Chapter
4 – My Sibling’s Executioner
I fly through the light and
darkness of the asylum and reach the surveillance room in seconds, where Bianco
is waiting with my parents tied up.
“It’s over, Bianco. You couldn’t
kill me when I was vulnerable, and your mind tricks work only so well,” I say.
“It is over, but I’m going anywhere
without seeing you squirm in pain, one final time,” he says. In an instant, my
face turns back to normal, and my parents look at me in shock. “Now there’s no
shred of doubt left for them that you, Timeo Severe, are L’Obscurité. I told
you he was, but you still thought I was tricking you. You lied to yourselves,
like you always do, and now, you can’t do that anymore without being like the
inmates you claim to take care of here.”
Getting control of myself, I use my
power that take hold of Bianco, whose face is finally revealed.
“Bogart?” my parents and I say in
unison.
My older brother, Bogart, was
always one to say that life is short and going to end no matter what we do, so
we might as well spend it indulging in as many desires as we can.
“I’m glad you remember something
that I told you, little brother,” Bogart says. “After you beat me within an
inch of my life, I thought the best way to live the rest of my life was to make
you suffer for embarrassing me and to make our parents suffer for living
longer, so I couldn’t get the rest of their inheritance.”
“Why did you kill the rest of our
siblings?”
“They were useless to me, and the
white serpent promised me more power if I sacrificed them. How could I refuse
if it meant making you suffer more?”
“Well, you got what you wanted, and
now, you reap the cost, you bastard!”
Reaching out to Bogart with my
power, he returns to his normal form. His body starts twisting in unnatural
ways as the white serpent in him twists and struggles to escape through his
eyes. While this is happening, my parents tell me to stop because he’s my
brother and to have mercy on him.
Bogart laughs at them and says, “I
don’t deserve mercy, and neither do you! You’re all hypocrites! You never save
any lives! You only prolong people’s suffering in this awful city. You think
you’re good people because you pray and worship God, but you’re no better than
scum like me! At least I’m honest about it and get what I want-”
“Be silent and die already!”
Bogart’s neck and head twist around
and around again, his fingers break and snap along with his arms, feet, and
legs until the life is squeezed out of his body and his soul is sent to be
judged and go to Hell. My parents’ yelling finally gets me to stop and look at
them, and as I do, I feel like a child who’s in trouble and messed up in a
major way.
“He deserved it. My powers punish
people based on their sins,” I try to explain to them.
“You need to let them go. You
killed your brother with them,” my mom says.
“I didn’t do it!” It’s then that I
realized that I didn’t pray for Bogart like I do with the other people I use my
powers on, so they may receive mercy. “I said that my powers do it all on their
own.”
“Then you need to stop being
L’Obscurité,” my dad says. “You’ve caused too much suffering and death in the
city. It’s time to stop.”
“Those people were criminals and
villains! I was given these powers by God to punish them and make Meridian a
better place.”
“Look at what you’ve done to your
brother. There are other ways to make Meridian better. You have to stop,” my
mom says.
“I…I can’t.”
There are a few moments of silence
as I carefully consider my next words until my dad says, “Then we’ll tell the
world the truth behind who you are to make you stop-”
“What?” I say.
“Timeo, look what your powers are
doing! We have to make you stop-”
“I’m not doing anything!”
My parents seem to be choking on
something as my powers get them to stop talking.
“Your identity can’t be revealed,”
a familiar voice says. It’s the same one I heard the day I got my powers.
“My Lord and my God…” I say.
I then get on my knees and
fervently pray for mercy for my parents. Please, don’t punish them for such a
small mistake! They’re just upset because of what happened tonight. Please,
punish me instead! Take away my powers and give them to someone else if you
have to! My prayers go unanswered as I hear a crack and see my parents dead on
the floor.
As tears flow from my eyes, I
simply ask, “Why?”
“Because every sin, no matter how
small, is deserving of death. Your identity can’t be exposed to the world,” He
says.
