Dark By Default

1 John 2:15Bible

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A night of what was supposed to be an appointment for a joyous celebration. A time supposed to be full of smiles, laughter and mere thanksgiving, was a milestone that I wished never happened. It engraved into my mind this single image that is redundantly being recalled... from time to time.

Awoken by the cold wind that pa.s.sed through my room window, I stood up from my bed and marked my thirteen-year-old footprints on the floor, through the stairs, and on the long hallways. On one of the windows, I noticed that the moon was so bright and is unusually big, so I took some time to look at it at the veranda and indeed was captivated by the Junoesque beauty it displayed. I looked up and there, the gargantuan moon was which deemed the lights of the minuscule stars in its background obfuscated, with its clear corona ravishing its gallant brilliance.

In a state of complete reverie by the boundless beauty, I murmured to myself, "I wish that the moon would be as big as this every night".

Remembering that I was in a hurry to meet my family in the living room for my brother"s birthday, I hastily stepped out from the sight-seeing I was having. I was happy and rather excited, but what I witnessed the moment I got to the place was the complete opposite of what I thought would be.

My mother. My father. And my sweet little sister, lying on a pool of crimson blood, cold and lifeless in a moonlit room of an aristocratic mansion.

I was stunned, I did not know what to do, and my strength also began to depart from me. Then all of a sudden, the piano by the giant gla.s.s window started playing. I looked out of fear, coalesced with confusion and overwhelming sadness, but without a shred of a tear, and the person who was playing the grand pianoia was my older brother.

"BROTHER! MOM AND DAD AND JEAN THEY...THEY ARE!-..."

Not wanting to say the word, I paused and looked at him only to see him gazing back at me with a very demented guise. His eyes were expressing this hunger for something. It was becoming the gateway to such irrationality as such that I had never seen before from him.

"Shhh. Hush now Jaiden. I know, I know. They are in an eternal trance. You don"t want to wake them up, don"t you? Father will be mad if you do that. Let them rest in peace", he nonchalantly answered as he continued crossing his hands across the piano keys with the most prestigious stance as if those people that are lying dead in front of him were not family ...nor human.

"TRANCE? NO BROTHER! THERE"S BLOOD EVERYWHERE! WHO?... WHO WOULD DO SUCH A THING!... BROTHER DO SOMETHING!" Wondering why he was resorting to such, not doing anything while our parents and our sister are pulseless on a pool of blood, I clamored as if I was angry.

His hands then stopped at a piano key, finishing a famed cla.s.sical piece of which I palpably recognized as ent.i.tled "Moonlight Sonata, First Movement".

Turning away from the instrument, he then got up from the bench with a very calm look and a heinous charisma. He then stood by the window and looked at the bright moon. Confused and afraid I was unable to move or say anything else. All I did was stare at him curious about his next move while there was utter silence in the room down to literarily a decibel or even less.

"I wish that the moon would be this eminent every time I take glimpses upon it." He said.

"What?! Brother...."

"AAAAHHHHH, WHAT A SPLENDID NIGHT THIS IS FOR ME !" He said, with a very whimsical voice that sounded rather out of this world.

"Brother what are you saying?!" He then made a very heinous smile towards the moon then swiveled to look at me with pure blood l.u.s.t, with teeth both gnashed as if in deep hatred and his eyes were burning with the insatiable pa.s.sion to kill.

"Jaiden, my sorry little brother... Tonight begins my threshold!" He exclaimed while extending his arms as wide as it can, taking a deep breath as if he was freed from something that imprisoned him from a long time ago up to this day.

"I want to be free from the incarcerations that this cannon fodders gave me! So I, as a retribution for the suffering that they gave me-..."

"You, you...killed them? Brother are you out of your mind?!"

"YES! I KILLED THEM JAIDEN... AND YES! I AM, BY ALL MEANS OUT OF MY MIND TONIGHT! AND IT WILL BE TOO DISAPPOINTING TO LET GO OF SUCH MADNESS, PITIFUL BROTHER!"

The moment he said that, while expressing this demeanor that is far too malevolent to be defined through simple terms... this poignant and loathsome thought crossed my mind.

"I"m...

.. Gonna...

..Be...

...Killed"

Silence engulfed the room except for the sound of the footsteps which are coming towards me, and as the sound of the footsteps gets closer and closer, my heart was beating faster. I can"t do anything. My body is stunned, no, paralyzed. I"m gonna be killed. Just like them...

For a moment, I ignored my despair and looked at my dead family. Memories came flashing towards me, memories that were of happiness without a taint of disambiguation.

I remembered. How mom would inspire me in times of hardships. I remembered dad. He would be there any minute of the day when I felt alone and weak and I remembered my little innocent sister"s shenanigans that would make up our day. Lastly, I remembered how I wished to surpa.s.s my revered brother, who is now....coming to kill me.

From a state of utter despair, it was metamorphosed to sadness that cannot be likened to other existent touches of melancholy. I am sad and yet there was not a single tear flowing from my eyes. All I know is that I am feeling rather empty, and that, there is this gap in my heart that could never be filled the same way again...This overwhelming and sudden flare of negative emotions would eventually kill me before my brother will.

"Crack," I noticed the sound of a lethal weapon being loaded. I looked up and saw him pointing a gun at me a meter or two, away.

"If I may know. Brother, why did you do this?" I asked as if it was my last wish to know why it happened.

"Aaaahh you talk too much!" He answered.

"You are a Cendrillon, right? The last shred bloodline of the land"s finest aristocrats. And as far as a father would tell me, that we ought to mind our own business. You are one bad descendant for not heeding your father"s own words. And for that, I"m gonna have to kill you. Say hi to them for me! Bon, voyage! "

"Ha! He really had gone mad. " I thought... slowly closing my eyes hoping to be killed immediately to eradicate the dominant antagonism and emptiness that I"m feeling.

And the moment my eyes closed, I heard three gunshots all aimed at me from point-blank range that could rip me apart from my own existence.

"BANG!... BANG!... BANG!"

A single bullet could have been enough.