I've always been bound to death.
On my eighth birthday, a shadow strode into my house and shot me and
my family dead. I remember it vividly, every detail, every angle,
etched and stained and carved into my memory.
I sat very still with my knees to my chest, my gaze glued to my siblings.
Lily and PJ looked like they were sleeping, and I could almost believe it.
I didn't look at the shadow.
From the comfort of my knees, I waited for my brother to lift his head.
But his body was so limp, so still, every part of him faltering. My
sister’s head was nestled in his shoulder, thick beads of red running
down her face.
They're just sleeping.
I could tell myself they were— as long as I didn't look at the
splatter of scarlet staining the back of the couch and pooling at their
feet.
BANG.
Mom’s body dropped onto the ground.
I lunged forwards, slamming my hands over my ears.
BANG.
PJ’s head slumped forwards, a teasing smile still frozen on his lips.
BANG.
Lily gently tipped into PJ, like she was going to sleep.
Before she closed her eyes, Mom told me to run.
I can't remember how long I stayed under the shattered remnants of
Mom’s favorite table. The shadow was waiting for me to move, to make a
noise.
I watched booted feet crunch through glass, getting closer and closer, and slowly, fight or flight began to take over.
Making it halfway across the living room, my palms slick with my mother’s blood, I thought I was going to live.
Cruel fingers wound their way through my hair and shoved me to my
knees. I remember the phantom legs of a spider creeping down the back of
my neck when the shadow with no face dragged the barrel of his gun down
my spine.
“Turn around.”
The shadow had a voice.
When I didn't move, the protruding metal stabbed into my neck.
“Turn around, kid!”
I did, very slowly.
Behind him, my siblings still weren't moving.
They were asleep.
Lily was still smiling, strawberry blonde ringlets stained red.
I couldn't see PJ’S face anymore.
BANG.
I didn't feel the gunshot.
I didn't feel anything.
Looking down, I glimpsed slowly spreading red blossoming like a flower.
It felt like being cut from strings.
I hit the ground, just like my mother, my body felt heavy and wrong.
Paralysed.
I remember being unable to scream, unable to cry, the salty taste of
metal filling my mouth. It was like being winded. Rolling onto my side,
all I could see was flickering candlelight.
The air was thick, so hard to breathe.
I rolled onto my back trying to suck in air.
The shadow took a step back, opened the front door, and bled into the night.
I don't remember the pain, and I don't remember dying. I couldn't breathe, couldn't conjure words in my mouth.
I felt warm and sticky, lying in my own blood.
I think I tried to move.
But I was so tired.
I’m not sure what death feels like, because it's like going to sleep.
I remember my last shuddering breaths, a lulling darkness beginning to swallow me up. I don't know why I wasn't afraid.
Oblivion almost felt like I was sinking into lukewarm depths on a Summer’s day.
Oblivion wasn't pain, and there was a peaceful inevitability to it.
It was endless nothing, a nothing I found myself gravitating towards. But before I could envelope myself in that darkness, it was spitting me back out.
The next thing I knew, I was in a white room, a slow beeping sound
tearing me from slumber. I had a vague memory of slow spreading roses
blossoming across my shirt, like summer flowers blooming.
Everything was white.
The walls, the ceiling, and my clothes.
Sensation hit me in slow waves.
Exhaustion.
I felt it tightening its grip around my brain, dragging me back onto
a mountain of pillows when I tried to jump up. My Aunt May was sitting
next to me on a plastic chair, her warm fingers entangled in mine. Aunt
May and Mom were practically twins, with the same thick red hair and
pale skin.
Mom wore her hair in a casual ponytail, while May preferred a strict bun.
I had to bite back the urge to yank my hand away.
Aunt May was asleep, used tissues filling her lap.
There was a nurse pottering around, checking my vitals and prodding
my arms. My eyes felt heavy. I had to blink several times to keep myself
awake.
“Charlie?”
The nurse’s voice was like wind-chimes.
I pretended not to notice her forced lipstick smile, the way she
stood with her arms folded, staring at me like I was one of my cousin’s
experiments. “You were in an accident, sweetie,” the nurse spoke up. I
could see her trembling hands. “Just, um, try and rest, okay?”
I wanted to ask where my family was, but I already knew the answer.
I think she knew that too.
“You died, Charlie.” The nurse’s voice was eerily cold. “You were dead for thirteen minutes.”
