Ander - Part 2: Subchapter 13
13
Ander didn't mind the blackness itself. It was like a shroud, not against the light, but against everything he could feel inside. If it would just stay like this, he could live here forever, a place where he wouldn't need to feel guilt, or sorrow, or longing, or anything else ever again. If it would only stay black...
But he knew it wouldn't.
"You're no brother of mine."
Even though he already knew what was about to happen, he couldn't shake off the fear he felt crawling around in the pit of his stomach. Perhaps it was the knowing that made it even worse.
"You never were."
Ander slowly turned around, but there was nothing but the black, just as he knew it would be. It was as if the darkness itself was speaking to him.
Perhaps that wasn't so far from the truth.
"Your whole life is a lie."
Ander turned around again, and there he was, materializing out of the shadows like a black ghost.
Banno; with an arrow sticking out of his eye, with blood gushing down the side of his face, a living embodiment of everything bad that has ever happened to him, coming closer and closer.
Ander tried to back away, but the cruelty of his dream would not allow it. He could only stand there, frozen, watching as his dead brother came for him. The blood that dripped from his face fell forever through the abyss beneath their feet, perfectly round orbs of crimson that would never break upon any surface, because in this world, there were none. The only things that existed here were Ander, Banno, and the arrow.
And the hollow darkness.
"Your blood is a lie..."
Ander shook his head, his heart pounding in his chest. He didn't want to go through this again! Not again!
"Your blood is a lie..."
"No!"
"Your blood is a lie!"
"I don't understand!"
The blood came pouring out of the hole in Banno's face, shooting straight up like a fountain so high it even covered the fletching of the arrow in a slick, red layer. It seeped into Banno's fur, sticking it together in tacky clumps. "Your blood is a lie!"
"No! Stay away from me!"
The blood now covered Banno's entire body, bubbling and seething, turning this apparition into a full-blown monster. There was so much blood Ander couldn't even discern his brother's shape anymore. It was just a heaving mass of crimson hatred, surging and undulating.
Ander watched this horror, rooted to the spot. He could see his own face reflected in the bloody bubbles as they swelled and burst, a mask of pure terror.
What's going on? Why wasn't he waking up? This hellish dream has never lasted this long before!
"What do you want from me!?" Ander screamed at the thing that used to be his brother. "What do you want from me!?"
"Shhh..."
Ander took a frightened step back, his paralysis somehow broken. That voice just now... That didn't belong to Banno!
The blood started to recede, to flow down towards the centre of its own red mass, and a figure began to emerge. First the ears, poking through the ebbing currents, much lower than his brother's, then the forehead. The blood slipped between each hair without leaving even the faintest trace, as if it was never there to begin with. It was like watching the whole gruesome process reverse itself.
Ander wanted to call out to this stranger, but he was too afraid, and he didn't understand why. The only certainty was the way he felt, and what he felt in this moment was that this creature would be far more terrifying than a thousand mangled nightmares of his dead brother could ever be.
But why? Why did he feel this way? What was he afraid of? Why didn't he want to believe...?
Believe? Believe what?
Ander clutched his head, the pain building there like a swarm of angry bees. Why was he having these thoughts? They didn't make sense! Why was he seeing this!?
Now the blood flowed up from the bottom as well, the thick layer surrounding this latest apparition coalescing into a throbbing ball, growing bigger and bigger until it contained every last drop. All masks were gone. Whatever this thing was, there was nothing between them now.
"What... Who are you?" Ander's voice echoed throughout the empty expanse of his dreamscape, but she did not answer.
Yes, she. It was a vixen standing before him. Ander couldn't see her face because she was looking down at the blood she held cradled in her arms... his brother's blood...
No, not blood. That was gone now. This was an egg, an egg much too big to be a chicken's, with a bloody handprint across its shell...
She cradled it in her arms as if it were a baby, gently rocking it back and forth...
"Shhh..."
