Despite Uncle Anthony’s abrupt departure, the children remained in high spirits for several following days. They played catch in the living room, tried making new dishes for dinner, and even rearranged their bedrooms for more appropriate renditions of the nights their grandparents spent on the boats coming to the new land, an event dubbed ‘ The Passing Nights and Crossing Waves’ in the storybook of which they imitated. These were all notably humorous and nostalgic things to do as they created an atmosphere similar to when the cousin’s had first arrived. The allure of their games remained. It was not gone the second night, nor the third or even the eighth time when they moved their beds around and built the umpteenth fort to crawl into and read stories to one another in the manner that their characters in a pseudo-historical book did, for when you had nothing other than chores to do the rest of the time the choice was an easy one to make.
During this time the children needed little effort to ignore the state of Mrs Kressler. Believing time to heal all wounds they didn’t even notice when she started coming home later than usual, clumsily clobbering something over the stove to call dinner, and going to sleep earlier than usual despite the dishes still being unwashed! A very non-Mrs Kressler-like behaviour, a close observer would say.
“Mother!” Miranda yelled as the pot lid fell. The clatter of metal against the kitchen tiles rung in the silent and shocked air. After a few seconds, when no one moved, Miranda gently picked up the hot plate and turned to her mother; “I want to cook tonight, why don’t you rest?”
Mrs. Kressler agreed in a murmur and let herself be led to her couch by George and Bastille. The boys catered to her needs as she noncommittally waved at the figurines while Melissa took Jameson from Miranda. Everyone quietly switched to their rehearsed roles. Miranda focused on the boiling pot their resident adult had left before Hastille came beside her and pushed towards the sink.
“What’s wrong with her?” Miranda asked quietly, after she’d cleaned the glass George had returned.
“I don’t know,” Hastille said, stirring the pot. “But let’s hope she gets better.”
“We should call a doctor,” she whispered.
“...If she gets worse,” Hastille nodded.
“You’re father’s a doctor, why are you so hesitant?”
“Doctors gossip too,” he mumbled and she agreed to let the matter rest.
After that incident things returned to normalcy, at least for the younger children. Miranda, being the oldest of all children however, remained alert. She had to apply herself more in the housework to make the pretense, that everything was fine, believable to others. Tonight, however, she was feeling at her wits end. Something had to give; either her mother’s resolve to keep silent or her resolve to wait it out.
A month had passed since Uncle Anthony’s visit and the sudden change in their diet to seafood was such an unwelcome surprise that everyone had expressed some colourful opinions of it.
‘ Who taught her to say ‘shut it’? ’ she thought back on Melissa’s snapping at George yesterday. A few minutes passed before a nudge pulled her out of her stupor. She returned to helping her mother crack the crab’ shell for the soup, during which she asked why she was always tired or silent or paler and like usual Miranda expected her mother to keep silent, but something was different tonight.
“Soon,” Mrs Kressler said, breaking normalcy. “Soon everything will go back to normal.”
“What do you-”
“Hey-Ouch!”
The shouts from upstairs stopped her from finishing. Surmise to say Miranda was furious.
“What’s going on up there?” Miranda shouted, approaching the stairs.
“He hit Melissa,” George said pointedly at Hastille with Melissa nowhere in site.
“I didn’t hit her,” he defended, accentuating each words’ prefix. “I just pushed her back. She just tripped and fell over, that’s all.”
“Hastille!” shrieked Miranda. She stomped up the stairs and pushed her cousin by his chest. He stumbled back and fell, looking back at her in a daze. “That’s how hard you push. How do you like it when I do it to you?”
“Hey, get your hands off him,” shouted Bastille, coming out of the room on the right and helping Hastille up.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her, she’s not taking care of Jameson proper-”
As if speaking his name had some divine intervention, the boy in question cut off all sounds on the floor from his shrieking cires. Miranda stomped past the brothers, pushing them aside, and found Melissa rocking the crying child with tears of her own.
“I-I’m, I’m sorry,” she sobbed, screwing her eyes shut.
“It’s okay, give him here,” Miranda said, taking Jameson in her hands.
“You won’t get mad?” she asked, blinking away the tears from her red eyes.
“Of course, not. I don’t even know why he pushed you, but don’t worry,” Miranda said, pointing out the room while trying to calm the shrieking beast. “I taught him a lesson so he wouldn’t do it again. Now go wash up, we’re having crab tonight.”
