The Promised

Four

Max cries. His chubby cheeks streak with tears as he clings to my small hand, terrified. His fear only intensifies my own as we're ushered into a dark room lit only by candles. Before us, sits a giant altar with red and black candles adorning each end. On the wall behind the altar, is a large pentagram.

I gaze down at Max; he appears to only be three years old, that would make me around five. We're pushed along by people in masks and black robes.

"No!" I yell as we're forced to kneel before the altar.

We're stripped naked. Max and I cling to one another for dear life. Suddenly, we hear the bleating of a goat being dragged towards us. Two masked men load it up on the altar and hold it down. Another man comes towards it and pulls out an ornate knife. With one clean swipe, he slices the knife across the goat's throat and the blood gushes forth.

"Mommy!" I scream.

"Shut up!" I hear my mother's sharp voice reply from behind a mask.

One man comes forth with a silver chalice and collects some of the goat's blood. They grab me and Max and force the warm blood down our throats as we sputter and spit. The metallic tasting liquid chokes us and forces us to swallow.

Max and I wail as they lift the goat above us, and we're bathed in its blood. A voice I can't recognize chants words in Latin we do not understand, "Nunc tamen interea haec Satanas vasa pretiosa. Uti ad eos propter divinam."

The room chants in unison. Over and over, the same words, as Max and I continue to cry in each other's arms.

I wake up in a cold sweat, panting for air. At first, I'm not sure where I am. Then my vision clears, and I'm surrounded by the familiarity of my bedroom.

What the fuck was that? It was so real and in so many ways, so familiar. More like a memory than a dream. In this dream, Max and I were little. I have no memories from when I was that little.

I don't remember too much from before the age of seven. Our mother and father tortured and abused us as kids. We were beaten, starved, and god knows what else. At the age of eight, I escaped the house and ran to a neighbor. The neighbors took one glimpse at me and immediately called the police.

They arrested our parents, charged, and eventually convicted them. Sentenced to serve two consecutive thirty-year sentences in prison. Till this day, they sit in jail, doing their time for what they did to us. They sent us to live with our maternal grandparents, who raised Max and me into adulthood.

We were in therapy until I was sixteen and Max was fourteen. Neither of us remembers much of what happened to us while we were with our parents. The therapists all said we had both repressed the memories to cope. I don't even really remember what my parents look like.

Our grandparents burned every photograph of them and refused to even acknowledge that they were still alive. Our grandad died when I was twenty and my grandmother died just last year, two weeks before my twenty-fourth birthday.

I peek at the time on my phone. 11 AM! The heavy shades on my bedroom windows do not show the time of day. I text Leo. "Hey, where are you?"

A moment later, I get a response, "I came into the shop to do more research today."

"Okay. I'll meet you there." I text back.

"You're leaving your bat cave? Is everything okay?" he replies.

"Tell you when I get there." Send.

He doesn't text back after that. I shower, throw on some skinny jeans, a slouchy sweater, and some boots. After drying my hair, I grab a light coat and my purse. I glance in the mirror before heading out the door. As I run my fingers through my dark waves, I put up mental walls, or at least try to.