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The next day arrived before Hart finally heard the human heart beating rapidly underground. He went searching for the materials immediately; a warm towel and a cup of water. They were always going to be a necessity for whenever Riley came back to life. The coldness of death would still remain in your body even after you've come back, a warm towel would help that. And your throat would feel itchy and dry, so water was important.
He rushed out of the house just as Riley popped out of the ground, pulling himself up from the ground and wobbling nervously. Hart threw the towel around Riley's shoulders and handed him the water. They entered the house and went straight to Hart's bedroom, repeating the same process that was done when Riley first died and came back.
“I'll be right outside if you need me,” Hart told Riley as the shaky man went in the bathroom and shut the door.
It wasn't long before he heard the water running. There were a couple of muffled gasps and cries, but that was expected. Coming back from death wasn't the most pleasant thing to experience. He hoped Riley would never have to again, but he knew better. This was only just the start.
The bathroom door opened an hour later and Riley came out wearing just pajama pants and a towel around his shoulders. He didn't look any different, his appearance was now permanent. He was never supposed to die so quickly, but Riley didn't seem to mind anymore.
“How are you feeling?” Hart asked.
“I've been better."
“Would you like something to eat?”
Riley shook his head, removing his towel and leaving it by the bathroom door. He took a couple of steps towards Hart, until they were both facing each other, and he wrapped his hands around him. Hart didn't move when Riley embraced him tightly, or even when they started kissing.
“I want something else," Riley said between kisses.
But he did move at that, running his fingers down Riley's chest and feeling his cold skin. They kissed deeply as Hart began to unbutton his shirt, practically ripping it off. They slowly climbed onto the bed, Hart on top as he took control of the kiss.
This time there was no memory loss, no faces in the ceiling, no blood, just them and their passion.
*-*-*
Riley snuck up behind Hart as he hammered giant needles through the wooden cross in the backyard. He was adding the finishing touches to the cross that he had built months ago. The needles were very long and strong. There were dozens of them, all piercing the structure so that the sharp point was poking out of the wood.
“I don't feel good,” Riley said as he watched in silence while Hart walked around, examining and double checking that his project was perfect.
Hart ignored him, tapping each needle and grunting when ten of them fell off at his touch. He dipped his hands in a basket that laid beside him and took out a couple of more needles, still ignoring the obvious sick man next to him.
But he didn't block him out any longer, not after Riley began to puke. Hart's eyes shot straight towards him, watching with worried eyes as Riley emptied his stomach. When he was finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and quickly stuttered an apology.
“There's no need to apologize,” Hart said as he ran over to him and helped him walk back inside the house. “Do you have any idea what made you sick?”
Riley shook his head.
“There's no medicine either, I checked.”
Hart never kept any medicine because he didn't need it. He should have realized with a hum–with Riley, that he would need it badly. Riley wasn't like Hart, he could get sick, he could get hurt, and he wouldn't heal in a matter of seconds.
“I'll go to town and get you some medicine,” Hart told him as he looked around for his car keys, when he suddenly heard the clinging of his keys. Riley had them around his index finger, spinning them as he stared at Hart slyly.
“I'll get them.”
“No, you stay here and rest.” Hart tried to snatch the keys away but Riley pulled back, making Hart dumbly chase after them.
“You need to prepare for your kill,” Riley said. “So finish your cross, set your traps, do whatever it is you're going to do for tonight. I'm sure it will take energy to bring your mother back, so don't worry about me. You can trust me, you know that.”
Hart made a displeased face as he brushed his fingers over Riley's cheekbones.
“I know I can trust you, that's not the problem. The problem is that you're sick and you need to rest if you want to get better. Going to town might make you worse. And what if someone recognizes you? Word will spread fast in a small town like Bellumstone. And I can't stop it if it happens.”
“No one will recognize me, and I'll be fine,” Riley reassured him softly, flashing a wide set of teeth.
Hart eventually agreed on letting Riley go. He was too busy trying to prepare for the night, he couldn't risk losing time by going to town. All he did was tell Riley to be safe, stay out of sight and return as soon as possible. With him he took some cash, his dagger, and Hart's car. Then he was alone, awaiting the instructions.