“Mother made crabs?” she asked, rising to her command.
“Y-yeah,” Miranda nodded hesitantly, turning away from her. Once Melissa was gone Miranda began pacing the room with Jameson, rocking him sideways, singing him a lullaby, swinging him the way he liked it. She even tried to nestle him under her blanket in case he was cold. After nothing worked she tried to force feed him some milk from the cup but once again, nothing worked.
She didn’t expect it, being how she’d assumed everyone had gone downstairs for dinner so when Hastille suddenly appeared in the doorway it gave her quite the freight. She made her rotation and looked up to walk, but seeing Hastille walking through the doorway almost made her drop Jameson.
“What're you doing?” Hastille hissed.
“Me!? What’re you doing here?” Miranda hissed back. “Shouldn’t you be eating.”
“Everyone’s done, Miranda.” He said, motioning for Jameson. “Bastille and I’ve cleaned the tableware so the only one that’s left is you.”
“Okay,” Miranda said, handing Jameson.
“Oof, how have you and your sister not fixed him yet?” Hastille said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean clean him up,” Hastille pointed to Jameson’s butt covered by the loincloth.
“He didn’t do anything,”
“Get your nose checked Miranda, this baby is stinky,” Hastille was still holding him out towards her. “Well, I’m not cleaning him. That’s your job.”
“Fine,” Miranda said, exasperatedly. Once she had washed him in the bathroom, apparently the boy had eaten something explosive, she walked out to dress him. But when she opened the door she was once again so surprised to see Hastille standing in the doorway that she almost dropped Jameson again.
“Stop doing that!” she shouted at him, over Jameson’s cries.
“Stop getting scared,” Hastille grumbled with his mouth full of raisins. He shoved another fistful in before raising his arms. “Right, you go and eat. I’ll take over for now.”
“What about Melissa?”
“Melissa’s playing with George and Bastille, she isn’t going to want to do this,” he took Jameson from her arms. “Even if you force her to, she wouldn’t take car of him properly anyway. Come on little man, we need to get you fixed.”
Miranda walked down the stairs and was pleased to find a plate already waiting for her.
“Wait, you can’t eat that,” Melissa said.
“Whyever not?” Miranda frowned.
“That’s Hastille’s plate,” George said.
“Oh let her, Hastille will just take another,” Bastille said. “Even, I was done after the first plate. Fatso just wanted to be greedy.”
“You’re his twin,” George looked at him expectantly. “And your eating raisins.”
“I’m not fat, I’m just pudgy. This is just protection for when you try punching me,” Bastille said rubbing his stomach. “And the raisins don’t count. Look how tiny they are.”
“Is Jameson sleeping now?” Melissa asked, turning away from the boys.
“Not yet, Hastille’s taking care of him,” Miranda answered, quickly sipping her soup. She didn’t miss the sadness that washed over her sister. “Don’t worry about it, he’s probably doing this to make up for what he did. I’m sure he’s sorry.”
“Thanks,” Melissa replied, returning to her games.
Melissa returned her attention to the soup and for those few following minutes she couldn’t distinguish between the spoon or the plate. When she finally finished she took a moment to stare out the dining room window and watch the curtains reflect the candle light as the food settled within her.
She turned around and watched the other three play in the small living room. She had begun doing that more often, she noticed. Becoming more watchful of her siblings behaviour, scolding them when they did something wrong, telling them to sit properly or not eat with their mouth full or to go wash their hands before sitting at the dining table etc. She wondered why that was. Naturally, her mind focused on the one person that she’d begun to replace.
Her mother was in her usual spot, quietly napping on a couch near the fireplace.
‘What did she mean ‘soon’? ’ Miranda mused. She took her dishes to clean in the sink. ‘Doesn’t matter, she said everything will be better. I just wish she’d said how soon ‘soon’ was meant to be. ’
Miranda went back to watching her family, before she noticed Hastille’s absence and a lack of Jameson’s cries. Getting curious, she decided to check upstairs. She soon found them by Jameson’s crib.
“Keep quiet,” Hastille said. “I just got him to sleep.”
She remained in the doorway for a while and waited for him to properly tuck in the big baby.
“Thank you,” she said when he’d closed the door.
“Hmm,” Hastille said, without meeting her eyes. “...And I’m sorry about before.”
