by Con Template
I swallowed uncomfortably, finally feeling some revulsion towards myself as Eclipse recited these horrid details. We walked into my brother’s bedroom, and I couldn’t help but drink in the sight of everything.
The room was dark, but there was a sense of purity about it that couldn’t be tainted even fifteen years after his death. All around, pictures of racecars, game consoles, and a full-sized blue bed surrounded us. I thought my room was pure, but it had nothing on my brother’s room. I glanced at one of the photos the cops took of his room. I held the picture up, my eyes latching on the cup of milk on his bed stand.
My brows furrowed at the oddity of what I saw.
“He already had milk that night,” I said faintly, confusion threading my face. I glanced up at Eclipse, vocalizing my finding. I extended the picture to him. “Why did he go back to get another cup of milk if he already had one in his room?”
Eclipse evaluated the picture and pondered my question. I could see the thoughts in his mind churn and after only a second, a light bulb ignited in his mind.
“When we met your six-year-old self, she said that she drank milk before she went to sleep. For a six-year-old girl, a big house like this can be very scary at night. Since your brother’s room was the closest to yours, it’s possible that you may have come to him and—”
“I asked him if he could go downstairs with me and get me more milk,” I finished for him, recalling faint memories of a distant childhood. Whenever I got thirsty late at night, the first person I’d go to was my brother. With chills making a home in my body, I thought back to the nights where he’d hold my hand in the dark and walk me down the stairs to get my milk. Suddenly, slates of memories that never once crossed my mind were floating inside me like lost dust particles. “I always knocked on his door whenever I got thirsty, and every time, he’d always hold my hand and keep me company.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, utterly overwhelmed by the wave of memories that seemed to hit me at once from a simple trigger.
A cup of milk.
That was all it took for some of my lost memories to surface.
Though I only remembered bits and pieces, my mind was still swirling in pandemonium.
“If I was downstairs with him, then why didn’t he see that I had a knife?”
I recalled the pictures of the stairs. There were no droplets of milk canvassing it. It was as if my brother walked up the steps blissfully unaware that his life was in danger.
“There was no spilled milk on the stairs, so it must mean that he didn’t even know anything was happening until he got shot in the back.” I bit my lips, thinking out loud. “But that doesn’t make sense. If he came down the stairs with me, then he should’ve seen me walk over to the drawer and reach in for a knife.”
“Unless you were downstairs at a different time than him,” Eclipse offered as a puzzle piece to complete my thoughts.
I took in a sharp breath, understanding the alternative scenario that Eclipse was offering, but still not comprehending how it would logically fit with what could’ve occurred that night.
“If he went to get a cup of milk for me, then it must mean I went to him first to ask him to take me down. It doesn’t make sense that I wouldn’t be with him if I came to him in the first place.”
“Not unless he was busy,” Eclipse hypothesized before he curiously lifted the cover of the bed. There, underneath the mattress, Eclipse’s theory became tangible fact when the reason as to why I didn’t walk down with my brother that night was revealed.
Under the bed were three boxes of presents. Two were already wrapped and one was in the process of being wrapped. On one of the labels, it read: “Happy Birthday, Baby Sis!”
“He was probably finishing up with wrapping the presents when you knocked on his door,” said Eclipse, theorizing on how this scene could’ve played out that night. “It was probably locked to keep you from walking in on him while he was wrapping it. I’m guessing that through the door, you told him that you were thirsty and that you were afraid to go down alone. Because he was still wrapping your final present, he more than likely told you to just go back to your room, that he’d bring the milk up to you soon.”
I nodded because in the back of my mind, I could now see blurs of such a scene taking place. I could almost remember my older brother telling me to go back to my room through the door and that he’d bring me my milk once he was done with whatever he was doing.
I sighed, looking around the room. After roughly fifteen years of remembering little to nothing about what happened that night, it felt strange to be able to recall snippets of memories—even if they were extremely blurry. I should’ve felt liberated that a small breakthrough had occurred. On the contrary, liberation was the last thing I felt. All I felt was disgust for myself. I shifted painstakingly, removing my line of sight from the presents underneath the bed. I had never felt more uncomfortable in someone else’s room.
Eclipse studied me, his expression concerned with how I was behaving.
“What’s going on with you, Teacup?” I was showing too much human emotion that I didn’t typically show. It was odd to him and incredibly disconcerting to me. “Are you alright?”
I smiled wryly as my way of genuinely telling him that I would be fine. If there was one good thing about my sadism for my family, it was that the disgust for myself was always short-lived.
“It feels awkward to be here, but I don’t care about my family, remember?” I provided, trying to appear aloof. “I’m fine. Let’s just keep going. I want to find out what else happened that night.”
It looked like Eclipse was about to say something to console me, comfort me even. He stopped himself when it appeared that being comforting wasn’t his forte either (he was still a Demon after all). Instead, he simply gave me an awkward nod and made his way out of the room. If he were human, I would’ve mistaken that to be true concern for my emotional well-being.
