7 First Flesh Of The Two

"Give to those who have nothing to give to you."

- Rupi Kaur

Pain?

There are many ways to define it. Each person bears a different definition. So many opinions, so many notions. But at the end of the day, we come to the same conclusion. Pain, changes everyone who's had a taste of it for better or worse. No doubt about it. To grow in conscience, you need to hurt. And to hurt, you need to explore yourself by exploring the world. That is the requisite for knowing more of oneself.

Even so, what if one day pain comes knocking at your door in all shapes and sizes of your fears you never could fathom you had? In a way, that is exactly what happened to me. But there was this kind of pain along with them, that kind of pain which made your heart ache for one person, you know unimaginable forms of chaos would take no time in seeping in your life as you keep giving that soul more and more of yours. Everything becomes nugatory. Like a foolish moth drawn to flame as if it's the most beautiful thing in the world, only to burn till ashes remain. Well, let's just say I was that unfortunate moth.

Now considering the current situation I was in, I was in no mood to play Mr. Good Guy. Either Delran may have meant that Loralie is still alive and not decaying in her mahogany coffin or I'm sending him back to where he originally belonged once...which is not a very nice place. The cosmos may try its best to hold me back from knowing the unknown but this time, my will to discover is larger than its forces and I'm willing to bear any expense for it...even sell my soul to the devil if I have to.

"Look around you, Delran. There is nothing but snow. Even if I spill your blood all over the place, nature will cover it up pretty soon as if nothing ever happened and your body will be stuck in the ground forever. So I am being very polite and tolerant with you. Answer me this. Is Loralie dead or alive?"

His mouth parted as I strangled him by his neck, desperate for oxygen. If I kept this going for three more minutes, he would die for sure but not before he discloses something. That look of astonishment never left his eyes which amused me a lot.

"What's with that look, Delran? You seem really terrified of me right now. Did you actually think I would stay the same feeble boy I once was? It was the likes of you that tainted me to become someone like this. I had to leave everything I ever had for this power. Surely now, a little barbarity does my eyes no harm. So tell me before I return the same uppercut you gave me a moment ago. But you see unlike yours, my hits can be fatal enough to shatter your vertebrae. I've been working out a little for a while. Anyway, I'm going to let you go now, so you better choose your next words carefully."

I slowly loosened my grip on his neck and struck him on the nose. That would hurt him and give him less time to recover from the strangling.

"Aargh! You said you'd let me go!"

"I never said I wouldn't punch you. Time is ticking. Elwyn, hold him straight for me. Use all the strength you have to keep him in your hold."

With all his might, he ran to him and held him with his hands behind his back.

"Blaine, he's bleeding. Do something!"

"Let him bleed. I won't hesitate to kill him if he won't tell me. You've made me spend too much of my energy on you, Delran."

Elwyn looked no less that stupefied.

"You wouldn't actually kill him, would you Blaine?"

"I'll go to any length to get what I want."

With glowering eyes as blue as the oceans, he glared at me before answering, "She died. She's dead. And even if she were alive, what would you do? Go and beg her for forgiveness because you abandoned her when she needed your trust the most? Confess your undying love which you never had the guts to? What could you possibly do? Fine, go ahead and kill me. Maybe then you'll know you will get nothing out of this."

"Wait a minute."

Elwyn pushed his palm in Delran's trouser pocket and pulled out the shiny metallic device, now vibrating.

"Who else have you brought here with you?" I asked.

"Blaine it's the third Aita, Montel!" Elwyn uttered showing me the screen of Delran's phone which displayed the name Montel Aita. He then slid his finger over the screen, and put the phone on loud speaker mode.

"Delran, what gives? Why is it taking you so long? You know we can't be seen by any of the townsfolk and yet you don't bother! We need to get back home as soon as possible. We must hasten to prepare for her arrival, brother. You know she hates it when someone's late. Hello? Hello? What is-"

The call got disconnected due to poor signal and my anger only spiked.

"Who was he talking about?"

"Mother."

"Whose mother?"

"Mine."

"I know about your parents. You never had a family." I said loudly.

"How did you know about that?!" He raged.

"I have my ways. You just lied to me. Brace yourself." I announced, and landed a punch in his stomach which made him groan in pain.

"Don't you dare lie to me. Tell me who it was and I might let you walk out of here alive," I warned.

He seemed hesitant for a few seconds but rather gave a very strange answer.

"It was Montel's mother. She took me in after I graduated high school. The Aita brothers and I live in the same place. I was planning to pay my respects here and board a flight to London as I was told that she would be visiting us."

Why this sick, twisted brat. Entertained by his loyalty for falsehood, what started as a small chuckle from my mouth ended with a deep laugh.

"What's wrong with you? Man, you're scaring me!" Elwyn yelled.

