Trinity finally convinced me to pen down some of my thoughts, pointless as they are.
Most people will tell you the hardest part of this life is the changes; the everyday struggle for survival, the constant fear of discovery or the absolute enmity between us and the rest of the world. For most people, that’s as hard as it will get. Others, it’s the killing. They can’t handle taking the lives required to keep themselves strong. They find ways to circumvent their new, dark natures. They drink from bags, or from some animal or another, and they rob themselves.
For some people, things are harder than all of that.
For me, the hardest part of this new life is the nightmares. The voices. Even when I’m awake, I can hear the voices. Screaming at me, hating me. I know the voice. I know what she knows, and she won’t let it go, like a dog gnawing on a bone. Worse. And the hardest part is that I know she’s right. She’s angry, and she has every right to be. I would have been, too. I killed her.
Not with my own hands, no, that much I can say I had no part in, but by forcing her to ride with me that morning, by keeping her with me, I killed her. Someone… something, found her. They found her, and they killed her, and it was my fault. I should have kept her close. I should have never let her out of my sight, not for anything. It was my job to protect her, my job to take care of her. If I couldn’t handle that, then what was the use in being the big brother? What was the use in me at all?
I’ve always been worthless.
Even before that day, I’d never known anything worth actually having me around for. I have no skill that is particularly useful, nothing that I can say that I principally excel in. I am mundane. I am just another body, another useless waste of space in a world that’s starting to get a little crowded.
There’s some nights, as I lie and wait for the dawn to come, that I stare at my own reflection in the blade that Micah gave me. I can see nothing there. A corpse. A rotted, featureless visage all but dead already. What good am I to anyone, really? I could shove the blade into my cursed heart. I could end myself without hesitation, without remorse, and I could rid myself of this damnation that has become my life. I can silence her screams forever.
But what if I don’t?
What if, there in the dark, in the depths of that cursed place they call the Shadow Realm, she finds me? What if she can speak to me there, as well? How will I escape her then? Where will I have left to run? No, for me, this is my prison; my hell. This is the least of what I deserve, the madness of her wails as they pierce me, rattle me to my core. Her words are sharp, barbed little evils that, in truth, are too kind. Svala had always loved me, always trusted me implicitly, and I had betrayed that trust; betrayed that love. I, by all rights, deserve far worse.
If I had been the shade, and she the corpse, cursed to live on without the warmth of true life, I might have been far harsher in my torments. Where she lashes at me with words, I would have, at the least, lashed at the things that made her happy. I would have made those around her miserable as well, I would have hurt them. I would have hurt her. Instead, she only reminds me of the things I already believe, she fills my head with truths, with the pain of reality, and I seek my own atonement through the pain that I inflict upon myself.
Only through that pain can I hope to wash myself clean again. Only the white agony can cleanse the black guilt that has stained my soul for so long. Every day, I can feel myself coming closer to my atonement, to my forgiveness. I can feel her hatred ebb only so slightly with each cut, each lash, each bruise. I know that, in time, when my body has sacrificed all that it has to give, when each strip of flesh has been laid bare, when my blood runs clean across the alter of my prayers, that I may begin to lift my head, to feel the burden upon my shoulders begin to lift.
That day is far away yet, the weight I bare is tremendous. This new life I live, this immortality that I have been given, is only another way for me to seek my forgiveness. A window through which opportunity has flown to me, offering me the knowledge with which I have lit my path to true clemency. With this longevity, I have the time, the endurance, to inflict upon myself pains that my mortal body could never have withstood. I have the ability to push the limits of my agony to new heights, to places closer to that which I truly deserve.
I can feel the lash much clearer, let the teeth bite deeper into the flesh, the flame lick across my skin until it is charred black and crisp. The things that I can do to myself with this new power of mine…
I know that it pleases her. I know that the pain I offer to her is what she desires, what she truly requires of me. Now, that I can push my body to these new limits, she is ever more pleased, though her tongue is sharper than it had ever been. She strikes at me harshly, with wickedness she had never known in life. She had never been so bitter a soul in her youth, her hatred for me learned through death.
I cannot blame her. I cannot fault her, for the severity of her loathing. My feelings are akin to her own, the loathing I am filled with is turned upon myself, until I am a roiling vassal of bile and wroth.
