Into The Woods He Sang

Chapter 8:Healing Lovers

The more I got to know her the more I could see why he thought we might mix well... But even then I could only see her as a friend... My heart just sways differently to another. I like Abigale now, don't get me wrong, she seems pretty nice when our circumstances aren't a romance crammed down our throats but I finally felt like I could breathe around her like I do with so few people here. The romance will never return... But we have a blossoming friendship and understanding at the least.
Felt nice to not rush something that was never there... Now if we had time to form some bond as he wished... Hell... He may have fooled me into doing such but no... This is a good friend and nothing more. We finished our quick breakfast and waved each other off as we headed to bed for the night. I felt a wave of relief over me as the issue was surprisingly swift to handle despite our uneasy start. I headed to my darkened room, a faint glow through the covered window as I lay into the bed and fall into blissfully content slumber.
The dream seemed as it had when the blood loss got to me... An odd... Familliarness... And there she was, gun wound like some badge of honor as I held the undeniable form of a whispy feminine figure. I woman I knew well and hurt to have lost... My mother... Ellen as my father called her... Oh, mother... How I hated the sight of this... This horrendous nightmare. I felt a sudden pain in my chest as she held my face, muttering the phrase that stuck to me as final words with pained agony, "Keep things... Kept well for me... You'll be a good man..."
Her death seemed to replay as the murky black dreamscape shredded into the woods. The sound of firearm and wails of fear and sadness of the hunt and loss of blood and family... Then there was my father, holding the man who shot her... And killing him with the same gun... He saw me with my mother... I remember it as the first... And last time... To ever see him fall to a knee with tears... dropping the bleeding corpse of a now gunshot man I felt to see as a murderer. Despite this... He held my mother and me... Blood drenched all of us as the wind seemed to pick up, blowing away the whole scenery into undying black and blue blurs, faint red scratches, scattered over the never-ending darkness.
I woke as my vision in the dream seemed to end with me falling, gasping, and clutching my chest in my panic. Just a dream. I attempt to gather myself, feeling tears still going down my cheeks and my heartbeat blasting in my ears. I felt drained despite there being a warm, yellow-tinted glow through the window covers... I felt that same pain... That same fear... That same memory that seemed to haunt as a reminder of dying orders... For her... To know everything was safe and kept from the same painful fate... She knew she was dying in seconds! She knew we couldn't save her! She knew it would be a painful experience for any who knew her kind soul...
I wiped my eye and try to steady my uneven breaths. This was ages ago... This is something I need to heal from... That I accept I couldn't have changed... No matter how badly I wished I could... Why does it seem the things that we all share... That we all are forced to endure and suffer from... Despite merely being a mental note of the agony and distress we once had... Why does it seem that sticks to us the longest?... Like a scar engraved deep into the subconsciousness of our mind... To ever grow and blossom in rose thorn vines...
I let out a shaky sigh, looking at the replaced mirror, half expecting it to be cracked again but nothing showed but my worn reflection, mimicking my miserable figure and room. I roll out of the covers that I seemed to have mostly kicked off during my slumber. I stripped off, getting clean close before heading through my normal routine... Get dressed, clean up, and head to check on the others...
It was about nine in the morning. Good timing I suppose... At least decent from sleeping since one in the morning before the moon even set. I go to the bathroom, handling brushing my hair and teeth, handling habits that I would have in rhythm by now. A never-ending cycle in that we always seemed to have nonstop slight changes but fluid in how most common habits repeat in exact order for the mental balance and hope of mental stability... I shook my head, seeming to get sucked into my thinking, already finished and as if mechanically, heading to the kitchen to eat. Fixing breakfast of eggs, toast, and fried ham.
I plated it and sighed, getting my food together and heading back to my room, I bumped into my father, giving a similar glare as last night as he scoffed, "Stop it with such nonsense. I'll get you and Abigale together again soon-"
I quickly cut him off with a snarling hiss, "No. You are a moron that assumes that your perspective is the only directive mattering through the torment of others! We do not love each other... So do me a favor and stop trying to map my future!"
He growled, attempting to shove me back into line, "You will listen Mason or so help me I'll-"
"You'll what!? Trap me here for all eternity? Make my life a living hell!? Or maybe you'll bring mom into this like last time!?"
He knew full and well I was sick of his rubbish. Sick of his foolishness. And exhausted from my mother and his wife being treated as a weapon despite being dead after suffering from a gun wound. He should have stopped from the beginning but seemed to always forget or think he had the right to such disrespect. He stared at me with blank eyes, showing absolutely nothing... Not rage... Not fear... Not joy... Not even sadness... As if any emotion he once had of the argument seemed too null into the pure nothingness of regret yet resentment.