The light in the house slowly faded, as if the sun rapidly set and the moon took its place, but that wasn't what was truly happening. All source of light got sucked into the darkness appearing everywhere, and then he was in complete darkness and no longer alone.
Is it ready?
“It's ready, mother,” Hart said to the dark, shapeless figure behind him.
Where is the girl?
“On her way.”
You're positive?
“Yes, Seraphina did her job. The girl knows where I am, she'll find me.”
Tonight then?
“Tonight.”
Good. I'll be waiting.
Hart's mother vanished into the shadows, bringing the darkness back with her and letting the sunlight back into the house. He took deep breaths, calming himself before he went back to work. The cross was splashed with dark powder after the needles were finished. He chanted words in the language of death, speaking directly at the wood that made up the religious cross, then it was complete.
The sky was darkening now, meaning it was time for the last sacrifice to begin.
Hart had waited for this moment for so long, and now after a whole year, she was finally standing in front of him. She was wearing black high waist shorts, outdoor boots and a white tank top under a black jacket. Her expression was exactly what he was looking for; fear.
She removed a hair band from her wrist and used it to tie her golden hair into a ponytail.
“So you know,” she spoke, keeping her distance as she walked back and forth, staring up at the house with hope in her eyes.
“That you've been looking for me? Yes, I know,” Hart responded.
“Then you know what I want.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“My brother, you sick fuck! I know you have him and I know that he's alive,” she asserted.
“Is he?” Hart said tauntingly.
She reached a hand behind her, took out a gun and pointed it directly at him. They were very far apart, separated by twice the width of the house, but even then he could tell that her aiming was more than perfect, it was exact.
“I'll kill you right now and you won't even have time to react. So start talking, where is my brother?”
Hart felt the heat inside of him rise as he marked her for death. A second later he waved his hand and knocked the gun right off her hand. The panic and fear returned to her eyes as she scattered to find the gun. She barely had time to search, because soon after the gun was knocked off her hand, she was pulled towards him by an invisible force until they were face to face. She gasped at the sight of his strange blue eyes, almost getting lost in them.
“You have his eyes,” he told her, smirking evilly.
She pounded her fists on his chest, using all her strength to take out her anger at him. She was doing a lot more damage to herself than she was to him.
“You're going to pay for everything you did to Riley, you will be–“
He mentally lifted her in the air as if he was holding her by the neck, squeezing the air out of her lungs. She struggled to breathe, her hands desperately trying to grab whatever was holding her up, but they found nothing but air and emptiness.
He brought her back down, but didn't let her go completely.
“Don't you get it? You were never supposed to win,” he told her. “Do you really think it was luck that some stranger told you where to find me? Everything you have done was planned, you walked yourself into my trap.”
She gasped again when she remembered another set of strange blue eyes.
Hart nodded.
“Yes, now you see! You are finally understanding!”
“And now you're going to kill me like you killed my brother and my friends?”
“Well, I did kill him twice already. Although, I can't really take credit for the first one since it was an accident after all. But the second time, which was actually yesterday, was all me. Then again, I had no choice. But you'll be glad to know he's doing well. A little fever, but I suppose he will live. If not, then third time's a charm.”
“Huh? Are you even listening to yourself? You're crazy! Completely insane!”
“I consider myself a little insane sometimes, but most of the time I'm actually sane believe it or not. The wonderful sex helps me clear my thoughts. And you need your full brain power to do the things I do, darling.”
“Shut up! I don't want to hear about the sick things you do, and if you hurt my brother, so help me God I will–“
“God? There is no God. He abandoned you a long time ago, now all you have is us.”
With the help of his power, he dragged her behind him as he entered the house. She screamed her brother's name over and over, but eventually she had to stop and realize that he must either be somewhere trapped, or dead.
“How are you doing this?!” she screamed at him, her eyes still filled with confusion.