She took slow steps towards me, her eyes growing frenzied, like she
couldn't understand me, like I was a puzzle she could not solve– and it
was driving her crazy. I could see it in her twitching hands, her
wobbling lips that were trying and failing to appear stoic.
“In fact, I just pulled you out of the morgue, honey. I opened up
your body bag that I had just zipped up, and told your aunt that you
were a miracle I just… can’t understand.” The nurse sounded like she was
trying to choke down a laugh, or maybe a sob.
“Charlotte, you were pronounced dead at 3:02am from a gunshot wound
to the chest.” Taking a slow, sobering breath, the nurse tried to
smile. “The bullet went through the right ventricle of your heart and
severely damaged your left lung, rendering you unable to breathe. Your
heart stopped, and after four attempts to resuscitate, we called it.”
Something slimy wound its way up my throat when she began to pace
the room. “I… did all the paperwork. It took me two minutes. Your death
certificate was signed, and your body was taken to the morgue to be
prepped for transportation. Then I had my lunch. Tuna salad with a
protein milkshake. I’m not a fan of the chocolate flavor.”
She shook her head. “Anyway, when I came back to you, you were awake
inside your body bag.” Her voice was starting to break. “You were…um,
alive, and asked me for apple soda.”
The nurse moved closer, and yet kept her distance.
I could feel myself moving back, panic writhing through me.
“So.” The nurse spoke calmly. “How the fuck are you still alive, Charlie?”
I think I passed out after that.
When I woke up again, my head a lot less heavier, the nurse was gone.
Slowly, my foggy brain began to find itself and connect dots.
My mouth was dry, full of cotton.
There was a sudden tightness, a sharp and cruel sting in my wrists.
Something sharp was protruding into my flesh, and no matter how many
times I violently wrenched my arm, it was stuck. It didn't feel right
to be able to breathe so easily.
I knew the second I woke that my Mom was dead.
Lily and PJ were dead, and it was like losing them all over again.
As clarity came over me, I found my voice, a strangled cry escaping my lips.
“Get it out.” I whispered in a shrill cry.
Tugging at the IV in my wrist, I tried to yank the needle from my skin.
“Get it out!” I shrieked, my gaze glued to the tiny spots of blood staining the insertion point.
I could see it again.
So much blood.
Mom was curled up on the floor, lying in slow spreading red that wouldn't stop, seeping across her beaded rug.
She was all over me, slick on my skin and caked in my fingernails.
I couldn't wash her off of me.
“You're okay, Charlotte.”
Aunt May’s voice came from my right, stabling me to reality.
The world started to move again, started to make sense again, when
she cupped my cheeks and told me to breathe. When I opened my mouth to
ask where my family were, she lightly shook her head and I swallowed my
words. Aunt May handed me a glass of water, and I drained it in one
gulp.
She told me I was a miracle.
Aunt May didn't say much, and when she did, she broke into sobs.
Her eyes were raw from crying, clinging onto me, her shuddery voice reassuring me that I was going to be okay.
She told me I would be living with her from now on, before wrapping me into a hug and leaving to get coffee.
Once my aunt was gone, another nurse came to prod my IV.
I tried to sleep, but the uncomfortable tightness of the needle
sticking into my skin and the sterile white lights in my eyes made it
impossible. I waited for grief to catch up with me, drowning me in a
hollow oblivion I wouldn't be able to claw myself out of. But I didn't
feel sad. I didn't feel angry.
I wanted to know why my family were dead.
I wanted to know why I was breathing, and their skin was ice cold.
Rotting.
The sudden image of maggots crawling up my brother’s nose sent me
lurching into a sitting position, my stomach heaving. Reaching for my
glass of water, it was empty. The sensation of throwing up felt
familiar, almost comforting.
Mom was always with me when I was sick, holding my hair back and lulling my hysteria with reassuring murmurs.
I was frowning at the trash can by the door, my cotton candy brain
trying to figure out if I would be able to make it in time, when a small
voice drifted from the doorway, startling me.
“I don't want you to come live with us.”
My cousin was peeking through the door, hiding behind a shock of
dark brown curls. Jude was the only brunette in our family. The rest of
us were redheads.
I wasn't sure why he was dressed up like a ghost, draped in a white
cloak that was way too big for him. Jude was a weird kid. His mother,
and my auntie, had inherited the family house, so in his mind, that made
him superior.
Jude made it clear he didn't like his cousins, refusing to let us play with him and banning us from family gatherings.
