A small, pitiful whimper rose up from the broken body that lay shuddering and twitching on the ground beside me.
Looking down at that wretched, blood covered sight, I felt something inside of me flare to life. It was a hot burning that rose up from deep within my core. How could he destroy something so beautiful and so magical?
My eyes rose up to meet his, those deep, burning coals that glared out from that dark and featureless form. It was a gaze that tried to burn deep into me but for the first time that I could remember, I felt no fear for the Shadow Beast. The creature that had haunted my dreams as a child, the creature that had tormented and violated me here in this very room. I had lived in terror of him for as long as I could remember, but not anymore. Fear had gone, it had been pushed far down deep inside myself. All that I could feel now, as I looked into those eyes was a pure, cold hatred. My body shook, muscles convulsing with the raw, untamed rage that now flooded through me, threatening to engulf me.
The Shadow Beast seemed to shift, something seemed to change in him. His form, usually so dark and dominating, appeared to shrink back. The red coals that usually burnt with such a deep intensity, now looked dimmer. They seemed to flicker with something that felt like surprise or uncertainty.
The voices, those creatures of the shadows that were usually silent and subdued when he was around, suddenly came back to life. Their red eyes flickered manically in the corner of my vision. Their rasping voices chattering frantically in my ears.
“Kill him! Avenge her! Finish him!” They shrieked at me. They no longer tormented me, now they urged me on. They echoed the boiling rage that I felt rising up inside my gut.
I glanced down as I felt a warm, sticky touch on my hand. I watched as the once beautiful angel gripped me weakly with her red, glistening hand. Her blood smearing across my skin. Her eyes were no longer clear and vibrant, now they were clouded with pain and terror. Looking into those eyes felt like looking into a mirror, I saw reflected there, all the torment and suffering that I had been forced to endure for far too long.
My other hand shifted on the wooden floor, my fingers brushing across a cold, smooth object. It was a discarded dinner plate, left from the pathetic excuse for a meal that I had eaten earlier in the day. My fingers closed around it tightly, it felt cold, hard and heavy in my hand.
My eyes drew tight and narrow as I looked back up at him. His form seemed to wave, tendrils of blackness seemed to evaporate out from within the abyss of his ethereal being. An abyss that no longer seemed as dark and bleak as it once had.
I watched as images began to form within the shape of his darkness. Images of the beatings and violations that I had suffered, images of hunger and cold that I had endured. Images of the life that had been torn away from me, images of hopes and dreams that had been shattered like glass. The death of my parents…
It all surged forwards, crashing over me like a tsunami. Consuming me, fuelling the rage and the hatred that roared inside of me, spreading through my veins like a wildfire.
“Now! Now!” The voices hissed out at me. Flickering red eyes swarmed around me. “Strike him!” They continued to chant.
The muscles in my legs tensed, my thighs and calves trembling before releasing me like a coiled spring.
A primal, guttural scream tore from my breast. With the heavy, earthenware plate held firmly in my hand, I lunged forwards.
Time seemed to hold its breath, my body moved in slow motion. My heart pounded a loud rhythm in my ears, my breath hitched in my throat as I watched my arm swing around, watched as I slammed the heavy plate into the side of the Shadow Beast’s head with a shuddering crash. The impact jarring my arm and sending a jolt shooting into my shoulder. The plate exploded in my hand, sharp splinters peppering my arms and face.
A deep roar of rage erupted from within the dark depths of the Beast. His head shook left and then right as I planted my feet firmly into the ground. My entire body tense, ready for the retaliation that I knew must follow my daring strike.
But nothing came, there was no retaliation, there was no attack. Instead of coming for me, the body of the Shadow Beast began to vaporise. The deep black void of his form faded, becoming shallow, translucent almost. His very existence began to unravel before my eyes, thinning into fine wisps of smoke before drifting backwards, like a spectre, out of the confines of my room.
Crouching down, I placed my hand behind the blood matted head of the fallen angel. Her eyes looked up at me, but they were empty eyes. The light that had once lit up her face so radiantly had been extinguished. Her body now lay limp and lifeless. A tear slowly ran down my cheek, leaving a cold, wet trail on my skin.
“Get him! Get him!! The voices rose up once again in their rustling chorus, “Don’t let him get away! Finish him!”
