The Cursed Kingdom

NINETEEN

~ FUR-DEEP ~

If there was one thing Tylem and Taylium humored themselves with when they weren't too busy getting themselves into trouble, it was telling highly disturbing and descriptive tales, some they heard from travelers and others they fabricated out of their own unnerving thoughts.

The reason they did this was not because they enjoyed being creative or scaring people, although they enjoyed doing both greatly, because the only time they shared these stories was if I was there to hear them. Not Oriana or their sisters—me—because the sole purpose of making their tales so grotesque was to see my facial reaction.

According to Oriana's explanation, the combination of my nose scrunching up, my eyebrows furrowing until they were almost touching, and lips gaping only enough to see my top row of teeth was so entertaining that they made sure to reserve their stories for my presence only.

Out of the hundreds they must've told over the years, there was one story that always stuck with me. While usually their plots were centered around bloodthirsty monsters that lurked in the dark, the one they told on a dreary summer day was about a serial killer who was too human for comfort. They'd explained his background in great lengths, how he'd been raised a normal kid on a farm and eventually descended into madness the older he got.

"He wore his victims' skin. Even his own parents'," Taylium had said, his eyes widening in that excited and almost crazed ten-year-old-way. He'd lost his front teeth not long before that, leaving a large, empty square in the middle of his smile.

"And their hair!" Tylem, who'd been quietly encouraging his brother to continue from his spot in the corner, spoke up.

The image that entered my brain of a grown man wearing a human skin suit paired with a wig designed out of human scalp and hair made my skin crawl. It caused the famous look of disgust to appear on my face and their grins noticeably widened.

"That's stupid," Oriana retorted smartly, sounding almost disappointed by the topic of their story, as if she'd expected something different or better.

"Nuh-uh!" Taylium cried defensively, leaning more forward in his seat. Lightning flashed outside, followed by its angry roar. "Dad told us so—Didn't he, Ty?" Tylem nodded so quickly that I couldn't tell if his response was actually genuine. But I hadn't cared enough at the time to question it. "He even told us how he'd kill them: a stab through the stomach and then he'd—" He speared the air with an invisible dagger and followed it with a twisting motion with his fist, almost as if he was turning a doorknob. With his mouth, he tried to imitate a ripping sound.

"That's not true! He said it was the heart!" Tylem argued.

Now shouting back and forth across the room, the boys were too busy arguing over the murder's killing method to notice I'd given the look again.

Oriana had enough and covered her ears, her eyes screwed shut as she shouted the words, "Stop! Stop!" until the twins finally went silent and still. The rain, however, kept pounding and pounding against the window like an oblivious, unwelcome visitor.

Although their story had ended and life went on, its impact remained. I couldn't get the thought of being stabbed out of my head, something that never should've entered a normal eleven year old girl's mind let alone stayed. But it had. And I couldn't get rid of the perception I'd created of what it felt like: the excruciating pain of a freezing blade sliding through warm skin and shredding any organ in its path. Every time I thought about it, I clutched my stomach and grimaced as if I was feeling it first hand. My vivid and gruesome imagination prohibited me from sleeping for weeks, too paranoid to even close my eyes for more than a second.