When the adults were drinking cocktails and losing their awareness, Jude ordered us around. The times we did
play with him, our cousin showed us his spider collection, or the
raccoon brain he kept in a jar. PJ was convinced our younger cousin was a
serial killer. Several months earlier, he'd happily showed us the
roadkill he'd been growing bacteria on under his bed.
Jude’s ‘experiments’ were worrying.
He stuffed mushrooms down my brother’s ears while he was sleeping, to, and I quote, “Recreate The Last Of Us.”
When Lily had a nosebleed during Thanksgiving dinner, Jude collected
all her bloody tissues and refused to tell us where he'd put them, and what
he had done with them. Fast-forward two months, and I found them under a
nest of spiders. Jude was trying to adapt the spiders to be able to
feed on human blood. I was surprised my cousin hadn't immediately
demanded to see my siblings’ dead bodies for autopsy.
Jude stepped into the room, shuffling his feet.
“I'm sorry about Lily, PJ, and Aunt Ivy.” He mumbled, glaring at the floor tiles.
My cousin made no move to offer real sympathy, instead speaking to the floor.
“But I don't want you to come live with us.” Jude lifted his head,
looking me dead in the eye. “I don't like you, Charlie. I want you to
stay away.”
Before I could reply, he stepped back like I was diseased.
“You should be dead.” Jude grumbled.
He scowled at me, getting my age purposely wrong as usual before running off.
“Happy 68th birthday.”
I was six months older than him.
In Jude’s eyes, I was ready for retirement.
Still, though, my cousin was right.
I was stone cold dead, and then I was somehow alive.
Which was wrong.
Growing up, I realized Death was not so subtly attempting to fix his mistake.
It started small. I'd choke on things I wasn't supposed to choke on.
Chips.
Candy.
Ice cream.
Aunt May had to perform the heimlich manoeuvre when I choked on a
piece of chicken. I thought I was just really unlucky, but then I locked
myself in a freezer that didn't have a lock, and almost drowned in the
local swimming pool, catching my foot in stray netting.
At the summer fair, Jude convinced me to try apple bobbing, only for my head to conveniently get stuck underwater.
It started to make sense.
I was supposed to die with my family that night, and death was out to get me.
Death started to get clever, changing his tactic. Instead of using
everyday things to try to kill me, he sent reinforcements.
I turned twelve years old, and my aunt threw me a huge party, inviting all my classmates. Aunt May was rich, rich.
Mom never explained it, but our grandparents left everything to May.
The house was like a palace, a labyrinth of floors I was yet to explore, and two swimming pools.
I was in the kitchen cutting myself a slice of cake, when, out of
nowhere, a dead boy came rushing at me with one of my aunt’s favorite
kitchen knives.
A dead boy who I immediately recognised.
Wren Oliver.
Several years prior, he'd gone missing from his parents' yard. The
town launched a full investigation, only to find his body in a ditch a
week later.
So, Death had sent a footsoldier.
Hiding under a hooded sweatshirt, Wren appeared older, like he had
grown up with me. But there was a startling vacancy in his expression
that drew the breath from my lungs, freezing me in place. Wren’s death
was announced as an accident, though his wounds suggested the opposite,
dried blood smearing his right temple and a cavernous hole in his chest,
his clothes painted, stained, in bright red, glued in sticky mounds
clinging to him.
The boy’s eyes were wild, feral, like an animal.
His hair was longer, a mess of reddish curls matted to his forehead.
Lip split into a demented giggle.
I remember taking a slow step back, my gaze glued to the knife.
Wren’s fingers were wrapped around the handle like he knew exactly
how to use it, how to plunge it into my heart and kill me for good. He
moved like a predator, zero self awareness or recognition, only driven
to kill me.
The dead boy prided himself in slow, intimidating steps, shoving me
against the wall and dragging the blade of the knife down the curve of
my throat.
His eyes confused me, writhing with hatred that was artificial, programmed into him as Death’s official soldier.
He didn't speak, only smiled, revelling in my fear. I could tell it
thrilled him, my trembling hands, my sharp, heavy breaths I couldn't
control. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited to finally die.
I waited for the pain, and to lose my breath once again.
But death was playing with me.
When I opened my eyes, the dead boy was gone, and I was on my knees, screaming.
“Wren Oliver is trying to kill me!" I managed to hiss.
My aunt knelt in front of me, her expression crumpling.
*Sweetie,” She spoke softly, squeezing my hands. Aunt May was trying
to appear calm for my sake, but I could tell she was scared, her
frantic eyes searching mine. “Wren Oliver is dead.”
