The remaining traces of her ghostly visage disappeared through the store’s archaic beige walls. And with her departure, only her skeleton remained in a heap upon the wooden floor.
His blood freezes. He stares and stares and stares unseeingly at nothing. The skeleton still remains on the ground. A former ghost of herself…forever broken and beyond repair.
Just like the spirit, her story was lost forevermore.
“Don’t run,” Emerett says with a warm smile. His voice belies his true feelings, venomous and icy. Clutched in his hand is a decorative knife.
It is fancier than the one he had been carrying, but its fancy appearance does not deceive Noël.
The knife is what one would use in ritualistic killings.
“I despise everything about you, but, I’m doing this for Delia.” He lazily assesses his blade. “Soon, you will be something. And…I can be at peace knowing I’ve dedicated all of myself to her.”
Noël warily eyes the blade. He knows he won’t die, but being stabbed is never a fun experience.
“Just tell me one thing,” Noël says. His expression is stiff and hollow, not unlike that of a doll’s. “What makes you think killing me will make my Aunt happy?”
Emerett blinks. “You don’t know?” he slowly asks. The knife is still gripped tightly in his hands.
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The shop keeper laughs harshly as he shakes his head. “Is there anything you do know about her? All of this, everything, it was her idea.”
“Murder is what she lived for, and I—” Emerett raises the knife once more and points it at Noël. “Well, I lived for her.”
Noël is tired. That much is certain. He is pale, and cold, and numb. So much of his life was filled with uncertainty, but…even after he awoke from his fifty year slumber, there was nothing waiting for him.
How dare this murderer claim to have known his Aunt.
How dare he say she was the murderer.
The only murderer here is him.
And…me, Noël tells himself. Hollow and so very tired.
Aunt Delia was never a murderer. She is kind and polite and…dead. Never had she ever harmed anyone. There is a part of himself that truly believes this, but……
There is never any kindness or certainty in his world.
What…if he was wrong about this?
What…if had been mistaken about Aunt Delia?
He hears the sound of bottles slamming into each other and a door slamming shut. It sounds very far and distant. At this moment, all he can see is the face of a cold-blooded murderer and a silver knife.
Noël hears the sound of a blade cutting through air before he sees it.
There is a slight figure standing behind the man. He is holding a gun.
The mysterious figure has a gun in his hands, and it is placed onto the back of the shop keeper’s head.
“Bang.”
A harsh gunshot pierces the tension. The noise is very grating on Noël’s ears. It is similar to one of those…
Metal birds he used to see in the sky—on the way to and from school. He tries to recall the curious contraptions, but to no avail. He is met with static and garbled words.
Emerett screams.
Blood drips sluggishly onto the ground. Bright red before fading into an earthy brown. The shop keeper topples over.
Unresponsive, with his eyes glassy and unseeing. He is staring at the ceiling, but he is gone.
Noël halfheartedly kicks at the corpse, but it is too late.
The shop keeper is dead.
He should feel happy, but Noël feels nothing.
With the death of the shop keeper, his own questions had been buried.
“It’s a good thing I made it here in time. Are you alright?”
Noël looks up. He locks eyes with a tall figure. In his hands is a gun, smoke lazily billowing out of the barrel. The figure had kneeled down until he was at eye-level with Noël. He looks shaken and frightened, but otherwise, he’s fine.
“Are you alright?” the stranger says again. His one uncovered eye looks at Noël in concern.
His eye…it’s gold, Noël halfheartedly muses.
It had been a long, tiring day, but he was ready to go back to sleep.
There is blood pooling under Emerett’s body. Blood is on the ground. At his feet. On his hands.
He wants to go home.