Ander approached her, feeling like he was walking towards his own doom. He tried to stop himself, but it was useless. His dream wouldn't allow it. It pushed him forward until he was standing right in front of her, looking down at that grotesque egg just like she was.
That's when he realized something. This egg... this handprint... Ander looked at the strange vixen with new eyes, and he knew he was right. The clothes, the pattern of her fur, there was no mistaking it. This was Mateo's mother. This was Sarah.
The only reason it took Ander so long to realize this was because she looked so much younger here. Barely older than Kiana. But what was she doing here? And why -
She suddenly raised her head, as if she had been waiting for him to make that very realization.
She was crying blood.
No... no! That wasn't blood. It couldn't be. It was just normal tears staining her fur a darker colour. That's all it was.
Ander tried to believe this. He tried so hard, but he knew the truth.
She was crying blood. "I'm sorry, Ander. I'm so, so sorry..."
"Sorry for what? What are you talking about!?"
"K... ay..." she whispered, just like she did back on that hill, letting her son know she was okay. But Ander knew that wasn't right. That's not what she was saying at all. He simply refused to believe it, is still refusing to believe it, because believing would mean -
"Ka... ay..." she said, looking at him with her blood-streaked eyes, begging him to understand.
"No!" Ander screamed, watching the blood run down her face and drip onto the egg in her arms.
"Ka... ai..."
Her words were becoming clearer. Ander tried to cover his ears, but his arms wouldn't move. They just hung at his sides, useless. "Please, don't say it." Ander begged. "I didn't hear what I thought I heard back on that hill. I couldn't have. It's impossible! Please don't say it! Please!"
She looked at him with her red eyes, so sad, almost apologetic, and said the one word that would shatter everything Ander has believed to be true his entire life.
"Kadai..."
*
Kiana wasn't having a peaceful night's sleep either. In fact, she wasn't sleeping at all. When she was stuck in that cage, waiting for death, she wished for the rain to last forever. Now, lying in her soft warm bed, she made a similar wish; for the night to last forever. Because, if the morning ever came, she would have to say goodbye.
She watched the moon drift by her window, its ghostly light falling upon the floor in an angled square, shifting from one end of her room to the other. It seemed so slow on the night she ran away from home, but now? Now it seemed to race by, as if eager for her misery to begin.
Why did it have to be this way? Why did Ander have to suffer for doing what he believed was right?
Why did he have to suffer for her...?
Kiana could feel the tears threaten to spill over again. Her vision became blurry, breaking up the moonlight into shards of silver. Her pillow was already soggy and cold from her previous bout, but she couldn't help it. They silently flowed from her eyes and seeped into the fabric to join those that came before.
If only there was something she could do for him, something to make him know how much the time they've spent together has meant to her. If it wasn't for him, she'd be dead. Worse than dead. Sacrificed to that heathen monster with the red eyes. If only she could let him know that she... that she cared... that she really...
That she loved him...
Admitting that to herself only made the pain worse. What's the point in feeling that way now, the night before the one you love has to leave you forever? What is the goddamned point!?
Kiana buried her face in her pillow, trying to smother her thoughts, her feelings, everything.
But something came through. She could hear it, very soft but there. Moaning, coming from downstairs.
From Ander's room.
Kiana raised her head and listened. It sounded like poor Ander was having another of his nightmares. He's had them almost every night since he came here, always the same. She's asked about them, but he would never give her a straight answer. On more than one occasion she has heard his voice drift up to her room, just like it was doing now, filled with pain and remorse. For him, that night by the river would never end. It would last forever.
His moans were getting louder. She couldn't stand it! When he was in pain, _she_was in pain. He may have shouldered his feelings silently for years, but she would be damned if he did that tonight! Not as long as she was there to share them!
She tossed back her blankets and got out of bed, not even bothering with her crutch. If this was to be Ander's last night, he wouldn't spend it alone and afraid, and neither would she.
They would spend it together.
And somehow, they would make this the night that lasts forever.