“She couldn’t smell the stink, you shouldn’t have pushed her like that just for that,” Miranda admonished.
“I didn’t push her for that, and I’m not apologising for pushing her,” Hastille said, the previously uncomfortable exterior becoming hard. “I pushed her because she wouldn’t listen to me about giving Jameson some space. She almost pulled his arms out when she tried to pull him off of George.”
“She’s still little, that doesn’t excuse you hitting her,” was all that Miranda could say.
“Like I said before, I didn’t hit her. I pushed her away before she could pull at Jameson again, half the reason he was crying was probably from the pain…*Sigh* Also, I was apologising for not listening to you sooner,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Miranda asked. When he gave her another glare she quickly added; “Just speak more clearly, I can’t follow well today.”
“I mean about Auntie,” he said. “She is behaving like an invalid these days, and it's beginning to show in you.”
“She’s not an-”
“I said, behaving, didn’t I ? Besides, is she still sitting where I'd left her? On the sofa?”
Miranda refused to meet his eyes.
“Then I’m right. About her and you,” Hastille raised his eyebrow in surprise when she glared at him. “Miranda, look at yourself, you’re not listening as well as you should, your being forgetful...and you’ve never let your temper win over something as small as that.”
He gestured towards where she’d pushed him and then towards their rooms.
“Those first few weeks me and Bastille were here? We fought pretty heavily back then, and even then all you did was just take Melissa away before we got to the third round of tumble wars.”
“That game was barbaric, and for boys. I would’ve taken her away even if you didn’t fight that much.”
“Still, you didn’t scold George or us for being so loud or for being so...boyish? Anyway, you didn’t scold us back when it got so loud and rowdy that the beds creaked but now you hold our hands over anything, scold us whenever we do even a little bit of fun stuff. The food was pretty bad today too, and the fact that you or George or Melissa didn’t complain about it shows that something is wrong here.”
“Well what will you have me do?” Miranda felt her face blush. “It’s not like I’m as good a cook as my mother. Besides, maybe you’re just not used to the taste.”
“I know how you make food, I’ve been helping out too. Also, we’ve eaten crab before, it doesn’t taste as bad as it did today, and we didn't even have anything that fancy back then. But your food isn’t as bad as it was today,” he admitted. “I’ll go fetch the doctor first thing tomorrow. Hopefully it’ll help. Now go to sleep. You need it more than any of us.”
“But what about Melissa and George-”
“They can take care of themselves. You apparently cannot, considering you haven’t noticed you have been leaning against a doornail this whole time.”
Miranda flinched away from the wall, rubbing the place where she’d been feeling the throb.
“Oh, that’s what it was,” she commented lazily.
“Yeah, that's what it was,” Hastille drawled, giving her a glare. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. “Go. To. Sleep.”
He punctuated each word as he; pushed her into her room, pushed her into her bed and threw the sheets over head. He didn’t make it three steps out of her room when the telltale sounds of her sleeping came to his ears.
The night went along as it usually did, the house became quieter and quieter till all the children were tired and happy to sleep. They each slowly dredged themselves into their rooms and climbed onto bed to sleep.
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It may have been a few hours past, when the moon was at its zenith, that they were awoken by the sounds of Mrs. Kressler’s call, but for the recently asleep time had hardly passed at all.
“What’s going on mother?” Miranda asked, still rubbing her eyes.
“Okay, gather around children,” an unnaturally happy and awake Mrs. Kressler called out. She was standing under the kitchen’s arch and held a piece of parchment in her right hand while carrying a smiling Jameson in her left. “It seems your Aunt and Uncle will be joining us soon, so I decided to begin the ceremony tonight so we can surprise them when they come to visit the day after.”
“What’s going on?”
“What ceremony, Auntie?
“What’re we doing up so early, Auntie?”
“Can I go back to sleep Mother?
“Now, Now, I want you all here. Mistress Arterofortuna said everyone in the household has to be present,” Mrs Kressler said as she turned around to reveal a large copper bowl. It had the inscriptions of a language the children had never seen before outlining its circumference. A pile of dried herbs poked out of the bowl’s surface with a jagged obsidian ore sitting atop.
Mrs Kressler placed the document on the table and picked up the long matchstick. She lit the piece of wood and held it over the herbs, lighting them just enough to ensure an even spread. Then she did something which caused everyone in the room to gasp, she dropped Jameson.