My eyes rose up towards the direction that the Shadow Beast had fled. The bars that had confined me to that bedroom for so long seemed to shimmer like a mirage. In some way they seemed to become less solid than they had been. Around me, out of the darkness, walls began to materialise. Wood panel walls, walls hung with my drawings. Before me, looming wide and open was a door. Golden light spilling from the room beyond.
“Find him! Find him!” The voices continued, urging me, almost pleading with me.
With eyes fixed on the door, I crouched down, my hand closing around a shard of the broken plate. The sharp, jagged edges bit into my hand as I gripped it tightly, the pain felt strangely comforting, strangely… real.
Legs straightening, I took a step forwards. Forwards, through the open door and out of my bedroom.
Stepping out into the main living room of the cabin, Grandfather’s living room. The blood red light of the sunset spilled in through the large windows at the front of the cabin, casting everything in a deep, crimson hue. The television screen flickered, the images of some action film dancing across it. Catching the failing light of the day, a deep red trail of glistening liquid stretched across the floor. From my bedroom door, it made its way towards a dark corner of the room.
Slowly, with the breath frozen in my chest, my eyes followed the trail. Crumpled in the corner, I saw a figure. A man, wearing blue jeans and what had once been a white t-shirt but was now stained a deep red. A dark, viscous stream of blood ran down his cheek, oozing from a deep, jagged gash above his eye and dripping from his chin.
A low groan escaped his lips, not the terrifying groan of the Shadow Beast. What I heard wasn’t the voice that had haunted me for so long. It was a human groan, a pathetic and weak whimper.
His blue eyes slowly rose to meet mine. They were eyes that were all too familiar to me, but now there was something different about them. There was no burning rage in them, no cold calculating cruelty. Lars’ eyes were dull and vacant. A watery glaze had replaced their usual raging fire or cold ice. The whites were red and bloodshot, pupils dilated as a single tear trickled from the corner to mix with the blood on his cheek.
His mouth opened, once, twice as he struggled to form the words, which eventually came in a voice that was cracked and broken, “Heidi, I’m sorry!”
A lump formed in my throat as I looked down on my abuser. This was the man who had tortured me, broken me, defiled me. But the man that I saw before me wasn’t that same monster, the man before me was my brother. Broken, beaten and vulnerable.
The look in his eyes, the defeat that I saw there wasn’t new. I’d seen that look before, many, many times. The memories came flooding back to me then, memories of the cruelty that I’d inflicted on him. Visions of his face when I first started jeering at him with the other children. Visions of his face as they beat him, over and over again. Visions of him as he looked at me, pleading for me to help him, for me to make it all stop. And of course, there were those visions of the look in his eyes when I, myself pulled back my foot and kicked him in the ribs, stamped on his arms and legs.
Other memories also started to creep in. Memories from further back in our childhood. Memories of laughing and playing with the brother whom I had loved more than anything. Of games in our garden and running through the woods near our house. Of holding his hand reassuringly as we walked into school. All those times when we’d comfort one another after waking up from a terrifying nightmare.
As I looked down at him, the raw anger and hatred that had just moments ago been boiling away in me seemed to cool. The feelings in my gut twisted and turned, congealing into something else. Something that I could never have imagined. As I gazed on his broken and defeated form, a dull ache started to settle onto my heart. In a stark contrast to the hatred that I wanted to feel, in a betrayal of everything that he had subjected me to, I started to feel pity. I battled against it, my mind wanted vengeance, my mind loathed and despised him. But nevertheless, it clung on to me, a strange and unwanted feeling of understanding in my heart.
Looking at him as he was then, as I was, I couldn’t help but wonder where it had all gone so horribly wrong.
I wanted nothing more than to scream at him, attack him, make him pay for everything that he had put me through, but instead when I opened my mouth, the only word that came out was, “Why?”
Lars blinked, another tear escaping from his eye.
He shook his head slowly, “I just wanted to get my sister back. I just wanted you back.”
I really don’t know how to describe the feelings that I had inside me at that moment. Anger and hate still raged within me but it crashed up against a wall of sympathy. As the two emotions battled it out inside me, I just felt cold and empty.
“Get me back? What are you talking about? You drugged me, held me in that basement, tortured me. You did unspeakable things to me and the only explanation you have is that you wanted me back?” How could my voice sound so calm? After everything that had happened, how could I feel so detached?
“I… It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. I just thought that if we could spend a little bit of time together then perhaps, we could get back to how we were before…” His eyes blinked rapidly, tears flowing freely now, his voice breaking. “…before you turned against me.”