The kids surrounding me started to giggle, whispering among themselves.
In the corner of my eye, my cousin was leaning against the door, mid eye roll.
When my aunt was ushering kids back to the pool, Jude came to crouch
in front of me. Ever since I started living with him, he'd made sure to
keep his distance.
This time, though, Jude leaned uncomfortably close, a sparkle in his
eyes I had never seen before. Inclining his head, he rocked back and
forth on his heels, prodding me in the forehead.
“If you see the dead boy again, can you tell me?” His lips curved into a smile.
“I did see him.” I gritted out. “I’m not lying.”
Jude shrugged. “I never said you didn't,” he lowered his voice into a whisper, “I wanna know when you see him again.”
“Why?”
His lips curved into a smirk.
“So, I can catch him.”
My cousin got closer, his breath tickling my cheek.
“I seeeeeeee dead people.”
After that incident, death left me alone for a while.
I was fifteen, walking through the forest with a friend, catching
fireflies in bell jars. Aunt May was lucky to live so close to the
forest, the entrance just outside her back door. When we were littles,
PJ would drag Lily and I down the trail to escape Jude’s weird
experiments.
I decided to invite Jem Littlewood on a summer walk.
Jem was cute, but in a dorky way. He was chronically clumsy, and
dressed like he'd been spat out of a John Hughes movie. We hiked all the
way to the end of the river and had a picnic, watching the sun set over
the horizon. I was having conflicting feelings for this guy.
Jem was obsessed with fireflies.
Though he seemed more interested in photographing them than me.
The guy couldn't seem to sit still, jumping to his feet to marvel at tiny specks of light dancing in the air.
“I'm just going to take photos!” Jem beamed, holding up his camera.
I had to bite back the urge to say, “Don't you have enough photos?”
I nodded, and he turned and sprinted back down the trail.
Before his footsteps ground to a sudden halt.
At first, I thought he was snapping polaroids.
When I got closer, though, blinking in the eerie dark, I caught something.
Bending down, I picked up a bell jar still spilling fireflies.
Further down the trail, Jem was lying crumpled in the dirt, his
camera smashed to pieces next to him, blood running in thick rivulets
down his temple. There he was. Leaning against a tree, his arms folded,
was the ghost boy. Wren Oliver was growing up with me. Now, a teenager,
and yet his face was carved into something else entirely, more of a
monster, slight points to his ears and too-sharp teeth, eyes ignited.
Wren didn't look like a ghost boy anymore.
Death had dressed him in shackles of ivy, a crown of glass and bone
forced onto his head, entangled in his curls. Death was torturing him.
Wren’s body was its canvas, and every time I got away, he was punished, painting his failures across scarred skin.
I should have been running for my life, but I was mesmerised by each symbol cruelly carved into his neck.
The boy did a slow head incline, like he couldn't believe I was standing in front of him.
His slow spreading smile caught me off guard.
I remembered how to run, stumbling over my feet.
But I couldn't move.
The burning hatred that death had filled him with, was stronger,
hollowing him out completely. I managed two shaky steps, before I felt
him, an unearthly force winding its way around my spine. This time, he
didn't hesitate.
I watched his mouth move, a single curve of his upper lip that
wrenched my body from my control, slamming me against a tree. There was
something around my throat, choking the breath from my lungs, a thick
fog spreading over my eyes.
Following his mouth curving into silent letters, I could feel my feet slowly leaving the ground, my legs dangling.
I was floating.
Hovering off of the ground, suspended by his words.
Through half lidded eyes, I caught the glint of a blade between his fist, but I couldn't move, couldn't scream.
He was drowning me, bleeding into my blood, spider webbing and expanding in my brain without moving a muscle.
Instead, the ghost boy stood silently, running his thumb down the teeth of his knife while he ripped my lungs apart.
It was like suffocating, sinking into that peaceful oblivion I met at eight years old.
This time, though, the darkness was starving.
“Charlie?”
My eyes found daylight, a scream clawing out of my mouth.
“Charlie, it's past curfew!”
Wren flinched, his stoic expression crumpling.
The dead boy’s lips moved again, this time in a curse.
Fuck.
“Charlotte!”
Staggering back, Wren’s eyes widened and the suffocating hold on me severed.
His head snapped in the direction my aunt was coming from.
“Charlie, answer me right now.”
He hesitated, his bare feet pivoting in the dirt, like he was
considering finishing me off. Wren studied me with lazy eyes, sucking on
his bottom lip. When my aunt's footsteps got louder, branches snapping
under her shoes, something contorted in the boy’s face.