“What if I tell everyone now? Will
I die as well?”
“You won’t. I won’t allow it.”
“Then take away my powers! I don’t
want them anymore! Give them to someone else who’s more deserving of them!”
“You are still deserving of them.
Do not worry over the souls of your parents. Their grief and the white serpent
clouded their minds so they won’t be punished severely. They are in Purgatory
and will be in Heaven after their funeral.”
There’s nothing more to be done or
said. I walk over to my parents and cry as I hold them for a long while until
my friends, Lancetto, Klinge, Darcy, and Raymond enter the room. They ask what
happened, I explain it as best I can, and they hold me and give me their
condolences. In the official statement that Raymond gives, he says that Bogart
is responsible for the deaths of my parents and many of the innocents, while
L’Obscurité saved everyone and punished the asylum’s staff who caused the
outbreak of criminals and patients, and the criminals who refused to go back in
their cells. I’m given praise by Mayor Jeph and the city like usual, but I feel
empty and less than alive.
When my parents’ funeral comes, I
say a few words and mostly keep to myself. In the days that follow, Darcy stays
with me at my house, as if she needs an excuse to. I would have told her to
stay at her own home, but I don’t have the strength to do even that, and I need
someone who loves me to stay by my side. She cooks and cleans for me, talks to
me about my worries, regrets, and doubts, and holds me at night. Klinge,
Lancetto, and Raymond have stopped by a few times when they can, giving me
updates on the rising crime in the city due to my absence, but telling me that
they’re handling it and I should only go back out when I feel better. I thank
them and try to give them pieces of my parents’ possessions as a thank you, but
they refuse them and only leave with food that Darcy made.
Another morning comes, and Darcy
lets me lie in bed for a few more minutes while she prepares breakfast. I get
up as I wait and look out the window. The emotions I’ve been keeping down boil
back up, so I prostrate myself on the floor with my hands up.
“Again, I say, take my powers away
from me. I’m undeserving of them,” I pray.
Astonishingly, I receive an answer
from my Lord, who says, “You are still worthy of them. Meridian needs her dark
hero to keep her safe from lawbreakers of all kinds.”
“Why? Why me? I haven’t been able
to change anything at all.”
I don’t get any answers until Darcy
enters, who was listening to me praying.
She sits beside me and says, “The
city is worse off without you. I would’ve engulfed the city in chaos,
encouraging people to take justice into their hands and murdering the guilty
and innocent alike. Without you, many innocents would be dead or worse, the
criminals would still be alive to enact their terror, and sinners wouldn’t be
repentant, such as those people who were in that human centipede who went back
to normal after repenting for what they did.”
“I know. It’s a lesson that never
seems to stick with me. Thank you for everything, Darcy. You’ve been helping me
so much that I have to give you something in return,” I say while getting on
one knee and taking a ring out of my pocket. “Will you marry me?”
Darcy smiles and cries at the same
time and immediately accepts my proposal. She kisses me more than usual and to
such a degree that I think she’s going to do something to me that I prefer to
do after marriage, so I gently push her back and calm her down.
“Come on, let’s go eat and then
tell everyone after,” I say.
“Okay, okay. We’ll talk about
arranging the wedding and clothes for the children we’ll have. I think we should
go out today to start picking out some clothes for them. Did your parents keep
your clothes that you wore? Maybe I can find more cute baby and child pictures
of you that they kept somewhere around the house,” she says.
I laugh and say that we should take
things one step at a time. As I eat together with Darcy, I think to myself
about the reminders of what I learned at the incident at the asylum. I must
continue being a dark hero for the sake of Meridian and its people. This city
is sick with sin and crime, and I am the cure. I embrace the madness of failing
and succeeding, sinning and repenting, and sickness and healing. It is a virtuous
madness embraced by my parents that allows me to spiral upward towards Heaven,
just as they did. Please guide my actions, thoughts, and words, and watch over us
and the family that I create, mom and dad. I hope to make God and you proud of
me.
The End
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