I have much to atone for.
The lash is whispering my name. I have been gone from her sweet kisses for too long.
What I have done cannot be forgiven. What I have done is wicked.
My own sister lies dead, because of my own selfishness. My own wanton disregard for the law gave her killer the opening they needed. If not for me, Svala would never have been on that beach. She wouldn’t have been in the car, when they happened upon her. What am I supposed to do, knowing that the sister I loved is gone, because of my own greed? What I wanted was all that mattered to me, and I never once thought of her, or of her safety. She should never have been alone. She was a sixteen year old girl. What happened to her… it was a mercy to what could have been done.
I know all too well, the horrors of what might have befallen her.
But I will not broach that subject here.
Not here.
Not now.
Not while others might find these words, and use them against me. What I have written already is a danger to myself; the crack in my armor. They do not know me; they cannot know me. I am merely a shapeless essence, a spear among the phalanx, without a name, without a face. I am just another murderer, what more is there that they need to know? I follow my orders, I obey my commands. I do what I’m told, when I’m told to do it, how I’m told to do it. It’s best that way. That’s how I was programmed.
Sefi came for me, as I knew she would.
The nightmares had haunted me as often as Svala’s. Seeing her face again brought out a pain in me so deep, I thought for certain that I was going to die in the street, like a dog. The agony was overwhelming, but it was short. It didn’t take long, before the memories that flooded my mind left me numb, the sweet, liberation of pain was too brief, leaving me only in this emptiness, left to the memories of what happened to me; to us.
I was waiting for the train at Cherrydale, my usual thoroughfare from the Treehouse to the caverns. I had just purchased a ticket, turning to step onto the platform when I nearly walked right over her. The short impact knocking her to the ground. I’m so used to never looking a woman in the face… what possessed me to look at her?
How did I know?
How did I know who she was, before I looked at her?
Was it her body? Her shape?
Was it her voice, as she muttered an “excuse me.”?
Was it her hands, when I helped hoist her off the platform?
I can’t say it was any of those things. Or all of them. I just don’t know. What I know is that, there on the platform of the Cherrydale station, I came face to face with my elder sister for the first time in almost six years. The look of shock on her face was plain, and the spark that shot between us was white hot, a knife of loathing and fear that burrowed its way into my gut, twisting, and wrenching free the most sweet agony I have felt in years.
When I regained consciousness, I was lying on one of the booths on the train. Alone, I sat up and attempted to piece together what had happened. That was when she came back into the cabin, shutting the door behind her. We were alone. I stood, and with an open hand, I smacked her across the face with all the strength I could muster, my knuckles breaking the skin of her cheek, her teeth slicing the meat on the inside of her mouth and sending blood splashing across the floor. She stood there, silent, as I unleashed everything that I had upon her. Every word that I had imagined I would say to her, I screamed it at the top of my lungs. I took hold of her shoulders, and I shook her violently, screaming in her face, before I snapped forward, and sank my teeth into her throat with a violence that would have severed her neck from her shoulders.
I blinked, and she stood there, staring at me with those wide, blue eyes, and giving me a gentle shake. “Aksel? Aksel, are you okay? Say something.” I stepped away from her, then, and put my hands on her biceps. “Never touch me again.” I had told her simply, and she had complied. She was far more docile than I remembered. She obeyed my every word, listened to everything that I had to say to her… she followed me, only after I realized that telling her to stay, or to leave me alone meant that she would root herself to the spot in which she stood, like a tree rooted in time, and wouldn’t move until I came to collect her, or she passed out from hunger or exhaustion. I had no choice, but to take her home. She was my sister. Even after all of the things she had done to me, she was still my blood.
Besides. Now, looking back on that past, seeing things through this new perspective, I deserved every ounce of what I got. Nothing she did to me could compare to what I had done to myself. Nothing she had ever done was as wicked as what I had done to Svala.
She would be twenty this year. Young, intelligent, promising. She had more hope than all of us; Freyja aside. My twin was everything that I couldn’t be. Gifted, smart, articulate, social, athletic… she was perfect in every way that I was flawed. Would that I could vanish from the earth, to leave her as my family’s legacy. Sefi is too stupid, by far, to carry on our name in pride. She doesn’t have the intelligence to carry our father’s torch. She dwindled her talents in the military the year after they sent me away, the year after Svala’s death.
