"See no evil. Speak no evil. Listen carefully."
A family akin to a modern Adams' Family moves into the derelict house across the street from Kota. Intrigued by the beautiful doll-like daughter, he and Nathan attempt to befriend her while trying to u...
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I'm frozen in Luke's arms, breath stolen from my lungs. One of father's "dolls" stares back at me from over his shoulder. Once two people - a seven-year-old girl and a rugged bagpiper - they are now a monstrosity from the most horrific nightmares of my past.
I can still see the little girl in the dungeon below - watery grey eyes looking at me through the bars, not sure if I was friend or foe. On the other end of the chamber, in another cell, sat a dejected man with a long ragged beard. He'd stared at me with loathing acceptance, having obviously been there long enough to understand the workings of this hellscape.
A woman screams for mercy, her beautiful voice torn from the inside out. She screamed and screamed until she sounded heinous and chilling to the ear. The bagpiper doesn't react to her screams despite them making the little girl cover her ears and sob.
I want to help him. I want to help both of them, but I can't. Father always seems to be watching even when I think he's not. Each time I've tried to help the ones down here, I'm forced to watch their torment, oftentimes for days. I know this makes me selfish. They must live through it and I'm too coward to suffer alongside them.
But after so long, seeing them that way has begun to chisel at my sanity. I'm not sure how many more I can bear watching in that way before I'm just as broken as mother and Draven. Who will be able to help if the time ever comes where no one inside this nightmare can tell its tragic story?
On this night though, as I stared at the bagpiper, I gave into my weakness and tried to set them free. The key was always right there in reach - taunting me with how easy it'd be. That's part of his game. I've learned over the years, even if you are unaware of it - you're always on the board playing a game.
We didn't even make it to the hedges. Father had been waiting for us as if expecting no less from me. He'd been so terribly disappointed in my failure. For it'd been a test, you see. Those tests are always hiding in plain sight, tempting us when we're most unaware.
Father must've been more enraged then he appeared because for five days while I'd been hanging by the neck from the rafters - just barely able to touch my toes to the ground - he'd mutilated their memory and turned them into a single monster.
The man's body became the main mass, but it was the little girl who suffered the most. My mind couldn't understand what it'd been seeing and frankly, it still can't make heads or tails of how he managed something so vile. Somehow, in the blank parts of my memory, he'd melded her into his chest cavity. Her head set just beside his right collarbone and half her face became part of the bagpiper's chest. Her irises vanished, covered by a thin membrane of skin, and she'd been left a moaning, wailing creature who didn't understand her reality anymore.
