Brother’s Feud
The hunched figures rushed through the night, their bright eyes glimmered in the darkness as their coats flourished behind them like cats tails. They pushed onwards through the maze of alleyways, full of twists and turns. Each step they took, their footsteps echoed through the air, jarring around the menacing dark corners. Luckily, as they moved across the town, the sky poured with rain, muffling every sound they made.
They arrived where they needed to be, right underneath an archway made of stone and metal, this arch stood between two buildings before opening onto a village square, in the middle of the village square was a statue. The figure on top of the crumbling platform was dark and grotesque, it had begun to corrode from heavy rainfall and its glass light bulb eyes bulged out like an Ogre's. Elizabeth felt her heart beating so incredibly hard she suspected it might jump out of her chest at any moment. She furrowed her eyebrows with worry.
‘Tonight is going to be interesting, I can feel it!’ whispered a voice in front. It belonged to David Read, a tall brunette boy who could almost be mistaken for an adult of twenty five, which is if you didn't see his baby face; his big eyes and his permanent raised eyebrows- as if he were surprised all the time. He sat rubbing his hands together to keep warm.
Behind him was Collings, Hark Collings, his mother was a hippy and gave her children the most strangest of names, Possom, Judah and Cramotash, his siblings, knew this all too well. He wore a floral shirts and a knitted jumper; his trademark look was the cowlick in his hair. Even the rain thrashing down overhead could not flatten it down. Elizabeth had to admire Collings for his queer sense of fashion.
The trio looked on hungrily at the middle of the village square, surveying the dark buildings and the silent street.
Elizabeth crouched, smoothing the dress under her coat down.
'Please tell me why we're here?' Whispered Elizabeth, she looked at Read awaiting an answer.
'We're going to find out what has been happening over there!' He pointed towards the square. 'The Goddard’s meeting place.' The dark building was the largest of all the other buildings in the square; the steeple pierced the sky as though it were trying to escape the night.
'Haven't you heard what people have been saying? Strange noises have been heard coming from there, people who go in and never come out again. It's strange Beth, very strange.' Read whispered, his breath was visible, floating in the cold air in between them.
'And how do you expect us to find out what's going on in there, I’m certainly not breaking in…’
'This is the clever part, myself and Collings have been investigating, we've been sitting in this same alleyway spying for weeks on end, watching the men and women go in and out of that building and... Tell them what happened last week Collings!' Read slumped back on the wall smiling at Beth, his smile grew into a grin as he heard Hark roar into life. Whenever Hark told a story, he became so animated, which Read loved. Beth on the other hand sat and listened, plain faced.
'You won't believe it Beth! A group of men wearing funny looking capes went in and we heard funny noises and flashes of light, and half an hour later, we saw them coming out with body bags! Body bags Beth!' He gulped.
'You were right, I don't believe you.' Elizabeth sighed, wondering if she was wasting her time. These two best friends of hers sure loved making her tag along to pointless outings which usually ended up with her taking both of them home bruised and battered after they got themselves into some trouble. Read huffed, twirling around in annoyance and then drew a long breath before replying.
'Well, we don't care if you believe us or not, we know what we saw. Anyway, after we had seen the body bags, we supposed we ought to go tell someone, so we began walking away when we caught two of the men we'd seen walking in leaving the building .' Read paused. 'From what we could gather, they were spies, and tonight is the night they are planning on killing a man.'
Conversation continued about the events which were to take place that night, what was going to happen? Why was the man to be murdered? Would they intervene? Elizabeth, of course, was blasé to everything they suggested. Read and Collings sure knew how to thread together a story. They debated for half an hour or so before their constant yammering was shushed by the shatter of a window and a loud noise on the other side of the square.
Flashes of light lit up the square as the door of the Goddard’s' building boomed open, shouting and screaming ricocheted around them as a man leapt forward through the large doors and forward into the street. He was out of breath; he looked back at the building in disbelief. He stood silently for a moment, his cape made of fur and velvet blew in the wind. His hair was a mixture of colours; it looked mousey blonde which was going grey. The stockings under the doublet he wore glowed, they were shining fiercely as though they were made from the skin of a dragon. He pulled at the polo neck shirt which stopped under his chin, gasping for air. The yelling from inside filtered out into the square, filling the silent street with noise.
A group of men stomped out onto the street, standing behind a figure who dressed like the man they had seen out of breath. His cape was blood red and his hair was as grey as the clouds which loomed above. His eyes gawked at the other man with disgust, he walked closer.
