a guilty mind needs to confess

Gabriel de le Poer · 01-11-2010, 02:22 AM

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Word Count: 525

In Character

There had never been the question of breaking—Gabriel had been shattered to pieces repeatedly in his life. The greatest and perhaps most terrible of all these times had come with the death of Baneesh. Ripped apart by a stranger whose face would now and forever more be burned into his memory, where all the terrible demons of his past lived and breathed and did such wickedness as to make the world tremble. The dark man with the crooked, yellowing teeth had made himself known, taking his brother by the neck and hoisting him into the air, ripping his limbs off while he was alive, making him scream in such a way that it had never completely faded from memory. Gabriel hated that sound, and he hated other sounds like it. He rarely hunted rabbits for this reason, finding their screams all too familiar. The second death, of the woman who had raised him, was a silent one. He did not remember killing the scrawny wolf he had found at her carcass, just as he did not remember the fact that it had been cannibalized. The drought had driven people to the brink of madness, and some even beyond this.

He could not recall much of the second murder, only the red haze that had come with it. Faolin’s screaming voice, Iskata’s terrible curses, and then that sick and devastating pain that had ripped him apart from the inside out. The scar on his palm was testament to that, and he never let himself forget why it was there. Since then, things had been easier. Time had done its part to build up walls and made him rough, but until the past summer he had been able to care for others without doubt. Now, all of those whom were dear to him were fading memories, carried only in this aging sketchbook and the waning hope that they would ever return. They were Lykoi’s after all—it was only in their blood.

“Do you remember Faolin?” He asked, finding her name carrying a terribly bitter taste on his tongue. “She was Hybrid’s sister. She and I were mated for a while…we had two kids. Ezekiel,” he pointed from the paler of the two figures to the darker. “And Talitha. They’re both grown now, likely off exploring the world. They didn’t stick around long here, but I think it’s not unexpected given their heritage.” A shrug, a faint smile. He had worried himself sick over the two children, but their fates were no longer in his hands and instead in the Will and Wisdom of God. Unless it was their time, they would not befall death. Hard was a natural part of life, something that had come to them all, and it was the only thing that made them grow, made them whole, and made them strong. “You didn’t happen to have any kids while you were out wherever you were, did you?” He asked, looking up at her from under his darkening hair. As he had gotten older, the golden-red had begun to turn dark brown, though the tinges of the other colors remained prevalent throughout.

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