She floated over the wooden floors, her boots scrapping against the surface. She had no control over her body, which made her panic even more. She had no idea what she was walking into, but it definitely was not this, she couldn't have known that this was possible. She knew something strange was going on when all of the pictures showed this man's face blurred and disoriented. She had many assumptions, but reality was sometimes stronger than your nightmares, until you realized that it was all backwards and reality was your nightmares.
Hart moved her downstairs to the cellar, the place where everyone disappeared to and was never seen again. The table was the only thing visible to her, and as soon as she saw the straps dangling, her eyes went wide with fear. Hart didn't know what she was thinking, but he had a good guess that she was connecting the table to Riley.
He gently lifted her higher in the air and guided her over the bright table. She slowly began to get control over her limbs. Her hands and legs gently moved, and to Hart, she looked like she was floating in water.
Her body descended and Hart began to work, wrapping her hands and legs with the thick, leather straps. At the last minute he decided to leave one of her legs free. Her eyes followed him as he moved around the room, searching through a bucket and picking up a key that laid on a single chair. He went to the closet on the wall next to the stairs and opened it with said key, taking out a strange bracelet that was connected to a car battery, or at least that was what it looked like to her.
“What is that?” she asked desperately.
Hart ignored her, locking the closet again. He grabbed her ankle, the one free of a strap, and wrapped the bracelet around it. She flinched when the cold device touched her skin and hugged it too tightly. She kicked, trying to break the device, but Hart punched her hard in the gut. She cried out, tears running down her face as it hit her; she was going to die.
“My father and I aren't much a like, but we shared one thing in common. We like to build things. There are so many great things technology can bring, and luckily for us we are smart. What you have around your ankle will burn hotter than fire. It's great if you want to lose your leg, or an arm, or whatever.”
“If you think I'm going to beg you for my life, then you'll be waiting for a long time. I'm not going to beg, I'm not going to ask you kindly to let me go, I won't give in,” she told him through her teeth.
“Oh, trust me. By the time I'm done with you, you'll be begging me to kill you,” he said confidently.
“Like I said, I won't give in. I spent an entire year wondering if my brother was alive or not, knowing that it was my fault that he went missing. There's no greater pain, nothing can beat the feeling of guilt. So if you kill me, you won't get an pleasure out of it.”
Hart raised his eyebrows.
“I'm not doing this for pleasure, Fiona.”
“How do you know my name?” she asked calmly.
“Riley talks in his sleep.”
She sighed, nodding to herself as she leaned her head back against the table.
“He's alive then. That's all I needed to know.”
“I'm doing this simply because you need to die,” he answered, staring coldly into her eyes as he turned on the device around her ankle.
Every corner of the house filled with the pain-filled screams of the young blonde laying on the table, strapped to it like a patient in a mental ward. She squirmed as she felt the cold of the bracelet around her ankles turn hotter. Her leg twitched and jerked as the heat burned through her skin, causing her eyes to tear up until she couldn't see anything but the blurry figure standing over her.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, finding it amusing as she cried over the pain. “There's no greater pain than pain itself.”
“Fuck you!” she shouted, choking back on her tears.
He ignored her, touching her legs with the tip of his fingers. He traced her hips to her knees, examining the color of her skin and how it resembled someone long gone and forgotten. He reached inside the bucket next to him on the stool and took out a large pair of scissors. He began to cut up the girl's jeans until she was fully exposed. He did the same to her upper clothes and when he was finished, he tossed them away.
She wailed in pain as the bracelet burned her ankle, the heat increasing until the smell of burnt flesh entered their nostrils. The pain was too much for her to fight it, eventually her voice just quieted down, unable to compete with the agony.
Hart let this go on for ten minutes before he turned his back to her and removed two dice from his pocket. He rolled them playfully in his hands and looked up to meet his reflection on the mirror hanging on the wall. His mother's figure stood behind him in the mirror, and he nodded when she whispered the simple words “It's time.”
He let the dice drop on the floor and he watched them as they bounced randomly. The first die rolled on a four, and the other on a two.
Six, he thought.
He walked back to the girl and turned off the device, clicking the eject button and watching it snap open, releasing the tight grip it had on her ankle. As he pulled it off, the heat not effecting him at all, strands of melted skin stretched and snapped with a disgusting sound that got muffled by her screaming.