Fear.
I guessed the boy wasn't expecting other humans to intrude.
Wren fell over himself, shuffling on his hands and knees, before
diving to his feet. When he turned and ran, I was released, slipping to
the ground, trying and failing to draw in breath. I barely felt the
impact, only a dull thudding pain. I could hear the ghost boy’s
footsteps, his uneven, shuddery breaths as he catapulted into a run.
Under a late setting sun, I watched his dancing shadow disappear into the trees.
Mission unsuccessful, I guessed.
When I was fully conscious, Aunt May was checking over Jem, helping him sit up.
“Where did he go?” I managed to get out, scanning the darkness for Wren.
“He's okay, just concussed.” May whispered, dialling 911.
My aunt applied a dressing to Jem’s wound, ignoring the boy’s hisses.
“Keep still.” she murmured, smoothing his bandaid. “What happened, Charlotte?”
“She pushed me over.” Jem groaned, shuffling away from me. When my
aunt told him to stay calm, he straightened up, leaning against the
tree. “The psycho bitch tried to fucking kill me!”
When my aunt's gaze flicked to me, I shook my head.
“It was Wren Oliver.” I gritted, teetering on hysteria. I could tell she didn't believe me, but I couldn't stop myself.
I prodded at my throat, clawing for the indentations where his
phantom fingers snaked around my neck, squeezing the breath from my
lungs.
But there was nothing.
I could feel my mind starting to unravel. I nodded to my disgruntled classmate trying to dodge my aunt’s prodding.
“Ow, ow, ow! That stings!
“He knocked Jem out.” I managed. “Then he tried to kill me.”
Jem surprised me with a scoff. “You're seriously blaming your psychotic break on a dead kid?”
Aunt May pursed her lips, motioning for Jem to be quiet. Judging from her face, however, she agreed with the boy.
May forced a smile, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. “Okay. Can you, uh, describe the boy to me, Charlotte?”
“He was wearing a crown,” I said, “And he looked my age.”
Aunt May cocked her head, and I saw real worry, like she was trying not to freak out. Jem made a snorting noise.
“I'm sorry, he was wearing a crown?”
“Yes!” I insisted, getting progressively more frustrated.
I tried to jump up, only for my aunt to gently lower me back down.
“I know it sounds crazy, but death has sent Wren Oliver to kill me, just
like my family. He tried to kill me when I was twelve, too!”
Jem let out a bitter laugh. “Your niece is a fucking wackadoodle.”
Aunt May’s eyes darkened. She grabbed my shoulders, her nails stabbing into my skin. “Charlie, I want you to listen to me, okay?” When my eyes found the rapidly darkening sky, my aunt forced me to look at her.
“Charlotte!”
She was as scared as me, her voice shuddering.
“Wren Oliver is dead.” My aunt said firmly, shaking me. Even then,
though, I wasn't even looking at her. I was trying to find his ignited
eyes lighting up the dark. “Wren died at eight years old in a terrible
accident, and you can't keep using him as an excuse for your mental
trauma.” There was something twitching in her expression I was trying to
make sense of. When I risked a look at Jem, the boy was staring at me
dazedly– like I really was crazy.
Aunt May pressed her face into my shoulder, and I could feel her
tears soaking into my shirt. She was trying to hold it together, trying
to understand.
“Charlie, I know you lost your family,” she whispered. “But you and
Wren Oliver are not the same. You survived, and he didn't.” Her voice
splintered.
“You need to come to terms with that, okay?”
When I didn't respond, she pinched my chin, forcing me to look at her.
“Charlotte.”
Aunt May’s voice turned cold. “I ignored this when you were a kid,
but if you continue to use this poor boy as a coping mechanism, I will
have no choice but to send you to a specialist.”
When Jem was taken away by paramedics, Aunt May held my hand, squeezing my fingers for dear life.
I caught her gaze scanning the tree's around us, delving into
twisting oblivion. Every little noise sent her twisting around. She was
looking for something.
“I'm going to get you help.” Aunt May said in a low murmur when we
were back at the house. Jude was sitting on the kitchen counter, legs
swinging. I could feel his penetrating gaze burning into the back of my
head.
Aunt May set a cup of cocoa on the table.
“No more fairytales.”
By the time I was eighteen, I had bitten three therapists.
They refused to believe that death was coming to reclaim my soul, and was using a dead boy to do his dirty work.