Perhaps he did regret his choices... Or resented my words with unimaginable rage... I don't care. And huffed, turning to leave only to feel his arm grab my shoulder and turn me to face him again. I was confused and disgusted but he just stared at me with that unreadable gaze. That blank look that no emotion seemed to dare to show off. As if he wished to rip me a good one yet apologize in internal quarrel and rage. It seemed that look was to intimidate me to push for the solution his mind needed but I just rolled my eyes and smacked his hand away, "Don't you dare touch me like that. You are no blood to me but the DNA we are forced to share... Else you are some leach... Looking to suck up any benefits and health out of them till dry."
I went ahead and left, still feeling his gaze burrow through me in unknown emotion that felt unfamiliar and foreign. It still seemed to phantom its imprint after leaving the room, like an uneasy dread that you seemingly couldn't shake. I looked past it despite the feeling seeming to rake across my spine. I sighed and looked around unamusingly, spotting Amanda a little ways away seemingly talking to someone. She needs to be informed of my father's choices. It's urgent she knows of the hell he's done as I trust that she can be told despite our differences and recent issues...
I headed in her direction to see her... Speaking with Abigale? Now that seemed like an easily started fight but good timing for what will be told. I get over and just as I predicted... They had another argument that I'd luckily managed to interrupt with my presence. Amanda turned towards me in relief, "Ah Mason. Just in time. This nutjob said something about not wanting the engagement and you saying you would help her reputation with it! Jabbering of nonsense."
I held my hand up to silence her before she could start another word, "That is because I am."
Her eyes seemed to pop out in shock, "But you hate her!"
"Hated.", I correct, "But she is being used just as much as we were..."
She still looked puzzled as Abigale smiled softly, seeming for the first time to actually have true happiness. I sighed and went ahead and started explaining overhearing their argument of how she felt ignored and betrayed over some deal between her and my father, double-checking my understanding here or there with Abigale to receive quick comments and nods in response. After a long discussion and small counter-arguments between misunderstandings, I managed to get Abigale and Amanda at least on more neutral grounds with one another.
"So you're going to help her and us?", Amanda questioned.
I nod quickly and Abigale chimed in, much happier about these turning events, "And I will help any way I can with the issues involving Skoldolfr! He deserves the spite from karma after all this!"
I chuckled, "If we can get it through his thick skull..."
Amanda smiled softly at me, taking my hand, "Seems you helped another lost soul for more company, Mason..."
I had a faint blush across my cheeks as I gazed into those entrancing eyes, "So I have..."
She giggled softly, the two of us sharing a sweet moment of loving gaze only to be interrupted by a slight cough from Abigale, making us turn to her, having forgotten she was only a couple of feet away, "S-sorry for interrupting but weren't we discussing the plan?"
I let go of Amanda, getting flustered at knowing a false move and we have more issues to face with my kindhearted and angelic friend... I sighed, not noticing her seemingly disappointed gaze that quickly hid quicker than it had appeared, "Yes yes. We need to devise a plan to tear through his webbing. He clearly refuses to admit to being wrong and hurting people. And if this doesn't end now we will only have things worsen. He has for too long left us to our own traps! Abigale. Have you found any possibility of our freedom?"
She smiled that determined and grateful smile, "I have found some cure to make it reasonably easier to control their forms. But a full cure is unfound unless for those inflicted through bite... They would need to be brought to reality with an amulet of forms but otherwise, it seems incurable other than death. They can at least be shifted to control when it happens though... Using an herbal remedy like a special tea."
"Shit...", I looked down trying to think of alternate solutions, "We may have to use that tea idea until we can find a more permanent cure."
There as we discussed, Abigale chimed in, "A cure to being a werewolf? But why would you all want that?"
"It is the only way Skoldolfr would let them leave to live their lives... He refuses to let anyone leave for their own hopes... Our dreams... Our love...", Amanda seemed to speak what felt like poetry to me, turning to me as she said "love".
My cheeks tinted and heated up as she went on, turning back to Abigale, "It will also allow new opportunities and the possibility of making the idea of being a werewolf more voluntary rather than hereditary... We have been looking for cures that will also help prevent the spread of it..."
Abigale looked to the ground and thought for a moment, "... That... That sounds like a reasonable idea... Most wouldn't want to have their children shunned over what they were... Perhaps it could also bring our species closer to mankind as well?"
"That is actually the hope of our plan... We want to prove there shouldn't be fear of hunters or werewolves... There should be a genuine acceptance of them...", Amanda said eagerly, "We're going to end the fears by proving that there is always time for change and hope! That we can grow in unity with alliance and unity!"
I smiled sweetly at her cute reactions... She's so sweet... So innocent... So... Oh... Off I go again daydreaming... She was just so much help through everything... How can I help it?... She and Abigale continued to state the plan and seemed to chat as if they had been friends for a while... Almost hard to believe only hours ago they were fighting like animals...