Fortunately, George was close enough to catch the baby.
“What the-” the twins went.
“Mother!” Mrs Kressler’s children shouted.
“Whatever’s the matter?” She said turning around. Blood dripped down her hand while she held the culprit knife in the other. Suddenly the lights flickered. Wind picked up in the room and the curtains ruffled. But all windows were closed.
Miranda glanced at the rock in the bowl and saw it emit a ray of light from within. A golden light escaped from between its jagged surfaces. It continued to illuminate their faces, blinding them momentarily.
After a few seconds, the winds died down and the lights stopped flickering. However, just like the rock Mrs Kressler’s smile still remained lit.
“What’s happened?” someone asked eventually.
“We will be receiving a guest shortly,” Mrs Kressler said, handing the twins a pile of plates. “Hastille, be a dear and set the table.”
“Who’s coming at night?” Bastille asked as Hastille balanced the plates Mrs Kressler almost dropped.
“Come help,” Hastille hissed Miranda, and Mellissa. The trio set about the table while Mrs Kressler straightened her clothes and beamed towards the door. “Something wrong is going on.”
“You think! Mother just cut herself!” Miranda hissed back. A startled Melissa decided to remain quiet.
*Tuck*Tuck*Tuck*
The slow sound of knocks came from the door, and while the children flinched back, Mrs Kressler marched over to greet them. What stood outside the door, hidden by Mrs. Kressler’s dress, seemed like a short woman sporting many warts. The warts outlined her visage and stood out from her hunched figure and bright red shawl. Even though she looked old her voice was as youthful as Mrs Kressler.
“Is the table ready?” she asked, curtly.
“Yes, Madam Arterofortuna,” Mrs Kressler answered.
“Did you feed the children yourself,” she asked.
“Yes, Madam Arterofortuna,” Mrs Kressler frowned. “I made their lunch and dinner.”
“Did you set all your belongings near the table,” she asked.
“Yes, Madam Arterofortuna,” Mrs Kressler’s frown deepened. “Can I see my husband now or not?”
“Are the children sitting on the table?” she asked, uncaringly.
“Children, sit down at the table,” Mrs Kressler yelled, her smile never leaving her face as she addressed them. At once all children sat themselves down at the table, forgoing the questioning stage at this point. “Yes, Madam Arterofortuna.”
Unbeknownst to the two, Miranda had snuck back in through the archway to see what was going on. The woman took a step back and whispered a few words, her eyes began to glow golden and the winds began to pick up once more. But just as quickly as they started they ended.
“You shall have your privacy for tonight. Do not open this door, lock it if you have to,” she said. “Here is Mr. Kressler.”
A man appeared from the side. He wore a uniform and addressed her with a grunt. Mrs Kressler fawned over him, prompting the rest of the children out of their seats. The old woman quickly closed the door and Mrs Kressler locked it with as much haste. When the rest appeared in the kitchen’s archway beside Miranda they too hung their mouths in shock.
“Daddy!” Jameson cried out from where he’d crawled on the floor. No one trusted themselves to speak. Before them, stood a man in uniform. The same height, the same face but not the same shape. This man had dried blood blotches on his shirt, holes that showed the bones and a face that almost didn’t resemble Mr. Kressler for how pale and wrinkly it was. The dead skin on a likely dead body. But not everyone saw it that way.
“Hush now. Your father is very tired,” Mrs Kressler admonished. “He needs to eat after all that time away don’t you, my dear? Come, I’ve set the table.”
Mrs Kressler grasped the man from his hand and pulled him along. But he stopped after a step and looked at her hand. A few seconds later he raised it to his lips, in a movement of unnatural swiftness he opened his mouth and bit it clean through.
“Oh, you’ve taken a bite,” Mrs Kressler said, staring wide-eyed at the spurting wound.
In the next second, she let a bloodcurdling scream. The pain had finally registered.
He grasped her neck and squeezed. Mrs Kressler struggled for a few seconds before whimpering into silence. Mrs Kressler’s body fell limp onto the tiles and in that agonizingly slow and horrifyingly surreal minute, the children stood still.
All except Jameson. The moment he saw his mother struggling against the bonds of the man caused him to cry with all his might. For Jameson, his minute was very real and very short. The man’s foot came down and stomped his voice out, splattering it across the kitchen.