She tried getting up to see her the damage, but the straps wouldn't let her. Hart grabbed the same pair of scissors he had used to cut off her clothes to cut the straps off. She was taken aback, suddenly getting scared of what he was going to do next. When she was finally free, she looked at her ankle and wailed at the sight of her bones showing through the dark skin. Her lips quivered as she kept staring, crying softly but being strong about not showing any weakness.
She then noticed that she was free. Her eyes went to Hart who was just watching her, his back straight and posture elegant. He didn't move an inch or spoke a word when she turned her body around, hoping off the table and keeping it between them. She used it to guide herself towards the stairs because every time her injured foot slightly touched the ground, a great deal of pain rushed through her body that almost made her collapse.
“You're letting me go?” she asked when she reached the stairs, not keeping him out of sight.
He didn't answer, showed no emotion or expression.
She hopped over the first step, wincing when her foot touched the ground. She bit her tongue and went for the next step, this time successfully.
Five minutes, Hart thought.
Every second ticked in his mind until exactly six minutes passed since he had let her go. Right when the last second hit, he pushed the table away, letting it fall loudly on the ground. He dashed towards the locked closet and opened it with the key. Inside were numerous of weapons, he searched through them, wondering which one of them would help him take her down the fastest.
He had no idea where the girl had gone, she could still be inside, but he never locked the doors. Of course, he had done this purposely. He decided on taking a spear and a flail. Once he had them both, he ran up the stairs and saw that the front door was wide open. His eyes narrowed as he saw her in the distance, hoping through the grass and getting closer to the forest.
He ran at full speed, shooting out of the door and jumping over the porch steps. He raised his spear, aimed, and used all of his strength to throw it. He watched it soar through the night sky and then it pierced through her. She stopped momentarily, then took a step forward and dropped to her knees, gasping loudly for air.
He took the flail in his right hand and walked towards her, swinging the spiked ball. When he got there, she had rolled herself on her side and was bleeding out of her mouth. Her watery eyes shot straight up and looked angrily at him.
“Wow, you're both fighters. I guess it runs in the family, doesn't it?” He looked down at her ankle and clicked his tongue. “Want me to fix that?”
“Fuck you!”
He swung the flail and smashed it on her ankle over and over. The impact crushed her foot entirely, ripping the skin apart until she no longer had a foot. The screams that followed boomed so loudly that they spooked away birds in a nearby tree. They flew through the sky, leaving the moon to be the only witness.
“Keep screaming,” he told her, kicking the dismembered foot away, “no one is going to hear you. No one ever will.”
He was very calm and collected, nothing about this made him excited or gave him a rush of adrenaline. Quite frankly, he was bored and wanted it to be over. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, cracking his neck. In that moment, he felt a sharp pain in his leg and quickly looked down to see that she had stabbed him with the scissors. He didn't notice she had took them, that made him angry. How didn't he notice? It was such a stupid mistake on his part.
“Unfortunately for you,” he said as he bent down and pulled the scissors out of his leg, “I enjoy the pain.”
He swung the flail again and she whimpered, clawing the ground to try to get away from him. He dropped the spiked ball on her other foot, tearing it off completely. Her screaming and crying fell somewhere deep in the back of his mind. Now he only enjoyed the silence as he removed the spear from her back and dragged her away by her hair, leaving a trail of blood behind them.
He took her to the back of the house, where they met with the tall cross. The long needles sticking out of the wooden structure were perfectly placed to hold her body. When he was in front it, he grabbed her and lifted her body onto the needles and pressed her in.
She died quickly. Her eyes were on Hart the entire time, so now they stared at him even after death. He closed them, fixing her arms so that they were properly attached to the arms of the cross.
He stepped back to examine her from afar.
“You, my lady, are beautiful,” he whispered, clapping his hands together as he admired the horror in front of him.
“What . . . . NO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” came Riley's screams.
Hart turned around just in time as Riley dropped on his knees, looking at his dead sister on the cross. It took him a couple of seconds to process, and when he was done, he was launching himself at Hart.