Everything went wrong with me a long time ago. Call me mad if you will, but innocence, sanity and purity are not a part of me anymore.

"Sorry. It was bad timing, I agree. What did you say, Delran? The Aita brothers' mother took you in? You don't say? Then I bet she also told you how she died giving birth to Montel."

Like a maze, life had only been adding unsolved riddles and unquenched desires contouring connexions of my existence. Everything started with her, and I felt everything would end with her too. But this guy comes here and deviates from letting us in on the truth with his ludicrous falsity. Maybe Delran was a jester in some king's court in his past life, judging by his humorist ways which he thinks, are making him look smart.

"How charming. No, you tried your best, I'll give you a five on five for effortless acting and spontaneous lies. But playtime's over now. I was thinking of letting you off if you gave away the truth; but seems like you want things the hard way. So be it then. You are going to tell me why exactly you came here and who's buried under that marble gravestone you were cleaning earlier. I'm not going to be as forgiving and patient this time."

I ripped off the coat and shirt he was wearing and pinned him to the ground, letting all the cold of the ice sting his body as he kept gasping and bellowing from the impact. I took out the fixed blade pocket knife from my pocket which I always kept hidden away with me and slashed his back, but not hard enough to cause too much bleeding.

"You rotten son of a -"

He couldn't finish that sentence as I made another gash on his back, tracing the blade along the same line where I made the first cut, earning a loud scream from him.

"You only need to tell me what I want to know. Say something other than that and I'm going for your throat next." I warned him and placed the knife before his throat.

"Okay, okay! I'll tell you. The body beneath that gravestone belongs to Analia Hansel. It was her last wish to be buried in the same place she was....ruined. They said her last words were that she would want to return to the same land that soiled her so she could remain as the stigma of this earth, a sort of remembrance for the horror which took place here. Nobody ever told me what happened to her. The Aita brothers said it was unspeakable, and that they would tell me when the right moment came. That's why I came all the way here to pay my respects for her. But Montel told me something else....he said you could've prevented Analia's death. He said she believed so, but she forgave you as an act of kindness. You always run away when someone needs your help. With Analia first, then Loralie...how many more deaths will you cause till you understand the desperation of a life in need for help? You're really pathetic, just like how Loralie used to describe you once. A weakling. We're both void of sanity here, but the only difference between you and me is that I have the courage to admit my mistakes. Do you, Blaine Bennnett?"

Fury began to consume me with this boy's baseless conclusion. Heck, he didn't even know her!

"Analia would never blame me for her death! You have some nerve raising such a sensitive topic."

He chortled and coughed, clearly exhausted and shivering.

"I'm only telling you what I heard and I wasn't surprised with that. You already did that with Loralie, how could I not believe you displayed such behavior with Analia?"

Then this thought hit me.

"That time there was nobody else here, except for me and her. How did Montel come to know of this? Nobody knew that I was there that time before those people came and....anyway, I left this lake promising myself to never return, after a small argument with her and that incident took place later, when I was gone. I got to know about it years later. What else did Montel tell you?"

He shook his head.

"I've already told you more than enough. I am loyal to them. They gave me a family when nobody wanted me. I can't bite the hand that fed me. I can't say more than I have. But this I will never deny that one way or another, you are solely responsible for the Hansel twins' death. I hope you carry this guilt to your grave and afterlife."

I looked at Elwyn, who was staring at the scene before him.

"You knew Analia? Why didn't you ever tell me?" He asked.

I sighed in defeat.

"It was our secret, the fact that we were friends. She asked me to keep it under wraps. She was my first friend, so I could do nothing but oblige."

Analia Hansel. As real as any other girl, as untouchable as an angel. Ethereally beautiful inside and out, as if the Gods took aeons to pour out each, a part of themselves into her. A polar opposite of her younger twin, Loralie Hansel. In a world full of unknown dangers in the darkness, she was the first one to reach out to me, other than mom. The aura she bore made you fill with glee in just her presence. She was mercilessly killed in this very place, near this lake. But that's a story for another day.

"You are a waste of space, you know that? If it had not been for you, both of them would have been alive today." I heard Delran's comment.

"I know that. But Analia would have been happy, if only she could see me now..."

Delran scoffed. "But she won't. Thanks to you, she's down there. There," He pointed to the gravestone.

Not a single day has ever passed when I didn't wish that it should have been me who died....not them. Insecure and scared by my own foolishness and greed when I was eight and eighteen years old, two lives were lost to the drapes of midnight. And the one who could've stopped it all lives a free man today, but with the demons of guilt and burden clawing their ways into his heart, squeezing and piercing. The provision of the universe shows no clemency to low lives like me.

After all, of what use are riches when you fail to protect and cherish someone you deeply love?