The children flinched out of their stupor; Melissa shrieked and tried to go for the door. Miranda saw the man reaching out and on instinct pulled her back, ripping Melissa’s clothes in the process. They turned together and felt their knees shaking as they stumbled up the stairs, following the boys. They supported each other up each step. The only thing forcing them to keep trying forward were the crunching and cracking sounds of bones behind them. Neither bothered to see what they could already imagine, they knew what eating sounded like.
Reaching atop the stairs, Miranda saw Hastille and Bastille close the bathroom door at the end of the hall. George was banging on it to open. But they refused. Miranda pushed her sister into the closest room - their room, and pulled George by the nape of his shirt. Silencing his protest with whatever expression she had on. There was no lit candle in their room, they were on borrowed light from the hallway rushwicks.
None of them could speak. But none of them needed to. They all wanted to hide. Sleep. End or escape it in any way they could. Miranda pushed her brother into the cupboard by the door and shut him inside. Locking it with the key that hung from her neck. She then hoisted Melissa through the curtains and onto the windowsill. Closing them as quickly as she could.
She had just enough time to fall down and roll under a bed when the sounds of creaking wood entered her ears over her thundering heart.
She couldn’t tell whether it was her whimpering or one of the other two or all of them, but the man knew to enter their room. Her blood was pumping. She could see his boots. She saw them stop at their doorway, enter their room, and slowly approach the window.
‘He can see her shadow,’ She realised.
He was moving towards Millie! Towards her sister. A sister who was shaking and knocking her knees so loudly that even she could hear from under the bed. He would get her. Miranda rolled out from under the bed and kicked the man in the back of his knee. It didn’t hurt him. He didn’t go down as she’d hoped. He just turned around and focused on his new target.
Miranda yelled in fear and stumbled back. Tripping over a loose floorboard and falling down. Miranda scuttled as far as she could but she didn’t get far, her arms were trembling too much from fear to move her. In a hopeless effort, she raised them one last time.
Then the cupboard stumbled.
“NO!” George yelled from inside as he rocked and pushed the cupboard into the man. The cupboard fell atop him and slumped him against the wall. She was trapped under them all.
“Melissa!” Miranda shrieked as George began kicking the backboard.
Melissa jumped down from her spot and though she fell face-first into the floorboards and split her lip she continued towards her. She’d crossed over from behind the cupboard just as George broke the backboard of their cupboard and climbed out. They grabbed her outstretched arms and pulled with all their might just as she did from her side.
What none of them realised was that the man had the hem of her nightdress in his grip by the time she’d grasped her sibling’s hands. It was only when Miranda felt his fingers twitch with her movements and his grip tighten that she realised what was happening.
Melissa shrieked and pulled with all her might while kicking the man with the same force. Her nightdress gave way and tore up, causing the man to stumble back and her to slip out with ease. She stood up and with a hand on her siblings ran towards the stairs while the man rose from under the cupboard.
Racing to the end of the hall, towards the stairs. Melissa went down first, then went George. But when she began to climb down herself Miranda heard their screams, freezing her on the spot. She glanced above the floor level and saw, through the railing bars, the man walk into a broken doorway. The sounds of Hastille’s and Bastille’s yells were coming from beyond his frame. She didn’t know what to do. But she had to do something.
She pulled out one of her shoes and threw it at him. It struck him on the back of his head and his attention once again shifted to her. Their eyes met and a shiver ran up her spine. Under the firelight his eyes did not look like her fathers; they were glazed over white with a yellow glowing dot piercing the middle. That was when the brothers ran forward and knocked him down. She saw them fall. But where Hastille fell atop the floorboards, Bastille stumbled atop the man.
“NO!” He’d been caught.
Miranda watched on helplessly as Hastille tried in vain to pull him out and away. But the man’s grip was too strong and he wouldn’t let go of his brother.
Bastille yelled and screamed. He struggled and tried to crawl away by any means, but the man had him by his chest and his arms weren’t budging. Miranda saw him squeeze, slowly at first as if he was savoring the terror.
Hastille’s screams and cries mirrored his brother’s; but, where Hastille’s screams grew louder and uglier Bastille’s grew quieter and softer. He aimed for the head, arms, shoulders, anything. He kicked and kicked and kicked but the man continued to squeeze and squeeze...and squeeze. Until blood mixed with vomit. Until Hastille fell beside the head he’d been kicking. Until a loud cruck sound followed by several smaller crack sounds littered the otherwise silent hallway.