Our father, however, will not see reason. He wishes to pass his life down to me, though I have never once shown any form of interest in the power or the prestige that his position commands. I have never wished for the attention that they bring upon the man in my father’s place. That is something more fitting of my sister. What I wouldn’t give to make him see it.
Mostly, what I want from existence, is pain. Sweet, blissful agony. Pain washes away the sins of my life, if only for a brief moment. Agony, a white hot flame, cleanses my soul, scouring it clear of the blemishes of the wicked man that I am, and leaves behind something new, something clean, but twisted; tainted. Corrupted. I am damaged, and there is no halting the darkness that marches across my soul, the evil that eats at me every day, until I too will become little more than a demon of the darkness. Already, I am banished from the light. The sun, on which shines all living things, scorns me. The mildest of its light sets flame to my nerves, crisping my flesh black.
I am a thing of darkness, a creature of evil. All that is left me of the kind soul that I once had been is the twisted, gnarled root of something sinister; something fowl. I am a danger to the goodness of those around me, and the pain is the only thing that will keep that danger beneath the surface, that will scour me clean until I can present myself to the night once again.
Svala.
If I could bring you back, I would. Don’t you see that? Don’t you understand?
I’m sorry for what happened; for what I did, for what I failed to do.
I’m so, so sorry, Svala. I beg that you forgive me.
I pray that this fresh pain, this wound upon my soul that is being torn open anew will appease you, that you will be pleased with the agony that I am about to endure.
If you can hear my prayers, Svala, know that I love you, little sister.
I love you, and all that I am about to suffer, I do so for you.
I want you to be happy, little sister.
I want you to rest.
I love you, with all my heart, little beast.
I hope this fresh agony is sacrifice enough to show you that much, at least.
I will always be your big brother.
Even when I failed you, when I let you slip through my fingers, I was your big brother.
I am sorry, Svala.
I am sorry.
I am so, so sorry.
If you can find it in you, forgive me.
I know you won’t, Svala. I won’t blame you.
How can I expect you to pardon my crimes against you, when I can’t so much as forgive my own wretched self?
Beneath the date, blood stains much of the page. Black with age and flaking from the page, by the time that it is ever picked up again, the blood is stuck to the opposite page, a mirror image of the splash of gore against the thick, white paper of the journal. The hand that is written beneath the splashes of blood is angry, leaving deep gouges in the paper. Each stroke of the pen was a canyon along the soft paper surface, filled to brimming with thick, black ink. Each touch to the page had smeared the ink almost beyond recognition. He wouldn’t need to see them to know what they had said.
Dead.
She is dead, and it is more my fault than it can possibly be anyone else’s. It is Svala, all over again. Worse, because I knew of the dangers, and I let her go anyway. Worse, because I wasn’t even there. She will curse me for it, little Svala, for thinking this way, for putting the pain of my wife before her eternal agony, but I cannot help this feeling, this tumult in my soul. What have I done?
Foolish, foolish idiot. You thought that she was ready? You only prepped her for the slaughter. Dressed the meat and put a nice, shiny apple between her teeth as they lined up their shots. You are worse than useless, you are a traitor. To your wife, to her family, to yourself. You could have told her no. You should have told her no. You knew that she wasn’t ready, but she had been so eager, so excited. She had filled her head with your praises, and had swelled with pride, unable to see her own weaknesses until it was far, far too late. What are you to do, but to mourn?
I should be in there with her. In that dark place, that madness. She does not deserve what happened to her. She does not deserve the dark. Why should she suffer there, in that violent, evil place, while I remain here, with the demons in my head? With the sins on my hands, the blood, the murder upon my head… why should I, so full of sin, wicked to the core, down to my dead, black heart, continue to survive here, while she is dead? She, a woman pure as snow, cleansed by my own hand, in the white flame of agony that had stripped her soul bare of all evil?
That is no place for someone like her. It has been so long since I have delved into the darkness, I am not sure I know the way any longer. Another error on my part. I should be intimate with this darkness, this place that I belong to. I should know it as well as my own home, for a part of me will be there always.
