𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑— 𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐄 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄
.ೃ࿐ᴰᵒˡᵒʳ ʰᵃˢ ⁱᵗ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ʰᵉ ˢᵗⁱˡˡ ᵐᵘʳᵐᵘʳˢ ʰᵉʳ ᶜʰᵉʳᵘᵇⁱᶜ ᵖᵒᵉᵐ.
A cry equivalent to another's laugh. Both so contrasting, yet both so destroying.— Palace of Ulric labyrinths, Elvira Crest.
࿐SCARLET࿐
|Alec|
THERE'S SOME TRUTH to those who claimed juvenile trauma remained fused to some people past adulthood. The man relaxed before Scarlet was proof of this undying theory. Unlit eyes a haunting disposition of a million punishments; clasped hands degraded with the imperfections of others' suffering—ever-enlarging walls sealed every alveolus that exceeded the solid skeleton of the office door, enriching the translucent authority of Franklin Pyxis's intimidating presence. For the many who walked into this very office, Franklin looked like many of the loaded elitists his crooked institution handled, but not too far under this masquerade of revenue, Scarlet knew a particular nightmare hid.
Scarlet had lived under the same roof as Franklin not long after the day he had watched the facility of high-class ascend with magnificent terror. It didn't matter how many days Scarlet could spend abandoned with cannibalising insides, stranded in clinging blood that was not all his, or fending off the gourmandizing nights of winter recluse; this decaying ceiling of oak timber would always find its way over his head, pressuring him to soar tall with the fear that his bones would shed from his flesh as a feeling of fatigue gnawed at the back of his knees.
But there were days which Scarlet knew that any sense of panic driving his body was not from exhaustion, only the trafficker before him.
This was one of those days.
Franklin didn't turn back as the groans of his floorboards harmonised, although an insignificant shift of his head told Scarlet the man was aware of the other person depleting the warmth of the room with him. Scarlet observed the purple evening silhouette the details of Franklin's arrogant face, sublime muscles toned through his shirt with the gust of his inclemency. His navy robes reclining loosely off his limbs, every inch of heavy material shaded black from the three-dimensional portrait of a far-removed world. No matter how drowned Franklin should have looked in the moment, his posture remained as stringent as ever.
Scarlet wished to scatter into useless ash rather than have to hear the discordant words of the grievous man before him.
"I've always preferred you over Séraph, Scarlet, did you know that?" The rhetorical inquiry blossomed in the setting with irony. A rationale within Scarlet knew that Séraph would not tend to the judgments of a man like Franklin but, regardless, an unknown slice of him continued to feel enraged for her at the nasty testimony.
"No." Scarlet's response was not harsh enough to reveal any of the vexations he carried in place of Séraph yet, at the same time, those two letters failed to carry the plentiful weightlessness of pride that Franklin was seeking from him.
Franklin turned belatedly, the balmy sheen from the falsity of his embellishment fallen from his features as he studied Scarlet for what left like decades. Scarlet could hear it, feel it, the unsweetened narration of grimy eyes skidding their clueless child's defected stand—their crippling knees, tear urging eyes, chipping hands, bruising arms— not an element was neglected by the man who looked 40 nearing 30.
The interactions between the two always adjoined an unusual passive: an exchange of stares that included a surplus of cryptic comments, a quirk of the brow that applauded the highest of mounts. Most of the time it was just a few choked up assertions that would be filmed with a hundred definitions. It wasn't difficult seeing through Franklin when he was pleased, it was when he was unhappy that he became difficult.
His eyes fell to Scarlet's tearing hands where the blood of another dried. "It seems at least one of you has succeeded in their homework," he spoke, more mellow than his usual aggrieved or boastful.
"What happened to Séraph?" Scarlet inquired lightly, palms exceeding their repose with anxious sweat.
No answer.
"Let me see you." He gave a jerk of two fingers, gesturing Scarlet to come closer. About three wandy twirls of his fingers, and as if it was by magic, Scarlet had reasonable stamina to stumble closer. "Loyalty is a privileged life, yet so many people are quick to be ignorant than abide by it."
Their melodious stare burned distant worlds.
"How about we have a little test?"
Any weariness instantly disappeared at the sight of a certain childish brunette, tears streaming down her tiny face as she wobbled fearfully against the fat man who held her. Cherry.
"Scarlet," Franklin spoke in a slithering voice, elbows propped on his desk. "If you want Séraph to live, you will kill her."
"I-" was all Scarlet could mutter, body weighing down on his torn body as he took in the little girl who was a crying mess. If you want Séraph to live.
"What did you do?" His question was barely audible, but the cries of Cherry being all that took up room, Franklin could hear him. "What have you done to her?" What have you done to my sister?