Hastille had stopped moving, he was kneeling next to his brother’s face watching his eyes dim in the extinguished rushwick. Miranda was the first to break out of her horror when she saw him disappear in the darkness.
“HASTILLE!” She screamed, shattering the silence. She heard him jump and felt a rush of relief when his figure ran out of the darkness, red eyed and trembling but still alive. He stopped by the railing and turned back to the darkness, she stared with him but they both were quickly forced to move forward when the sounds of crunching began.
Miranda ran down the stairs just as Hastille jumped down them. He landed by her feet and she pulled him up before they were greeted with the cursed sights they’d tried to imagine.
George trembled from afar, leaning on their mother’s sofa with a puddle of sickness by his feet while Miranda stood at the edge of the carpet.
“I-I can’t,” Melissa sobbed. “Miranda, they’re there.”
She pointed towards the mush and bones under the arch. Creating a puddle of blood that stopped by the carpet. By her feet.
“Geo-” Hastille’s voice quivered and his face turned green. He looked away, towards the dining room before continuing. “Coo-oome.”
He’d balled up his fists and was slowly marching towards the dining table. George rose from the spot he’d vomited and stumbled towards him while Miranda pulled Melissa away and tried to keep her food down in vain. It gushed out at the mere thought of anything worth eating resembling what she continued to stare at. She was unable to look away from the horror and like her sister she began to knock her knees convulsively. She began to fall and stumbled onto the sofa.
The sofa where her mother had sat and read them stories while holding her littlest brother. The vomit wouldn’t stop. The blood, the ringing. It. Would. Not. Stop. She had to hear him moving upstairs, but her body was refusing to answer. It only heard the ringing. Forget the blood, forget the vomit, the ringing sound was more important. A ringing that was pulling her towards the kitchen. Towards the rock.
Her body moved without her order. It wanted the stone in the bowl. She wanted the red and golden glowing obsidian. She needed it. She’d walk over the mix of mother’s and her brother’s bodies to get it. She didn’t care. She needed it in her hands. No one was going to stop her. Not her sister or her brother or her cousin. No one was going to stop her. It was hers. It was-
CRASH
-broken. Miranda blinked at the rock. It had shattered to pieces as soon as she’d approached it. It was gone. The ringing stopped.
“Miranda!” Came a shout from behind her. She looked back to see Melissa’s crying form standing at the edge of the carpet, staring at her in horror. George and Hastille, though further away, too looked at her with the same expression.
It took her a moment to realise the slippery feeling under her feet. She looked down and saw the mush; her toes protruded out of the gore and atop them lay an eye staring back at her.
“AAAHH!” She shrieked and jumped further into the kitchen. Trying to get away as fast as she could. She slid on the tiles and fell upon the door, trying to open it with her shivering limbs.
“It’s not working, it’s locked!” she declared through her sobs.
Miranda pushed and punched, she clawed and banged but the door wouldn’t budge. She didn’t want to go back. She didn’t want to see their puddles but the creaking sounds from above getting closer forced her feet. She closed her eyes and ran towards the archway. The moment she felt the fluids hit her toes she threw herself into the air and curled into a ball. She yelped when she hit something and shivered when she felt it give way.
The fear bubbled into her throat when she felt two hands curling around her shoulders.
“Coo-ome,” Hastille said. His voice still quivered and threatened to vomit as he pushed her off of him. But she couldn’t hear, she was already emptying her dinner over the carpet. Hastille rolled out of the way and swallowed his own sickness before shifting his attention to her. He crawled towards her and helped her up.
She didn’t listen. She couldn’t. She couldn’t stop vomiting. So he pushed up the front of her neck, forcing her to choke and stopping the stream. Miranda’s knees suddenly buckled and she fell back on him for support. The fluids dripped down her legs but she didn’t care when she was already being dragged away.
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George was already helping Melissa out the window when they heard the creaks from atop the stairs.
Hastille pushed her ahead and hobbled his way over to grasp her waist. He half-carried and half-pushed her along the rest of the dining room but she didn’t complain. They had to get away as fast as they could and with her weak legs, there was nothing else she could do. No one needed to see him to know that he was getting closer. The creaking sounds of the last stair step told plenty.