If I cannot find my way to the dark, then I will have to simply spill enough blood to wash away the pains she has suffered, the darkness that they have put her into. I know the people that she meant to attack. I know their safe house, their strategy, their style. I know enough to know that I am more than match enough for many of them, when they do not suspect me.
And who suspects a shadow?
I have already begun my assault, my frenzy through the ranks of these monsters. Their blood will stain these pages, a testimony to the people my wife lost in that lair. Tonight, I took two of them unawares. Their hearts were in my hands as they died. I let them taste the tough muscle as I shoved it through their broken teeth, just before they expired. A pleasant parting gift, to be sure.
My hands are still mangled from the broken shards of tooth and fang biting into the flesh. The fools tried to resist, to fend off their fate. The first, the man, hadn’t stood a chance. His resistance was only token at best, his death was quickest of the two. The woman hadn’t been so lucky. She had fought harder, clung to life desperately. It was, frankly, enough to take my last remaining bit of sanity and throw it over the edge.
I remember little of what happened after that, but I know that when the red finally subsided, I found her hanging by a noose; a noose made of her entrails, slung over the bannister of the second floor of her apartment. Bullets have burrowed into my flesh, the white-hot copper rounds searing the meat of my muscles, one of them is lodged into the joint of my shoulder. It is incredibly painful, only so long as I think of it. If I focus, I can forget the pain of my body.
The pain in my heart is not so easily forgotten.
All I do, I do for you.
I love you, Trinity. I am coming, as soon as I can. Do not give up on me.
Sefi has been staying with me these past weeks. Every time I look at her, I feel dirty. I feel disgusted with her, with myself, with my life, and I can’t bring myself to do anything about it. She came here to find me, all the way from Denmark. All the way from the manse in Copenhagen, on her own money, her own effort, she came to find me, to beg me for my… I don’t know. I don’t know what she wants from me.
It isn’t forgiveness. I don’t think I can ever forgive her, and I think she knows that. I can see it in her eyes. What she wants is to work for it, even if she never succeeds, she wants to try. I can sympathize with that. Every time I feel like I can’t do it anymore, I hear Svala’s shade, screaming in agony, screaming in rage, smashing me down until I’m only a foot tall, and I know I can’t send her away. She’s just like me. That thought makes my stomach turn, every time. Even writing it, it doesn’t make me feel any better.
I’ve hated this woman most of my living memory. The things she’s done to me can never be undone. The damage she’s caused me will never go away, no matter how hard I try, no matter who or what I bring into my life, I will always be broken. Trinity has shown me that. If anyone could have mended me, could have fused the cracks again, it would have been her. No one, nothing else could ever have hoped to have come close to the amount of good she’s done for me, but I know now that this is who I am. I’m only fortunate that, even as I am, she loves me, and wants to stay.
She still doesn’t know that Sefi is here. I can’t think of a way to tell her. I know that I need to, knowing what she knows. She deserves to know, I’m just frightened that she will try to kill her; to kill my sister. As much as I’ve endured under her, I don’t think I could suffice her being killed. Through everything, she is my sister. She is my blood. It is my purpose to protect her. I love her still, in spite of everything. I know how dangerous that is, to try and extend myself to her again, to try to be her brother again, after running away from her for so long, but I just can’t look at her, knowing the pain she’s in and ignoring it.
For now, she is staying in the Eyrie, sleeping where she can find a place. I know it isn’t comfortable, or an enjoyable experience, and there are next to no friends for her there, but the place is safe. She won’t be harmed there. I can rest in peace, until I can find a way to introduce her to Trinity.
I just pray that Trinity understands why I do this. Why I can’t just let her die.
Sefi needs a chance to atone; a chance to suffer for what she’s done. We all deserve that much.
It hasn’t been quiet in a long, long time. The city around me is in an uproar. Violence is sweeping through everyone, the most pacifistic of us even being dragged into the bloodbath. The paladins are gone, at least those we call the Order of St. James, broken by Roderic and his band. I don’t know who he had with him, but they made short work of what was left of them after our attack in January. The hunters’ organization is broken, and what was left behind has been chaos.
The streets are wild with war. The city is shattered into factions, each waging their own kind of war on the other. Some aren’t even vampire. I’ve heard reports of Fae, as well as the humans, all leaping into the fray. No one is safe. I do what I can to protect Trinity, particularly after her involvement at the side of her family. Her death has made me particularly wary, a hardship when I’m so used to not having to worry. I make by, but she is always on my mind these nights, always in my thoughts. I can never stop wondering if, by being out here on the streets, cleaning up this mess, that I am leaving her vulnerable.