Huh. Weird.
I made a move to follow him, but stopped when I gazed upon the drawer beside my brother’s bed. Absentmindedly, as I was still confused with the myriad of emotions running through me, I pulled the drawer open. Within the confined space were small knick-knacks and notebooks. At the very top of his notebooks was a red bible. I picked it up and brushed my fingers over the thin veil of dust that carpeted over it.
The flow of my blood slowed when I saw the name that hid under the dust: Christian Hwang.
There was something in the way that name rang in my mind that had my entire body wrenching in pain. If I had my entire soul intact, I would categorize this feeling as one of love, of immense pain for the loss of someone I loved so much. If I had my entire soul intact, then I was almost sure that this would be the moment where I’d cry. Unfortunately, my entire soul wasn’t intact, so as quickly as that foreign emotion came, it disappeared like the wind as well.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered regretfully, staring at his name on the bible. Even though I felt no emotions or love for him, I still felt the responsibility to apologize—for ending his life before it had even started, for being such an awful human being. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey.” Eclipse’s voice came from the doorway, floating into my ocean of thoughts. He peeked his head in, clearly wondering why I was dawdling in my brother’s room. “Are you coming, Gracie?”
I nodded quickly, dashing for the door.
I didn’t know why at the time, but I couldn’t put the bible down. So while clutching onto my brother’s beloved bible, I continued to trail after Eclipse as we resumed our investigation.
“Forgive me for the agony that will consume their souls . . .”
11: Red Bible
“After killing your brother, you continued here . . .”
We walked into my sister’s room and our eyes instantly went towards the walk-in closet where the crime scene photo sat—the closet that still had bloodstains on its walls.
Heart pounding slowly, I could almost envision how the scene play
ed out: my older sister cheerily wrapping my last minute birthday presents before she unexpectedly died by my hands.
“Happy 6th Birthday, Grace Bear! Big sis loves you!”
I hadn’t forgotten the note I read in the library, and much like my emotions concerning my older brother, I felt pain enter my body for a fleeting moment before it dissolved like quicksilver.
“She was in her closet, wrapping your birthday presents before you shot her in the back,” Eclipse resumed, oblivious to the thoughts percolating into my mind. “After which, as her blood started to seep into the items beneath her, she turned and faced you. Like you did to your brother, you stabbed her until she died.” He turned to the door, his mind seemingly running faster and faster with this scene. “If she was wrapping your presents, then it must mean that like your brother, she had locked the door to keep you from walking in on her. To be shot in the back must mean that you snuck up on her—that you somehow got through the locked door and were able to get in without her knowing until it was too late.”
Uneasiness slithered through me. I knew he was suggesting that this was where the malevolent entity must’ve entered my life. Saying no more, we continued down the hall and eventually wound up in my parents’ room.
I had to stop in my tracks after we walked in, allowing the gravity and familiarity of everything to cascade over me. The room was exactly how I remembered it: dark, foreboding, and utterly haunting. The mattress had remnants of bloodstains on it while the carpet was still marred with a dried pool of blood.
“Finally, you came to your parents room,” said Eclipse, his voice cautious and even. From the pitch of his voice, I deduced that he was being very careful. It was clear he could see the fragile and conflicted state I was in. As if to quickly put me out of my misery, his voice hastened as he did his due diligence and ran through the scenario. “Your father woke up, probably after hearing the noises in the hall. He must’ve already been standing beside his bed when you came into the room and shot him in the chest. After that, you shot your mother as well to keep her down. I imagine your mother didn’t die as quickly as your father. Before you got into bed with her, you probably stabbed your father for good measure and left your mother for last.”
Eclipse expedited the narration even more once he noticed how pale my face had become. I didn’t care about my family, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t horrified by the details of their murders. There was a fine line between wanting to know what happened and being able to handle it. I was teetering on that thin line and I was afraid I would topple over soon.
“When you were done with your mother, you crawled underneath the bed where you ultimately fell asleep, only to wake up later, remembering nothing and feeling nothing.”
I looked at him, allowing the nausea to filter out and the frustration to take over. Now that we were done gathering the puzzle pieces, I wanted to put them together and make sense of it. “How does that malevolent entity fit into all of this?”
“Something kept your whole family numb for you,” he answered as thunder and lightning continued to scream outside. “Your sister’s room corroborates this. Her door was locked, but you somehow managed to get in. This means that something unlocked it for you, granting you access to her.”
He measured the hushed room.
A blaze of enlightenment cloaked his eyes. “Something set this all up for you. Every family member saw you before you killed them. If they wanted to, they could’ve taken the gun and knife away from you and overpowered you in a heartbeat, but they either chose not to or they weren’t able to. The only thing I could surmise is that something must’ve kept them numb . . . kept them paralyzed so it would be easy for you to kill them. This is probably why your parents and sister didn’t run out when you shot your brother. Something must’ve cast a veil over their senses to prevent them from hearing the first gunshot.”