“Help!” Hastille shouted weakly. His heart was beating in his throat and thundering in his ears. “George!”
They stumbled into every chair on the way and even into the sidewall before George pushed his hands through the open window and pulled her out. Hastille followed shortly after, scraping his arm against the glass in the process.
Everyone was on their knees outside the house. Hastille was rubbing his injury off to the side while the three siblings shared a long hug. For a moment, due to the silence, their troubles were forgotten. That’s when a youthful voice suddenly caught their attention; “You’re mother didn’t make your food herself, did she?”
They all looked up to see an old hunchback full of warts and moles standing before them. She was short and wore bejewelled red clothes that glittered under the moonlight.
“What?” Hastille said, his stomach having finally calmed down.
“Worthless widow. I made a self-serving system for this, you know? Now I’ll have to take the souls directly,” she said, taking a large knife from within the folds of her dress.
“Please save us,” Melissa said, trying to get up to her. “He’s com-”
She suddenly fell to her knees. Her voice tapered into short gasps as she tried to grasp the knife sticking out of her chest. She turned to them with her glowing red eyes and mutely screamed for help. She fell on her side. Blood began to pool around her.
No one moved. No one could move. Everyone was shocked frozen. Except for the woman who took out three more knives in her hand and smiled.
“You all are unfit to rule this world, you need a guiding light, you need me. I will have my rightful rule over this world, even if I can’t appear here in my physical form,” she smiled bitterly. Her rotten yellow teeth were bared at them as she stepped over Melissa’s twitching body. She approached George and Miranda next. The former trembled in place while the latter tried to get up.
“You did this,” Hastille said from off to the side, also trying to get up. “You killed my brother?”
“Join me child and you won’t remember any of this,” she said, raising her hands with all three knives shared between them. “When you join my army you will forget all pain and know only pleasure.”
“You killed him!” Hastille screamed, hobbling towards her. She brought down the knives and dug them into his raised hands, but Hastille moved undeterred...until the pain caught up to him.
Miranda shrieked his name as he fell to his knees. His teary-eyed form stared defiantly back at the woman, cursing her through unshed tears. He kept his arms extended in the air and his fist gripping the blades, keeping her from pulling them out. Not for his sake, nor hers, but for the approaching Miranda.
Miranda’s eyes were bloodshot. Her figure taught building power as she carried the large stone over. She raised it high with both hands and jumped on the hunchbacked woman. The stone collided with a crunch and the teen felled the woman. She stumbled back and lost her grip on the blades; but, Miranda continued her assault.
Miranda had the woman pinned under her legs and was swinging madly at her head, the rock long forgotten by the time Hastille staggered over to pull her off. But before he could a voice, unlike that of a man’s or a woman’s coming from the hunchback’s broken mouth.
“You’ve failed me.”
It startled George and Hastille but was largely ignored by Miranda as she continued in her swings. Her fists connected with the softened part of the skull and ended the woman’s life.
“Hah, Hurr, you did this, you killed her-” but she didn’t stop.
Her knuckles were bleeding by the time Hastille managed to pull her off. They both lay there, side-by-side and on the ground, out of breath and shining with sweat. He looked over to her smiling at him under the moonlight, splattered in the woman’s blood.
“We did it.”
“Yeah,” he said, trying to match her enthusiastic smile.
“You’re hurt?!” she suddenly realised and her smile disappeared.
“Yeah,” he grimaced as he became acutely aware of his deep cuts.
“George!” Miranda suddenly bolted upright. She turned around to see a pale George staring into the ground. “We did it!”
“Miranda, Melissa...” his voice whimpered out. That statement pushed away all feelings of accomplishment. Miranda helped up George and together they helped Hastille to his feet. Hastille stole a glance at the body a few feet from him and tried not to vomit. His brother’s final moments were the same, the shock of the man squeezing-.
‘Wait, What about- ’ he wasn’t allowed to carry that thought any further as the chimes of bells filled the sky.
All around them the houses had their doors opened, their candles lit, and their men sent out to check on each other. They shouted and yelled and filled the silence with noise, but not for the children who were lost in their own world. Their focus was solely on what they’d assumed would’ve come for them by now. But staring into the dark shadows of their dining room, all the children could hear were the sounds of bones crunching and flesh tearing as the man ate himself on their dining table. Leaving them with half their family and a destroyed world.