Hart pushed him away easily, though.
“The last sacrifice, that's what I have done.”
“Fiona . . .” Riley cried, not taking his eyes off her face. “WHY DID YOU DO THIS? WHY DID YOU KILL MY SISTER?”
“It had to be her. There could be no other but the blood of who owns the dagger. Now we can bring my mother, she will take your sister's place.”
“I'm going to kill you!” Riley threatened him, getting on his feet and running at Hart.
“No, you won't.” Hart waved his hand and Riley lost control of his body, falling back on the ground as a force pinned him down, immobilizing him. Hart turned back to Fiona and shut his eyes.
“Ferzhara inos illument,” Hart chanted.
Red fire erupted from underneath the cross, enveloping Fiona's body as the flames turned black on top. Her body came back to life, only something was wrong. Hart quickly tried to utter words into the fire as Fiona screamed from the blistering heat of the fire.
Something was wrong. Fiona wasn't supposed to come back, Hart's mother was supposed to take her place in the fire, like bodies switching.
“MOTHER! WHAT IS HAPPENING?” Hart screamed, his eyes filling with tears.
Fiona's screams suddenly changed for a few seconds, and all he heard was his own mother's screams. They were switching, but it wasn't working. It was hurting his mother, this wasn't supposed to happen. He did everything correctly, there was no flaw in his work. He had killed the right people, had done the right spells, he had Riley. It should have worked.
A dagger was suddenly on his throat as Riley appeared behind him, holding him in place.
“Stop this, stop it now or I'll slice your throat. We'll see how you heal from that,” Riley whispered in his ear.
“Illument inos ferzhara,” Hart said out loud and the fire stopped.
“You killed my sister and brought her back to burn her,” Riley said.
“It wasn't supposed to be your sister,” Hart quickly replied.
“After all this time, I now know your weakness.”
“Do you now?”
“Your mother.”
Hart took the dagger right out of Riley's hands as he said those words. Hart turned it around, grabbing Riley's neck and tossing him like a ragged doll. He threw the dagger at the cross and chanted the words to bring back the fire.
“Let's see you be anything without the precious dagger that I gave you. You cannot kill me, you never will. We are bound, you and I will be one forever. It's time for you to let go of everything and everyone, because from now on, we're going to kill and kill until every person in this damn town is gone. And then we'll move to the next town, and the next, until you have so many lives that we'll out live the apocalypse and rule the earth.”
“I'm sorry to burst your little fairy tale, but I'm ending this once and for all.” Riley disappeared into thin air, and so did the dagger.
“YOU CAN'T DO THAT OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE, HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!” Hart screamed, his eyes filling with fear. He kept spinning, looking in every direction in the dark for a sign of Riley. Then he appeared.
Riley was pressed against Hart's chest, his hands between them as if they were looking for warmth. They weren't. Riley separated by a few inches, enough that Hart could look down and see the dagger in his chest, piercing his heart.
“You killed my sister,” Riley whispered, fighting back the tears as Hart fell back. “Once you love someone, you'll love them forever. I don't think it just goes away, so it's difficult for me to say that I love you, but you know that I do. You won't hurt anybody else anymore, especially me. I don't know what will happen to you, but I hope you find rest.”
“And the reason you couldn't bring back your mother is because I'm adopted. We weren't blood related, not that it ever stopped us from being real siblings.”
Riley got on his knees next to Hart as the man tried to find words to say, but couldn't. The blue in his eyes slowly faded into a dark brown color, and then Riley knew in that moment that he was gone forever. He wasn't coming back. It took his sister's death to finally end something that he should have stopped a long time ago.
He looked at Hart for a long time, seeing his true eyes. There were so many times that he had to stop himself from crying, because he didn't want to cry for him. But he didn't have anyone anymore, no shoulder to cry on, no sister to talk to (literally, her body was ashes now). Just himself and the new world in front of him.
*~*~*~*~EXTRA SCENE~*~*~*~*~*
“You should have listened to me,” said an eerie voice behind him.
