Bereft: Foretold

5 | A Known Evil

The rain didn't yield through the entirety of the following day and continued into the next. It bothered me little, as I was not inclined to go outdoors. I spent much of my time sitting alone in the bedroom that had once belonged to Sara, lost to my muddled thoughts. 

My seclusion had nothing to do with my recent maudlin mood and everything to do with me being a man of introspection and reserve. Being immortal for so long meant learning to sink oneself into quiet contemplation, learning to wait even if one didn't know what to wait for—and I surely didn't know what I was waiting for, only that I was waiting. Waiting for something that wouldn't come.

I sat upon the floor with my head propped on the mattress's edge and my unfocused gaze drifting over the ceiling. The rain was a constant white noise filling the drudgery of my day and night while sounds of bubbling and grinding metal emanated from the living room. Much to my consternation, the black mage was still here, and I had yet to discover just what he was really after. 

"Crafty bastard," I murmured as my eyes dropped to the door and the thin bar of light seeping in over the threshold. I wished he would leave, but—being unable to expel the curiously strong man by force—I had no other option but to wait for him to leave by choice. I knew I'd awaken one morning and find the house vacant once more, the black mage and his dubious experiments gone, Cage having fled the city before his jailers could catch up. 

I could only wait for that day to come. 

Turning my mind from the living room, I instead considered the flat, empty cardboard box, the duffle bag, and the task I'd assigned myself. As the new permanent resident of this house, it was foolish for me to keep what meager belongings I had inside a bag and to live out of it like a vagabond. I'd lived that way for all of my life—drifting from place to place, never settling for long for fear of what may come haunting my doorstep—and it was idiotic for me to continue in the same manner. 

I needed to unpack that bag, and to do so I needed to store part of Sara's things.

Exhaling, I stretched muscles rendered tense by my languor and rose, opening the closet by hooking my fingers between the sliding door and the wall. Sara's clothes were hung on hangers inside, each piece less tidy than the previous, as if Sara had stowed them away without thought or care.

I set up the box and then began to pull one shirt off its hanger at a time and toss it into the box. None of the items held any sentimental value to me, though I wasn't sure if it was possible for me to form such an attachment—until my hand landed on a sweater near the back. A thin spark of recognition lit through my fingertips as they slid over the worn threads of a gray, ribbed sweater.

"You're the same as all the sniveling humans who came before you," my own voice snarled in my memory. "They all looked at me like that, with disappointment, and they tried to kill me—!"

We'd stood in a courtyard before a church as the choir inside had sung praise and worship in the name of their god, their voices intertwined in the melody of a late fall rain shower. I remembered this sweater on its owner, streaked by the water with its sleeves encircling her thin, narrow hands.

Her fingers had worked at the loose threads as she'd lifted her head, black hair plastered to her pale skin, and said, "I don't want to kill you....I would rather have you as my Sin than Amoroth, Darius."

I'd stared at her. I'd thought to tell the girl then about those who had come before her, about the men and women—the humans—who'd used me as a shield, had sought to lure me into the confidence only to betray my trust and abuse my power. There'd been many in my life, many I'd killed without remorse because they were filth who desired naught but my utter devotion in all things.