For my 16th birthday, I braced myself to come face to face with Wren Oliver’s ghost.
I wasn't even in town, staying at a friend's house.
But dead boys, and especially dead boys moulded into Death’s personal soldiers, could materialise anywhere.
I locked every door in the house, and taped up my friend’s window.
Nothing happened.
On my seventeenth birthday, I was sick in bed with gastritis.
Still no ghost boy.
Death seemed to have finally left me alone.
On my eighteenth birthday, I was stuffing books in my locker when my
cousin popped up out of nowhere, scowling as usual. After an unexpected
growth spurt and losing a tonne of baby fat, my cousin had scaled the
high school hierarchy, swapping his weird experiments for a varsity
jacket and experimenting with his sexuality.
The two of us had come to an unspoken truce.
I kept quiet about his spider collection to his popular friends, and he tolerated my existence until I left for college.
“Your surprise party is cancelled.”
Jude leaned against my locker, running a hand through thick dark
hair tucked under a baseball cap. Jude never admitted it, but he was
definitely embarrassed of being the odd one out.
My siblings may be dead, but they were still redheads.
I pulled off his cap with a smile, throwing it in his face. “Sure it is.”
My cousin’s eyes widened. He lost his slick bravado, grabbing for his cap.
“Hey!”
According to my cousin, my party was unexpectedly cancelled every year.
I wasn't sure if it was his weird superiority complex, or just plain jealousy, but it was getting exhausting.
Jude followed me down the hallway, matching my stride.
“Can you just not come home tonight?”
I quickened my pace. “It's only a party. I'm having some friends over, and no, we won't go anywhere near your room.”
“No, I mean.” Jude stepped in front of me, and for the first time in a while, he wasn't trying to hide disdain for me.
His dark eyes pinned me in place for a moment, the world around us
coming to a halt. Sound bled away, and all I heard were his slow
breaths. There was something there, an unexplainable twitch in his eyes
and lips, that twisted my gut.
Jude stepped closer, his lip curling. He shoved me back, losing his facade.
“Stay the fuck away from the house tonight.” He said, and his voice,
his tone, was enough to send shivers creeping down my spine. Jude had
always hid behind a ten foot wall in his mind. It was jarring to see
something in him finally start to splinter. Fuck. I thought.
This kid had serious Mommy issues.
I blinked, and the world resumed, kids pushing past us.
Jude seemed to catch himself, slipping back under his mask.
“I'm having friends over,” he rolled his eyes, “Your presence will ruin the vibe.”
“It's my birthday?”
He groaned, tipping his head back. “Yes, I know. But–”
“I think you can deal with the attention off of you for one night, Jude.”
“Will Wren Oliver be there too?” Jem Littlewood hollered.
Jude didn't respond for a moment, his lip curling.
“Shut the fuck up.” He spat at Jem, who immediately backed down.
With an audience this time, Jude forced an award winning smile. “Fine.”
His lips split into a grin I knew he hated. My cousin clamped his hand
on my shoulder, hard enough to hurt. I could feel his fingers pinching
the material of my jacket. “Have it your way, dude.”
Jude backed away with a two fingered salute.
“Happy 78th birthday!”
In a sense, I wish I listened to my cousin.
My party was a success, sort of.
Four of us, a crate of beers, and no sign of my cousin.
I was mildly tipsy, sitting on the edge of the pool, dangling my legs in the water when my friend demanded more beers.
I was also hungry for cake, so I stumbled inside in search of the goods.
The house was dark, lit up in dazzling blue from the pool's lights
reflecting through the windows. Aunt May was in her office on the ground
floor, and Jude was getting high in his room. In my drunken state, I
found myself marvelling my aunt's house, and how much of it was left
unexplored.
For example, in the foyer, past the spiral staircase she’d had custom made, was an elevator I had never questioned.
There was a girl my age standing on the staircase.
She was frozen, mid run, dressed in ragged jeans and t-shirt.
Everything about her stuck out to me, bringing me to a sobering halt.
The girl reminded me of my sister– or at least, if my sister had ever grown up.
I wasn't sure if I was drunk or hallucinating.
Her flower crown was pretty…
Lily had grown wings.
I was slowly moving towards her, a sudden bang sounding from the kitchen.
The bang of something shattering on the floor.
Twisting around, I found myself gravitating towards warm golden light.
The first thing I saw was the refrigerator door hanging open, and someone, no, something, rooting around inside it.