He smirked in disbelief, his expression genuinely bewildered.
“Something went to great lengths to make sure that their blood would get on your hands and your hands alone,” he thought out loud. “For whatever reason, it really wanted you to kill your own family.”
“And we’re still under the belief that I wasn’t possessed?” I asked, finding it difficult to believe that my six-year-old self could be sadistic enough to do something this inhumane.
“It is not a belief,” he whispered, his voice stern. There was an understanding look in his eyes, but behind it, I could also see firmness. “I know it doesn’t make sense . . . that it’s easier to believe that it was beyond your control because you were possessed. But it is important for you to remember that it was you who killed them. That sin is inarguable. A possessed human wouldn’t have that type of sin attached to them.”
He expelled a tired breath, raking his fingers through his hair in frustration. He looked extremely vexed. It seemed that this whole thing had him at a total loss as well.
He started to vocalize his thoughts as he gazed out the window.
“For a Source, it would make sense that you’d be cruel enough to do this and not have any guilt for it. But the thing about you specifically is that you do not have the temperament to kill people.” He faced me, his thoughts running a mile a minute. “You’re a very passive-aggressive individual. Your view on death is just that; you see it as a way of life rather than torture. For you, it would be more in your nature to keep your victims alive so that you can enjoy their misery—not kill them and release them of their suffering.” He glanced around the room again, something finally clicking in his mind. “With these stabbings and gunshot wounds, it seems that instead of doing it for amusement, you did it with a purpose.”
The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood. I stared dismally at the bed where the police said they found me stabbing my mother.
“It basically all comes back to whatever was in here with me fifteen years ago,” I said quietly. “It also comes back to why it set this whole thing up for me in the first place.”
“Another big thing that should be noted is that your house is part of the Holy Land,” he went on when I mentioned the evil entity. If it was even possible, his voice pulsed with more confusion. “No malevolent entity has the power to step foot here, especially not inside this house.” He scoffed to himself, shaking his head with growing perplexity. After a long, frustrated pause, he muttered, “What the hell was in here with you?”
A troubling thought besieged me. I widened my eyes, not believing that I didn’t pose this question before. I touched his arm, my face teeming with curiosity.
“Where did I get the gun?”
He looked at me, having yet to fully come out of his own thoughts. “What?”
“We never established where I got the gun,” I said again, reiterating something that the prosecutor completely bullshitted, saying that I got it from my dad’s closet. “I doubt my father or mother would own one, especially with a small child in the house. I may not remember much about them, but I remember bits and pieces of who they were. They would never allow a gun in here. It wouldn’t be in their nature to have something like that around their children.”
Comprehension began to spread over his face.
It was as if my words had reminded him of an important fact.
“Her feet were covered in dry mud,” he breathed out disbelievingly.
Mystification wrapped over me. “What?”
What was he talking about? Whose feet were covered in mud?
“When we met your six-year-old self the other night,” Eclipse clarified, his voice heightening. “Her feet were muddy.” He pointed to the gardens outside. “That night, she must’ve been outside before the massacre took place.”
With my mind swirling, I consulted the crime scene photos again and sure enough, there were little trails of dirt in the pictures, indicating that she did go outside during the course of the night.
We peered at the stormy scene outside the windows.
As my eyes traveled over the manicured gardens, a peculia
r observation hit me. “Is it normal that after fifteen years, everything still looks the same outside? That it hasn’t aged or changed at all?”
Eclipse whipped around to face me. “You didn’t pay people to take care of it over the years?”
I shook my head. “No. I told you. It’s been abandoned for years.”
Realization blazed in Eclipse’s eyes. With urgency glued beneath the soles of his shoes, he suddenly bolted for the stairs. Puzzled, I shadowed him, falling into step with him just before he opened one of the closets near the backyard. There, he grabbed a shovel and proceeded to speed out into the backyard.
“What is it?” I asked confusingly, grabbing a shovel as well and running after him.
“Something’s beneath the land,” he panted, quickening his pace after we immersed ourselves in the pelting rain.
I nearly keeled over at his declaration.
He stopped at the center of the backyard. Without saying anything else, he plunged the shovel into the damp ground and started digging. I had no idea what to do so I did my best to dig with him. The storm grew worse around us, the world darkening while streaks of lightning plagued the skies. Rain poured and poured and we kept digging until—
Clink!
We hit something that wouldn’t let us dig any further.
Four feet deep in the ditch, Eclipse and I had to hop out to grab a flashlight from our backpacks to see what we had struck. Hands fumbling, I pointed the flashlight in the direction of the hole we dug up.
I gasped when I saw what was beneath the land.
Blood.
Slates of frozen blood.
“What the hell is that?” I choked out while Eclipse peered unblinkingly at the frozen blocks of blood beneath us.