‘Ventro, Ventro, my dear brother. I wondered of the day you would grace us with your presence. You send men, your best men I presume, to spy on me and my doings. You worm your way through into the quilt-‘
He turned to the crowd gathered at the top of the steps in front of the Goddard’s building and sniggered.
'Pray tell brother, what did you plan on doing once you arrived here?' They stood a metre or two away from each other; as if they were about to duel.
'This life you live is a lie Graunac' His brother said calmly, his hands shook. 'Our brother was wrong, I was wrong to banish you here. I have come to seek you and warrant your return.' Graunac stared at his brother with an unreadable expression. He took a step closer, so close their noses nearly touched.
'Too little, too late.' He spat in his brother’s face. The three teens watched on, Graunac, who's face was washed with anger, span round and looked at the crowd of about twenty standing outside of the Goddard's building. He signalled to two brutish looking men standing at the front of the crowd, sneering down at the cowering man. One was bulky, his hair thinning on either side of his head and wore gloves. The other had darker skin and a full head of hair and wore a jumper which was clearly too big for him. Both men though, were horrendously ample and stout.
'Kill him'
The gloved man thundered down the steps and headed straight towards Ventro, who stood rootless, the brute swung his fist towards him but as he did, Ventro moved across the street as though an unearthly force had pulled him backwards. He stood up from the floor, moved the hair from his eyes and looked at the men.
‘Men, I order you to stand down.’
The thin air that night caused his heart to beat faster, adrenaline pumped through his veins.
The storm has arrived and it wasn't going to stop.
Anger had past through the square like a gust of wind, flouting past each and every person who stood on the steps, each one of them had milky white eyes, haunting facial expressions.
‘Slice him to pieces!’ One man in a scruffy shirt yelled.
‘Rip his throat out and feed it to the dogs!‘ Shouted a plump woman.
The gloved man too seemed to pull an object out of thin air, he twisted and turned and moved around the square trying to disorientate the old man. Ventro thrust his staff forward, throwing a bolt of white light towards him but missed every time he tried. Beth finally caught a glimpse of the shimmering knife one of the brutish men held, it shone in the dark, glowing as though it held bolts of energy. He yelled as loud as he could and jumped towards the older man. Ventro fell back as the man thrust the knife into him. He was wounded.
'Enough!' yelled Graunac.
†
He could feel the cold street cobbles digging into his back, his fur cloak was sodden with blood which leaked out from the severe open wound under his ribs. He lay panting, blood was all he could taste and smell. Was this what death felt like? Slowly taking over his sense’s like a warm aroma of delicious foods. He looked up at the sky, how dark it was. The moon seemed to lose the luminosity it had in Hanoon.
The glow of the moon was obstructed by Graunac's smiling face.
'Tonight you die brother, and I shall take this world, the world in between and Hanoon. Our brother will bow down to me, and then I will kill him. Just as I shall kill you'
Without a reply, without a whisper from anyone, Graunac thrust a dagger into Ventro's side.
†
A ghostly silence submerged the square as the still corpse lay upon the cold street floor, a pool of blood still leaked from the mans side as the three teenagers cautiously moved over to investigate.
‘He’s dead’ whispered Collings. ‘I don’t like this one bit!’
‘Neither do we.’ Read sneered at Collings. ‘Now shush!’ Beth turned her nose up at both of them.
Ventro laid facing away from them as Beth bent over his unstirring body. She pulled back his blood soaked cloak as the remaining street lights which still worked began to flicker on. His wounds were severe and deep. The crimson coloured blood glowed in the moon light, across the cobbled street. His skin ghostly white, all life drained from his mystical body.
Read, Collings and Beth stood gazing at the body. Read watched the square, making sure no one passed by and assumed they had murdered a man. Collings watching the Goddard’s building. Beth did not take her eyes off of Ventro.
All of a sudden, without a warning, the corpse jolted and Ventro’s pale face stared back at them. Beth screamed and toppled back, sending the other two onto the floor. They all landed in a heap. His blue lips hardly moved, maybe they didn’t. His voiced called out.
‘I am to depart from this body and voyage to the other side.
I give you this object in which I must confide,
you take me to my resting place and then I shall abide
My soul, my body, my ghost to be the drop in the ocean
to be that one and final motion
To propel such an enormous tide.’
†
Hope was given that night.
In the form of a crystal doorknob, holding the soul of Ventro.
The only pure brother, untouched by power and greed. His promise of vengeance and salvation with the return of his soul. Yet, The Quilt also awaited the trio that night. A world in between ours and the other, a world where monsters unimaginable roamed, where men were not rulers but slave to a thousand different creatures, a dark world where Graunac slunk bag into. A world where only some people were unlucky enough to journey to, in their nightmares.