Glued to the spot, I dazedly watched them grab milk, guzzling it
down, and then soda, cracking open each can and sucking them dry, before
carving their fingers into my birthday cake.
But I wasn't looking at the spillage of food seeping across the
floor. Instead, my gaze found a crown of antlers, both human and animal
bone entangled with dead flowers and human remains glued to a head of
familiar matted brown curls. There was something sticking from battered
and bruised flesh, twin gaping slits sliced through a torn shirt
resembling glass wings that were not yet formed, reminding me of a
butterfly.
Wings.
But not the wings I dreamed of as a kid. These things were unnatural
mounds that both did and didn't make sense on a human boy. I could see
the trauma of them slicing through his flesh, monstrous, looming things
protruding from what was left of a human spine.
Human, and yet I couldn't call his beautifully grotesque face human.
Wren Oliver had grown up with me, now an adult.
Eighteen years old.
His clothes confused me, a single white shirt and shorts.
Wren’s feet were bare, battered and bruised, blood smearing my aunt's tiles.
Angel.
Death had turned his footsoldier, and my future killer, into an angel.
But there was nothing angelic about the dead boy, his body and mind sculpted and moulded into Death’s own.
The boy no longer resembled a human, feral eyes and a manic smile,
choking down pieces of cake. His face had been contorted into a monster,
gnashing teeth and sharp points in his ears, a sickly tinge to
malnourished skin.
And that's when it hit me, watching him stuff himself with food.
Something slimy inched its way up my throat.
The boy didn't move. I don't even think he'd noticed me, gorging himself on anything he could get his hands on.
Chicken, raw bacon, leftover salad.
When he moved onto cupcakes, licking frosting from his fingers, I
glimpsed markings on his arms, a language I didn't understand, carved
into him.
His wrists were shackled, bound, in entangled iron and vine, iron
that was ingrained into his skin, vines and flowers and ivy entangling
his bones, that were part of him, polluting his blood. Slowly, my eyes
found stab wounds splitting open his torso.
Raw flesh, where his skin had been torched, melting, and then
merging, ripped apart and put back together over and over again.
I found his heart, the gaping cavern in his chest where it should be.
And it was.
Marked, carved, and branded with a symbol resembling an X.
Wren Oliver was not dead.
But, just like me, he should have been.
I remember saying his name, my voice slurred slightly.
I didn't drink that much, but I could barely coerce words, my head spinning.
Wren’s neck snapped towards me, his eyes narrowing with resentment I
couldn't understand, hatred that seemed to puppeteer him. Slowly
tilting his head, the boy’s lips split into a grin, eyes filled,
polluted, with mania.
I could see where his lips had been stitched shut, and then ripped open.
“Hi.”
He held up his hand in an awkward wave.
When one of my friends stumbled into the kitchen, Wren reacted on impulse.
He picked up a knife from the counter, throwing it like a dart, straight through the guy’s throat.
Something shattered inside my mind.
Ignoring my friend bleeding out, Wren stumbled over himself,
abandoning his feast. He took a single step towards me, backing me
against the wall, coming so close, close enough for me to feel his very
real breath grazing my cheeks. Just like when he was a kid, he traced
the teeth of his blade down my throat. I wasn't expecting him to burst
out laughing, trembling with hysteria.
His eyes were wild, feral and wrong, almost euphoric.
With what all I could only recognise as relief.
BANG.
I was barely aware of the gunshot.
The bullet went straight through his head, the winged boy hitting the ground.
Dead.
I saw the blood stemming around him in a halo before the bleeding pool faltered, seeping back inside his head.
Like rewinding a VCR.
Wren was dead, and then he was alive.
Wren’s body contorted, his chest inflating.
His gasp for air was painful, strangled, eyes opening wide.
Terrified.
“You fucking idiot.”
Jude’s voice sent me twisting around.
My cousin stood in the exact same robes he wore as a child.
The world tipped off kilter, and I was on my knees, then my stomach.
I sunk to the floor, my thoughts swimming.
Jude’s murmur followed me, creeping into the dark.
“I told you not to come home.”
I can't remember how long I was unconscious for.
When I woke, I was dressed in an evening gown, a dress that used to be my mother’s.
My vision cleared, and I found myself sitting in an unfamiliar room resembling an abandoned swimming hall.
The pool itself was empty, the bottom stained revealing scarlet.
There were symbols carved into each tile.
Like a game.
“Sit up straight, Charlotte.”
I was sitting at a banquet.
Jude was in front of me, sipping on wine.
He caught my eye for half a second before averting his gaze.