"Nothing she hasn't done to herself," replied the older man, lending Scarlet a bored look as he said, "But if you kill that little brat over there." He pointed his finger to Cherry. "She will be safe, alive." He was smiling, watching hopelessness morph the young man's face. He took joy in it, control in his panic. "Don't tell me she's worth more to you than Séraph."
"No," the word looped with the rapid thought, both coming out subconsciously and entirely mechanically. A miniature sob erupted at his single word, a word he hadn't realised had slipped his thoughts and into their reality until his gaze connected with that of Cherry's terrified stare. Please don't look at me like that, Scarlet's heart ached, so torn and so broken, please don't look at me like you look at them. Stop looking at me like I'm one of them.
"Please," he was begging now, brows furrowed and lip trembling. "I can't— I won't forgive myself."
Franklin only gave a displeased sigh in recovery.
"Fatty," he called out to the fat man holding the young girl in place, grip shortly wrinkling the girl's shirt and the unpleasant name-calling as he heeded his boss's command. Franklin smirked at his created scene. "Hit her."
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Scarlet couldn't bear to watch it, the jolt of pain that shot through Cherry as she collapsed to the floor, cradling her red cheek. Scarlet could feel his veins spiking in rage and fear as he watched the young girl try to soothe and recuperate herself, trying to not get pummeled again, but all was wasted as he watched the fat man standing over her take another hit at her from her position on the floor, striking her on the opposing cheek with a sickening crunch. Stop. He wasn't slapping her, this man was punching her as if he were striking a grown man his own age, not a little 10-year-old girl. I need to stop him.
"Mommy!" Cried Cherry, holding a fetal position on the office floor as she shielded herself from the barrage of punches. "I want my mommy!"
"Stop!" Scarlet yelled, lunging towards the man but multiple pairs of hands held him back, restraining his arms behind his back. He hadn't taken notice of the three men who had managed to snake their way into the room through the crack of the open door, probably due to the fact that he was too overwhelmed by the attack on his younger friend. He whipped his head in the direction of the agitator of her pain, snarling at Franklin.
"She's just a little girl! I barely know her! She's nothing to me!" He screamed, his heart lurching as the lie dashed from his lips. "All she does is bug me! She's not my friend! I don't know her, dammnit!" Scarlet couldn't breathe. "You're wasting your time hurting her! Stop! You hear me! Fucking stop!" He kills people, maims, takes lives and tears apart families. He had seen death, had never pondered it away from his duty. But now he found himself face to face with the notion of death again, no longer was he completely indifferent as it faced him. Why couldn't he breathe? Why was his camaraderie with death shaking him to the core? "She's fucking nothing!" Causing him to choke with the unseen constriction of his lungs?
I don't want death as my friend anymore, I don't want to welcome death anymore. Scarlet had only feared death twice before. Once under a cave coated in snow, overlooking the girl holding the palm of his dear friend, death. He had cut off that short moment of intimacy and chosen to save the girl who, unknowing to him at the time, would soon mend him whole again, give him purpose. That night, he had saved Séraph and finally came to fear his only friend, death. The second, all it would take was a dream. Burning, he would see burning, a shattered town, ruined and dirtied snow. He would feel death caress his shoulder, trying to coax him to watch and Scarlet's stomach would plummet to hell. When it came to it, his eyes would always close. He wouldn't think about it, his body would work on its own.
He never saw the person his friend death would greet in his dreams, but he always felt cheated by death whenever he had that dream, that nightmare. Death stole from him something he didn't know he had, something he hadn't realised he had lost yet. It made Scarlet come to realise that this death was never his friend, but rather his taker, his first and perpetual tormentor.
You're not nothing.
But today, he had come to fear death for the third time in his life, watching as Cherry wheezed out painfully as another forceful kick connected with her chest.
"Why?" Her question was faint.
His eyes met Cherry's from her position on the floor, hurt tearing her eyes as she looked up at him from under the arm which shielded her head, hurt he knew wasn't a result of the beating she was receiving. This was hurt which was a result of his words.
She's nothing to me.
And then their connected gaze was cut, her eyes closed tight as a painful kick was delivered to her face, crashing with her freckled face, now leaking with blood as the bone of her nose reached incorrectly out from under her skin. She's fucking nothing. His words, words which took apart of him to spew out so cold, did nothing to waver the assault.
"Mommy...it hurts... it hurts everywhere."
"That's enough now," Franklin's voice dragged, his raised hand coming into existence from Scarlet's peripheral, the assassin's stare unmoving from Cherry's figure.
I'm sorry.
