had somehow totally erased from my memory?
A delusion, perhaps, but it had all seemed so real. The gnawing hunger, the bone deep cold, the searing pain from Lars’ beatings. I remembered it all so clearly, every agonising, brutal detail. But could I really trust my memories anymore? I remembered this room too. Only that very morning, I remembered it empty and bare. Yet there I was, lying in this warm, soft bed, surrounded by my things. My paintings on the wall, my clothes neatly folded in a duffle bag in the corner of the room.
But then there were those other memories. Those elusive visions that lurked just out of my reach, teasing me from deep within my subconscious? What was the real truth? It seems obvious now, with all the facts laid out bare before me, but back then I had no idea. The very fabric of my reality seemed to be unravelling around me.
Those memories, the ones that I would eventually come to understand, the ones that would explain everything to me, at that time remained securely locked away in the darkest recesses of my brain.
This wasn’t the first time I had experienced such delusions, though. It was just then that a memory did slip into my mind. Unlike so many others that seemed to crumble to dust whenever I tried to grasp them, this one held firm. It was a memory that I had pushed away, a memory that had remained hidden from me for so long.
Quite why my mind decided to show it to me then, after all those years, I can’t say. I saw myself as a young girl lying on my bed, her body pulled into a tight ball. Her eyes stung from the tears, her throat was scraped sore from the screams. I remember my Dad’s loving arm wrapped around me as he lay next to me. I remember him whispering in my ear, comforting words as he held me tightly, soothing me from the nightmare that I had just awoken from, my piercing shriek still echoed in the silent room. A horrific nightmare, a nightmare tormented by a sinister, dark form, a featureless figure with eyes red like burning coals. A creature that I had called the Shadow Beast. A creature that, even as a small child, I had been convinced stalked and hunted me.
That was when the dawning realisation washed over me like a frosty chill. The terror from my childhood, the dark Beast that had been stalking my recent dreams and thoughts. He wasn’t something that was new, he was something ancient. He was here now, just as he always had been and just as he always would be.
Suddenly, a sharp click echoed in the silence, not in the room but deep in my very being. Something inside me cracked and in that moment, the boundaries between reality and fantasy shook.
The room around me seemed to grow darker, the chill in the air, deeper. A shudder coursed through my body as I pulled the duvet tighter around myself.
My eyes caught a movement in the room, a darting flicker in the shadows. Then the smell hit me, sharp and acrid, a vile, familiar smell that choked in my throat. My heart began to beat frantically against my ribs, my breath hitching coldly in my chest.
No, this wasn’t real! It couldn’t be real! But what is reality, except for a fragile construct of our own minds? It didn’t matter anyway, there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.
His dark form loomed over me, like a black hole sucking in any flicker light, any trace of warmth from my bedroom. Those two, red, burning coals blazed down at me feverishly.
A shrill scream tore from my chest as he stood there motionless before me, those sinister eyes locked onto mine.
“You need a lesson in how to behave. You will learn to be a good girl.” His deep, cavernous voice boomed, echoing from somewhere within the formless shape before me.
“No! No!” I shrieked, the words tearing from me, over and over.
Really, I knew that it didn’t matter. However loudly I screamed, I knew that he had me. There was no escape from this terror of my nightmares.
The duvet was torn from my grasp, ripped away from me as the dark shape towered over me. His arms reached forward, ethereal shadows that solidified into cold, hard claws as he gripped my shoulders. Pain, sharp, raw and intense flared as his fingers dug into the joints. I tried to move, tried to get away from him but he held me firm.
I tried to kick out, punch, slap, anything… but it was useless, my strikes seemed to pass right through his shadowy being.
I could feel him on me now, his whole weight on top of me, crushing me, pinning me down onto the mattress on which I lay. His rough hands grabbed and groped at me, every touch making my skin crawl. The stench, that vile acrid smell assaulted my nostrils, the heat that radiated from those smouldering eyes, scorched into my very soul.
There was no physical escape, so I desperately reverted to the only defence that I had, the one that I had always relied on when the Shadow Beast snared me. I forced myself away from my body, retreating deep into the solace of my mind. Into a box where no horrors could reach me. But, even there I could still hear the screams tearing from my tormented, violated and abused body. But at least I was no longer in that body, that body was no longer me. I was here, in the place where the unicorns ran and the fairies played.