“You didn’t need to blackmail me, you didn’t need to drug me, to lock me in that basement to spend time with me!” I could feel the rage bubbling up again now, the wall of pity holding it back was beginning to crack.
Lars seemed to shrink backwards, his eyes wide, frightened, childlike.
“You would never spend time with me. You’re so popular with all your cool friends, why would you ever want to hang out with your nerdy brother? I needed you, I needed my sister, but you rejected me. You pushed me away, forced me to face all that pain and suffering alone. You always told me that if we were together, if we protected each other then nothing could hurt us. You didn’t protect me! You did this to me, Heidi!”
I choked on my breath, the wall inside my soul strengthened and pushed back harder against the hatred that only moments ago had threatened to engulf me again. I had abandoned him. The things that he said were true, I knew that much. Was it then, also true that it was me who had made him into what he had become?
“I’m sorry that I threatened you with those photos, but I needed something to make you stay. Otherwise, you would just have gone out to another party at Lela’s, spent the night with whatever guy you happened to meet there. I needed a way to keep you at home. I know that the way I did it was wrong, but I thought that an evening with our favourite film might bring us back together.”
Was he really serious? An innocent film night like we used to enjoy when we were children? It had been anything but innocent. My mind flashed back to that predatory look in his eyes, to feeling his clammy hand on my knee. A shudder rippled through my body. No, this wasn’t my fault, he had known what he was doing from the start.
“Lars, you’re sick! You drugged me! Locked me in that basement!” I snarled the words at him, the rage began to bubble up once again.
“I tried to do some nice things for you. I made your favourite breakfast, but that wasn’t enough for you. You were going to tell Lela about your night with Asmund. Would you have rather destroyed your friendship with her than spend a bit of time with me? You were going to leave me again and I couldn’t bear for that to happen.”
“So, I’m supposed to believe that it was just a spur of the moment thing? Drugging me? Where did you get the drugs, you just happened to have them on you?” Fury was threatening to engulf me once again, my words now coming out in a ferocious screech.
Lars’ eyes narrowed slightly, “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what, Lars?”
“It doesn’t matter. I just couldn’t let you go again. I couldn’t be without my sister again.”
“The things you did to me, Lars? That’s hardly trying to make amends with your sister! You planned it all, you knew what you were doing from the very start” Every muscle in my body clenched as I hurled those words at him.
Lars shrank further back from me, his eyes lowering to the ground. “It made me feel powerful.” His eyes lifted once more to meet mine, “I wanted you to know what I went through. To know what it felt like to be trapped and tormented.”
My body convulsed as the rage in me began to boil hot again. What I had done to him had been terrible, I can admit that now, but it was nothing compared to everything that I had been subjected to. How could he even begin to compare them?
Lars’ voice dropped lower, his shoulders quivering as his eyes again became wet with tears. “Please Heidi, please can we just be brother and sister again?”
“You had a chance, you could have let Magnus help me. Instead, you made out that it was all in my head, you made him believe that I was crazy! You made ME believe that I was crazy!”
Magnus… Skyggespor…
My stomach suddenly clenched into a knot, an icy jolt surged through my body as a sudden realisation hit me like a steam train.
The angel! She hadn’t just been some figment of my imagination, not like the unicorn or fairies…
I turned my back on my brother and ran towards my bedroom, my feet pounded heavily on the wooden floor as I charged in through the open door.
“No!” The cry exploded from deep within me, it was a guttural wail. For there, lying, staring up at the ceiling was the body, not of an angel from my delusion but of a girl. Her red, frizzy hair was stuck to her scalp, dark, heavy and thick with blood. Her emerald eyes stared ahead but saw nothing. Her arms and legs twisted at an unnatural angle.
The weight of despair crushed down on me as my knees gave way. I slumped down beside her, staring into the broken, battered and bruised face. It was a face that I recognised instantly.
Kristina!
Why? Why had she been there? Why had Lars done this?
Throwing my arms around her, I pulled Kristina’s limp body into my embrace. She felt cold and tacky from the blood that covered her clothes and skin. Burying my face into her chest, I let out another howl.
This was all my fault! If I’d never have gone to Skyggespor, if I’d never have asked her for help, she would never have come. Why did she have to get involved? A beautiful soul lay dead in my arms and it was my fault. It may have been Lars who attacked her, it may have been his hand that murdered her, but I was the reason that she had come here. I was just as responsible as him.
How many others would be hurt because of my actions?