This is all his fault, maybe if he and Séraph hadn't acknowledged the girl, sympathised with her loneliness and put effort into making her feel as if she fit in with their unfixable little family, maybe, just maybe Franklin wouldn't have acknowledged her existence.
This was all their fault. His.
Maybe if he hadn't cared, hadn't felt for her.
"Scarlet," Franklin called out, taking in the young man before him, eyes leaking with so many emotions, it was hard to unravel which would spill first. "You pick, boy. He keeps beating her until she dies or you'll pick up a knife, stick a hole in her and kill her now, saving her from all the disgustingness."
"How," Scarlet muttered out, words more jumpy than the wind as he cut off his question and clung to a whole new one. "Are you even human?"
Again, thoughts seemed to slip his lips, finding themselves where they were not wanted. The question was one he found to be asking himself, not the cruel man before him. Was he even human?
Did the heavens really hate him this much?
It wasn't fair.
The tales and scriptures he read spoke of humans being granted good, even the most wicked after they had repented. He had repented and begged for nothing but forgiveness, yet the gods had turned a blind eye to him. He had begged the entire journey back to Alec, asking for nothing for forgiveness, pleading for the security of those he looked forward to seeing and had begged them to extinguish the light which blazed hot in his heart, the one that made him feel. Mourn. Yet, not a single prayer of his has been answered.
'The gods are most forgiving to their creations; the gods love their humans. Even the worse of the worse, the gods see their path and are willing to forgive and make amends with their little humans. The gods do not expect, they know. And they know they will help their humans redeem themselves.' That part of the book he had been reading resounded in his head, reminding him of what he was not, what he never got.
Was he even human? Why had the gods abandoned him?
It wasn't fair.
"Scarlet," called Franklin in warn, tossing a dagger his way. It stabbed into the wood some inches from his boot, ringing as it wobbled, now trapped between the splintered wood. "Do you want her to suffer?"
No.
Long before he had realised it, Scarlet had already yanked the weapon from the wood and was making his way to Cherry's fallen figure, curled into herself like a ball, still weeping like she was destined to be. A child.
This wasn't fair.
He collapsed behind her and on his knees, looking down as her body shook in rhythm with the sobs that shuddered her body.
"Do it for Séraph," Franklin's words impaled Scarlet, catching and stealing his breath.
Nothing is worth more Séraph; I'm nothing without her, nobody. I don't even exist.
Franklin was beaming. "For Cherry."
A little girl turned towards the boy beside her, braiding their mother's hair. She was small, so energetic as she gave him a grin, her front two teeth missing.
"Hey, Scarlet. Can I ask you something?"
"What?"
"When I'm as big as mama, will you make my hair pretty too?"
"Yes."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Scarlet's hand found the younger girl's back and he held it there for a bit, feeling the way she broke down, how she struggled to do the only thing her body could do through the pain and broke free a fractured wheeze.
"Why?" Her question suffocated him. "Why did you say that about me, Letty?" Another sob. "I-I thought you cared about me."
"I-" He hesitated, not knowing what to say in reply. He held his head low, watching as she tried to peek a stare at him but found herself unable to as a result of her injuries. "I'm a liar."
He took in her swollen eyes, her busted lip which failed to keep in the saliva which fell from her mouth, coating her skin as she breathed, "Y-you l-lied?"
"Cherry," he whispered low. "It's going to be alright. Y—" he choked, "Your mother's going to keep you safe now. She'll do a better job than me."
A tear slipped from the girl's swollen eye, understanding what her friend was telling her.
"Scarlet?"
"Yes?"
"Can you tell me you love me?"
He was crying now, his tears pruning and eating away the coldness of the crisis as a heat of anger burst through him before quickly being quelled by a hollowness he didn't want to feel, that numbness of acceptance.
He raised the dagger.
"You mean something to me, Cherry. I'm a liar, a heartless, worthless liar. You're not nothing." And he brought it down quickly, her pained yelp drowned out by his destroyed cry, oozing with unadulterated misery as he found himself softening into a whisper, "I love you."
And then he dropped the weapon, watching as all discomfort departed the body before him which once belonged to his young friend, her blood no longer kept contained and warm as it swam across the wood of the office, exploring.
"I love you."
A sharp pain exploded in his head as Scarlet collapsed to the flood beside Cherry, face finding the river of red fleeing her.
"You idiot," Franklin hissed to someone above Scarlet, someone he could not see as black dotted his vision and everything became unfocused and blurred with a pang of pain. "He's still awake. Imbecile! Hit him again!"
And whoever obeyed the command did just that, a spike of pain finding Scarlet's head before total and complete darkness pulled him from consciousness.
I love you.