Here, I could race carefree on the back of a magnificent stallion or watch the fairies as they fluttered and frolicked in the leaves and long grass.
I would hide there in that wondrous place, crouched in the long grass and amongst the meadow flowers until the screams stopped. Only then would I start to allow myself to drift back to the horrors of my reality. If that really was reality, I no longer knew what was real and what wasn’t.
Eventually the screams faded, and I slowly, painfully I allowed myself to drift back to my body, lying, curled up in a tight, trembling ball on my bed. With eyes screwed tightly shut, I tried to drown out the pain, to ignore the blood.
My shoulders shuddered uncontrollably, soft, ragged sobs escaping from my mouth.
He was still there, standing motionless like a shadow in the darkness. Eyes gleaming, eyes that could see deep into my soul, eyes that knew everything, every hope, every fear, every secret.
“Good girl!” He hissed the words at me, before gradually dissolving back into the darkness from where he had come.
There was no more hiding, there was nowhere to hide. He had found me again.
It was then that something broke, something deep inside of me. It’s impossible to describe the feeling now but whatever had cracked earlier that evening, finally shattered. Razor sharp shards slashed the fragile threads of reality, tearing into whatever sanity I had left.
Once again, hissing laughter surrounded me. Red eyes that twinkled in the gloom watched me with a malicious fury.
The mattress suddenly felt hard and rough, the sheets became threadbare beneath me. I pulled my duvet into myself, wrapping my arms around it. But it was no longer the soft, plush cover that it had been. Now, it was coarse and abrasive, barely able to keep the chill at bay. The room closed in around me. I watched in terror as thick, grey, iron bars rose up from the floor, reached over me, arching above my head and slamming shut to encase me in this new prison.
Drip, drip, drip! The percussive tone, echoing from some unseen place now hammered inside my skull.
The concept of time slipped from my grasp. My very existence just seemed to float in a vacuum like ether, held in a suspended animation but at the same time, still marching forward.
I would spend my time just sitting on that bed. My knees pulled up into my chest, I would stare at the wall, gazing through the bars at the wonderous world that I could see beyond. I would watch the unicorns galloping past and the fairies fluttering delicately overhead. I would stretch my arm through the bars, reaching out to touch them but they were always just beyond my grasp.
There were occasional flashes of clarity as well, moments when the world around me would snap back into focus. I would see my bedroom as it really was, I would see Grandfather’s cabin. But I would watch myself, not as if through my own eyes, but as if I was watching the scenes of a play, acted out in front of me on a theatre stage. It was as if my mind had detached from my body. I would watch myself as I went through my mundane daily routine, as I ate the meals that my brother provided for me, as I went to the bathroom and as I sat on my bed. Always, I moved stiffly, robotically, my eyes staring forward but focused on nothing.
The voices were a constant now, they were always present, always whispering to me. Over time I got used to them, I no longer feared them, no longer thought of them as a threat. They had almost become a comfort, they were my only real companions in the bleak gloom in which I existed.
The only time they fell silent was when the Shadow Beast approached.
“He’s near, he comes!” They would hiss at me before fading away, melting back into the deepest shadows of the room. Then the door would creak open and the dark, featureless form would drift in.
Sometimes I would try to hide, I’d cower under my bed. My heart would pound a frantic rhythm in my ears as I watched out, watched him prowling silently around the room.
“Heidi! Heidi!” He would whisper my name over and over as he circled my bed. A predator playing with its terrified prey.
He knew where I was, he always did. Eventually I’d feel his cold, skeletal hand grab an arm or an ankle and drag me roughly from my futile hiding place. Forcing me to once again flee my physical shell and retreat back into that sanctuary deep in my mind. Then the screams would start again, raw, agonising screams erupting from a body that was no longer mine.
Much of that period of my life remains a blur, even now. Just one featureless day blending indistinguishably into the next. Yet, there are some moments that do stand out to me, one of those was the first day that I saw her.
Something was different on that day, the darkness wasn’t quite so dark, the air just slightly warmer. The voices still whispered but instead of their usual harsh, rasping tones, they seemed somehow, softer.