What’s to stop those guys from coming into our place, from taking her away, from killing her all over again? It makes my job difficult.
Maybe I should put some traps down, to know she’s safe inside. But I know that won’t work. It won’t, because she’s stubborn, and refuses to stay inside, even during all of this. She’s just as likely to step in those traps as any intruder, and that is just going to be counterproductive. Her, or her sister, who is coming and going much more often than before, now. It’s strange, but not unpleasant. It’s good to see them together. Annabelle brings out a certain glow in her sibling, a certain beauty. Perhaps it’s because of the real happiness that’s there, or the way she sets aside her worries when the other woman is about. It’s hard to tell.
I’ve taken to the caverns again, in my own time. When I’ve not been in the streets, I have been here, doing what I can against the lesser fae and the beasts that they employ. These creatures are ghastly, monstrous things. When one might think of fae, in legend and song, in story, they think nothing like these monsters. They are nothing like what I expected, nothing like what anyone would expect, I would think. They are twisted, vile things, more arachnid than humanoid. They die much easier than one would imagine as well.
The crux of my excavations into these dark depths has been the gems. The valuable stones that these things seem to protect. Valuable, they provide a much needed income. My regular income alone is hardly enough to uphold this lifestyle, so they provide the supplement needed. Blood has become grossly expensive, to a point that I don’t know how any common man or woman could afford to feed themselves under these conditions. Without an absurd bankroll, or some incredible source of daily income, the average vampire would be starved half to death, driven to the ever more dangerous task of actually hunting for their food.
What do they expect us to do?
Those that can’t nourish themselves without blood, like myself, have only the options of paying their price or hunting. The humans are growing aware of our presence. Try as we might, the struggle is becoming more and more difficult, keeping the secret of our existence is becoming nearly impossible. I saw a young vampire just a few nights ago, starved to a point of madness. I’ve never seen anything quite so skeletal, so hungry and mad and desperate. Her eyes were overly large, two massive orbs bulging from a skull taut with skin and absent of flesh. She was pallid and wan, her entire presence unkempt and feral, wild. She was more corpse than woman. When I tried to gather her attention, she snapped fangs at me and twisted long, black claws into talon tipped fists, lashing out wildly, trying to subdue me.
I don’t know if she suspected I was human, or if, driven to extreme starvation, was seeking blood, any blood, in order to sate herself. I don’t think I want to know. In the end, I put a bullet in her brain, opting for mercy. It was as easy as the first time I’d had to do this very sort of thing.
Killing our kind doesn’t ever seem to become any more difficult, from a moral perspective. I’ve been a part of this faction now for more than two years, and I can’t help but see myself here until I’m swept away, either by the darkness, or by the hand that finally discovers my uselessness. In truth, I’m shocked that they have yet to discover that I am little more than dead weight. The same with Trinity’s family, and even my own sweet sire, Reanna. I don’t know what any of them sees when they look at me, but it is a lie. If they saw the truth of me, they would never smile, they would never rejoice at the sight of my coming, and would likely take shots at my retreating back.
I would.
But that’s because I know the truth of things. I know my own worthlessness. I just don’t know how to make them see. If they could even hear a whisper of the things Svala screams at them about me, about what I’ve done and who I am, they would understand so much more. Things would be so much clearer for them. Things would be so much simpler if I hadn’t ever met any of them at all, if Reanna had just ******* killed me, like I’m sure she meant to.
This… life? This hell is only an eternalization of my agony, my self loathing. I know this now. I’m never going to love anything of myself. I’m never going to see joy, or happiness of any kind without the shadow of my guilt, the ink of my past spilled across even the snowiest purity. All I will ever taste is ash. All I will ever touch is fire. I will never sleep sound again. Not a night goes by that I do not see her face.
But for all of it, I persevere, because I do have them, and somehow, they love me.
They are misguided fools, but I can’t help but love them, too.
Reanna.
Trinity.
My family. My living family.
Tytonidae. All of them.
Even you, Svala. Though you will never know peace. I love you, and I am sorry.