“How was I supposed to know that any of this was going to happen? Maybe you should have just told me the truth from the beginning, then I would've,” he told Michelle as she hovered behind him in the darkness. He bit his trembling lips as he asked, “Is he really dead?”
“He is.”
“I don't know what to do now.”
“Bury them.”
“I mean about the feeling in my chest.”
“What feeling?”
“That I still can't help loving him. Is it because we are bound? Does that mean I don't really love him?”
She flashed creepily on the other side of Hart's body and looked down at him with white eyes, but even then she looked peaceful and non-threatening. She looked down at Hart and tried to close his eyes, but her hand went through him.
“Your love for him is real, and so was his for you,” she told him.
“How do you know?”
“Because I was like you once, I was in your place.”
“What?”
“I was you, Riley. I was kidnapped, tortured, but then he let me live. He kept me like he kept you, he showed me another world, a dark one; which you have seen with your own eyes. But when he tried to bind the dagger to me, it backfired and it killed me.”
“Why did it kill you?”
“Because the dagger didn't belong to me, and I didn't belong to Hart. You and him, as cheesy as it sounds, were destined to be. He needed you, and he finally found you. You knew that he was the one as soon as you laid eyes on him, right?”
He looked into her eyes, remembering the day he first saw Hart across the street during the festival. He remembered feeling like he couldn't breathe, like the guy he was stalking wasn't real. He had felt warmth in his chest, like love, but he thought it was just nerves, nothing else.
“I guess . . . I did.”
“It was going to happen whether you wanted it or not.”
“So I wouldn't have had a choice? Isn't that still against my will? To love someone that I didn't choose?”
Michelle sighed irritatingly. Even as a ghost, she still had her human emotions.
“You'll understand when you're dead.”
“What the heck does that even mean? I've already died twice!”
She frowned at him. “I mean really dead. When you die, you become something more than human. You go into a state of awareness and your soul becomes who you really are. Basically, when you die you become a God.”
“Is my sister going to come back as a ghost like you?” he asked as he noticed that she was slowly disappearing and appearing, like her energy was running out or something.
“She didn't die in the house. If you die in the house, you're kind of trapped, so you can come back as a ghost and roam around, but you can never leave this piece of land. There are many of us who want to get out, but we don't know how. We can see the path to the other side and we can't enter it. It's quite frustrating.”
“Oh, I'm sorry.”
“Don't be, just don't die on your last soul in the house.”
“Trust me, I won't even step foot in this house again. I'm leaving and never coming back.”
“In that case,” she said, floating up higher into the sky, “I hope to see you in the afterlife, if I ever get out of here. And if you ever decide to stop by, come say hello . . . I won't bite.”
Riley looked up as Michelle flew higher and higher, soaring like a shooting star and disappearing into the house.
______________________________________
[Author's Message]: OGH. MAGH. GAWDGH. I was freaking out over this chapter, like holy crud cakes! So much pressure to bring the best ending I could possibly make. I hope I did justice lol. And I really really hope you all enjoyed this book as much as I did writing it, because trust me, it was hella fun. And I CANNOT wait for PART TWO of A Little Insane, it's gonna be bigger and better than ANYTHING YOU HAVE READ SO FAR. YOU WILL NOT BE READY. AT ALL. LIKE OMG OMG OMG LOL.
So now comes the most important part, I need your votes and comments. If you haven't voted, vote on all chapters and leave comments, even random ones like it doesn't matter, I need the support because this story is being entered into the watty awards immediately. Like I'm entering it right now as you read this (or not, you could be reading this story two years later lol in that case hi person from the future) So share this story to your friends (only the ones you trust, cause this story might make them look at you weird LOL)
UGH I'M SO STRESSED, PLEASE GUYS, COMMENT, TELL ME EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE THINKING, THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER! COME ON! I NEED YOU!
(Part two will come out in two months I believe, so you have enough time to get some therapy sessions)
Thank you so much for being a part of this story, for reading it and enjoying it, it means the world to me that so many of you like this story. It's my proudest posession. THANK YOU A MILLION. MWAH. Good bye, and Rest in Peace, Hart Silvern *cough*