At the far end of the table sat my aunt May.
Kissing the rim of her glass, her smile was twisted.
“I've been waiting so long to give you your birthday presents, Charlotte. Your memories should be returning soon.”
“Mom.” Jude muttered, hiding behind his glass. “Calm down. You're embarrassing yourself.”
Ignoring my cousin, May tapped her glass with a fork, and in walked my birthday presents.
No, dragged.
By their hair.
Wren Oliver, the dead boy, was in fact my aunt's prisoner.
Behind him, was the girl who looked so much like Lily.
I think that's why my aunt chose her.
Aunt May cleared her throat.
“For a long time, our family has lived among creatures who live in
the forest you played inside. In exchange for keeping this town safe,
they only ask for small favors. Wayward children who disappear into the
woods are good enough payment. Charlie, you and your siblings do not
share our inheritance. Your mother never wanted fae children. She wanted
you to be human.”
Aunt May’s smile faded.
“After losing my sister, and my niece and nephew, I made a deal to give my last surviving niece 100 years of life.”
Her words were white noise, my gaze glued to my birthday presents. I couldn't call them human anymore.
I couldn't call Wren human, when his face was so beautifully grotesque, painfully hypnotising.
The monstrous things sticking from twin slits in his back were
supposed to be wings, except they looked wrong, cruelly protruding from
his exposed spine. Under the influence of alcohol earlier, the girl made
me smile.
Her wings, to me, looked like one of a real fairy.
In reality, they were torn and shredded apart, bigger than the girl herself.
When she dropped onto her stomach, she was dragged back to her feet,
her knees buckling under the weight. Her tiara of flowers and bone
looked pretty to me when I saw her on the stairs.
Now, though, I could see the pearly white of a human child's skull
forced onto her head, dead flowers threaded through cavernous, gaping
eye sockets.
The two of them were violently shoved into the empty pool.
“Jude. Please demonstrate, sweetheart.”
Jude stood, pulling out a gun, and aiming it at the winged girl.
BANG.
The girl’s body hit the tiles, her blood seeping across stained white.
“Now, of course, our king did not give you life for free.” May continued.
“The King demanded a debt, as well as two heirs to join him in his court once your hundred years were complete.”
Her lips quirked into a smile.
“The king is smart. If a child cannot be stolen from the human
world, they can, however, be made, moulded and shaped from their human
forms, skinned of their humanity through their suffering, leaving a
hollowed out shell in the child's place.” She was speaking so casually,
ignoring Wren’s whimpers.
“The conversion takes a while. 100 years to birth a fully blooded
fae heir, who will lose their human memories, in preparation to join
their new family.”
Jude shot Wren in the chest, his eyes empty.
This time, he dropped his weapon, using finger-guns instead.
“Bang.” He deadpanned.
Then the neck.
I watched Wren come back to life, and then die.
Over and over again.
I think at one point, he screamed and cried.
But not now.
He was their puppet on display, dancing for their entertainment.
Half lidded eyes drowned in oblivion found mine, and I understood his hatred.
Before he was shot again.
Stabbed.
Branded and burned, and ripped apart.
At some point, I screamed at them to stop. I couldn't breathe, slamming my hands over my ears and begging them.
Aunt May didn't listen, ordering for my hands to be tied down.
“The King required two human sacrifices to suffer in your place.” She concluded. “For one hundred years.”
Aunt May’s smile was suddenly sad, and she lifted her glass in a toast.
I was watching their blood trickle down each tile in the pool, like
every death, every time they suffered, my body became progressively less
human.
I felt disgusting. I wasn't supposed to be alive. Every single year of my life, every breath I had taken, was stolen.
Aunt May nodded at me, her lips forming a proud smile. She stood up, and was handed a sacrificial knife.
Climbing into the swimming pool herself, she strode over to Wren.
The boy slumped to the floor, trembling, his knees against his chest.
Aunt May grabbed him by the hair, forcing his head up, and sliced the blade across his throat.
His eyes flicked to me, and I swore he smiled.
Spots of red dotted yellowing tiles, a river trickling under my aunt's heels.
“Happy 78th birthday, Charlotte.”
Last night ended with me being locked in my room.
It's been almost 15 hours, and the door is still locked. Please help me. I'm fucking terrified of what my aunt is planning.
I can't stop shgajing. FycjbfucibFUCK
If she is telling the truth, I shouldn't be here, right??
And I can't stop thinking.
Is Wren Oliver trying to kill me, or himself?