I was huddled on my bed with my knees hitched to my chest, staring at the wall of my cage, when my ears pricked up at a sound drifting in from outside. A beautiful, melodious sound, a voice that reminded me of the sweet peeling of bells. There were words but my mind could make no sense of them, I was just held, utterly mesmerised by the pure delicacy of the song. It sent ripples through my desolate world, a strange echo of something past. It seemed to tug at my soul, to pull me. The air seemed to glow with a brilliant golden warmth, a vibrance that set alive my desaturated existence. That was when I first saw her.
Wide wings, feathered in gleaming silver and pure white, stretched out to the side. At first, I thought her some huge, magnificent bird, but she was no bird. Beneath those wings was a human form. A woman, shimmering with radiance. White robes that seemed to be woven from the purest moonlight cascaded over her body, the hem fluttering gracefully in the air. Her hair, a cascade of flame, fell around her shoulders and her eyes were like looking into a forest pool, green and deep.
She passed over me, her head turning one way and then the next, seemingly looking for something that she couldn’t find.
I wanted to call out to her. I wanted her to pick me up and fly me away from this suffocating place. I tried, my mouth opened but no words came out. I was utterly paralysed, my tongue frozen as I watched her pass overhead a few more times before gradually fading away into the distance.
As she left, my room descended back into its usual, oppressive gloom. Drip, drip, drip, the familiar sound picking up its rhythm once again in my mind.
The voices too, picked up their rasping, tormenting chorus, “She could help you! Now she’s gone!”
Twice more, I would see her.
The next time came very much like the first. That sweet melody drifting into me, that blazing light flooding my room with its brilliance. Then above me, on the other side of the bars of my imagined cage she soared. She glided past magnificently, there was tranquillity and elegance in every slight movement that she made.
Again, I tried to call out to her, but again the words stuck in my throat, little more than a strangled gurgle escaping my lips. Then, just as she had before, she turned and slowly glided further away from me, away and out of sight.
One last time she came to me and once again, as she had both times before, she sailed gracefully above my head.
As I watched her, the voices screamed at me, unusually urgent, their eyes flickering frantically. “She can help! She can help!”
I opened my mouth but once again no sound came out. My chest twisted, a bubble rose in my gut. Again, I tried and again, no sound came from me. With desperation I force my vocal cords to tighten, forced my mouth to make the shape of the words.
“Help Me!” Finally! My voice came high and shrill, tearing through the silence.
Her head jolted, snapped towards me, those emerald eyes locked on mine with a sudden intensity. Thin eyebrows drew down, her fine features tightening as a look of determination crossed her face. Effortlessly, she dipped one majestic wing, the light glinting off the silver feathers as she banked gracefully, arcing back towards my cage.
All of a sudden, the warm light that flooded the room flickered, growing cold and dim. The voices instantly silenced, their red, beady eyes withdrawing out of sight. Movement! A dark spectre materialised out of the murk. The Shadow Beast loomed large and ominous behind that angelic form.
“No!” My desperate voice screamed out.
She turned, a flash of understanding in those emerald eyes, but it was too late. With a ferocious roar, the Shadow Beast lunged at her, his eyes ablaze with rage and fury.
I watched helplessly as he thrashed at her with his tendril like arms, each blow delivering a sickening crack. Great handfuls of feathers tore from her beautiful wings, drifting to the ground like bloodied snowflakes. I watched as her mouth opened with an ear splitting shriek, her arms flailing in a futile attempt at defence. He struck out at her again and again in a relentless, brutal assault. Every blow accompanied by a deafening, guttural roar from him and a heart wrenching scream from her. It was a savage attack and it seemed like it would never end.
With one final, barbaric strike, I watched her fall. Now, utterly motionless, fluttering back and forth like a dead leaf torn from its branch.
Frantically, with hands tangling in my bedsheets, I scrambled over to where she lay at the foot of my bed. Her red hair was now matted with blood, her once glorious wings, torn and broken, her shimmering gown, ripped and tattered. She looked up at me with eyes brimming with tears. Eyes that widened in fear as her helpless gaze drifted past me, up over my shoulder.
Behind me, I could feel him. The two red coals in the abyss where a face should have been, glowed furiously.