*
"How do you know my father's name!?" Ander screamed. He grabbed the vixen by the shoulders and shook her until her hair was in disarray, but she just kept repeating the impossible word over...
"Kadai..."
... and over...
"Kadai..."
... and over...
"Kadai..."
... blood dripping from her eyes...
"Kadai..."
"How do you know my father's name!!?"
"Kadai..." She looked so sad.
"Answer me!"
"Kadai..." So helpless.
"Answer me!!!"
"Your blood is a lie."
Ander froze. That voice didn't come from Mateo's mother. It came from somewhere else. Slowly, dreading what he would see, Ander looked down...
There was a crack in the egg, running right through the middle of the bloody handprint.
And there was something moving inside.
Ander watched in horror as slivers of eggshell broke free and the crack grew wider, revealing a glimpse of the slithering red abomination inside, squirming in anticipation of its unholy birth.
"Your blood is a lie..."
That voice... Ander could feel his sanity cracking apart just like the monstrous egg in Sarah's hands. She held it out to him, as if in offering, with blood pouring out of the cracks and flowing down into the darkness in a solid stream.
"Your blood is a lie..." Whatever was inside, it was fighting to get out! It was breaking the shell apart and it was coming out!
Ander backed away from this horrific sight, away from the vixen and her bloody egg. That thing should never have been allowed to exist! It should have been crushed when it first came to be! Smeared underfoot along with whatever demon was inside!
Horror upon horrors, a tiny hand emerged from the broken shell, drenched in blood, its fingers opening and closing over empty air. "Your blood is a lie..."
"No!" Ander screamed. He didn't want to witness this creature's birth! He didn't want to see it!
Large chunks of eggshell were breaking away now, and with every bloody triangle that fell, more and more of this monster was exposed; this freak of nature. An arm, an ear, the tip of a tail, all moving in the random, jerky movements of the newly born.
Unable to turn his head away, unable to shut his eyes, Ander was forced to watch the egg split apart with a sickening crack, revealing...
"What... what does this mean?" Ander whispered. He didn't understand what he was seeing. This thing she held in her arms... this bloody creature...
This was no monster.
It was a baby Wolf. It was...
"Me?"
In the way of dreams, Ander once again found himself standing before her, looking down at the pup she held in her arms, still covered with blood, its eyes closed. The colour and pattern of its fur, the shape of its ears and muzzle... There was no mistaking it. He was looking down at himself.
The pup opened its eyes, and they were the same shade of brown as Ander's own.
"Your blood is a lie..." it said, not in the voice of an infant, but the voice Ander hears every time he speaks himself. "Your blood is a lie..."
"No! Stop saying that!" Will this nightmare never end? Will he be forced to listen to these words forever?
Now Sarah joined in, her voice fusing together with the words that came from the mouth of that thing in her arms. "Your blood is a lie..."
"Shut up!" Ander screamed. He tore at his face with his nails until he could feel the warm blood run down his own cheeks. If only he could feel real pain, maybe he could wake up, but all he did was turn himself into a mirror image if what he was trying so desperately to escape from. "Shut up! Just shut up!"
"Your blood is a lie..." Over and over, their words perfectly synchronized into something that didn't even resemble real voices anymore, but rather the Truth given form in his own mind.
"Shut up!"
"Your blood is a lie..."
"No! My name is Ander! I am a Wolf! Do you understand!? My name is Ander and I am a Wolf!"
Their expressions never changed. It was like screaming into the faces of the dead. "Your blood is a lie..."
"No! You're wrong! I am a Wolf! I am a real Wolf!"
Somehow, by some insane mental effort, Ander was able to break free of the invisible shackles his dream had placed on him. He turned to run, but slammed right into the solid wall that was his dead brother, there all along, watching and waiting.
Ander fell, but his back never hit the floor because there was none. No ground, no surfaces at all. Just the deep, dark blackness.
And his brother.
They were one and the same.
As Ander fell through nothingness and the cold wind rushed past his body, Banno looked down at him and said...
"You never were."
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