"Brim of Despair"
Part 1/1
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Date: August 2004
Summary: Ficlet. A lengthy drabble, really. Remus finally releases the werewolf within and the consequences are deadly.
He awoke in the forest. He opened his eyes when he felt the light of the sun behind them. He raised his fingers to his face to feel the cool morning breeze that lingered there. He was greeted by a silence and a bitter dread in his heart. It felt like a normal morning, to be alone and surrounded by beauty gone unappreciated. It felt like his life condensed into five seconds.
There was nothing to notice him stand, nor anything to observe him cleanse the blood from his face, hands and torso. The peaceful tall trees shook their leaves softly at the sky. Hard ground of dirt and grass spread out around him, simple and quite and unobtrusive. Small birds and creatures that had made their home in these woods for the many centuries it had stood ignored the presence of such a lowly being.
He gazed at the landscape around him, so inclusive yet so daunting with its innocence. It knew nothing of a war outside, nothing of the multitude of casualties and lives put asunder. It knew nothing of him. Too thin arms snaked around his naked form, holding himself still and protected. The dread in his heart had grown, sending sparks of panic through his form. He had been shivering.
Contented with the contrasting atmosphere, for to feel so ominous in such a tranquil place as this seemed appropriate, he began to search for his lost clothes. He could not remember where he had last left them. His mind was clouded and last night's events were distant in his memory. It was not even clear where he had started out.
So he searched, both memory and location, but he could not find what he needed. The land was barren of all material wont and his mind was locked from free investigation. It was aggravating and disconcerting and all perfectly normal for his life. Nothing he had ever wanted could be his. All the beauty in the world could be around him but he would still never find the shred of sanctuary he so desired.
He looked up to the canopy above, to the treetops, as if to ask the sky for help. Nature was instinctually to be trusted first, to be received as an old friend for service. Yet now the sky was empty except for leaves and silent except for their slight rustling. If it could help, it did not wish to. If it had a secret, it would not share.
It left him to himself; alone. So he stayed alone and continued to walk on an unplanned path of travel, passing unmarked trees and vacant ground. He walked until his legs were sore, his feet marred with black dirt, and his wounds still fresh, the blood now drying. Finally he sat to finish cleaning the red from off his body and limbs.
He brushed the crisps from off his chest but found no scar under it. He wiped the still drying blood from off his legs and there again found no cut from which it could have flowed. He raised a hand to chip away the blood from his arm, puzzled by his lack of injuries, and there found four crescent pocket marks on his forearm. Blood had leaked from them but not enough to cover his entire arm the way it did. He raked his fingernails against the strange indentations and discovered that they shared the same shape as his half-moon nails, though slightly smaller.
A revelation dawned upon him. The blood was not his.
Once again, he stared up at the sky, a sky that did not seem so bright anymore. The trees circling him, framing him, did not seem so peaceful. The ground beneath him appeared blacker then he could remember. Around him the forest grew darker, more oppressive. It mocked him, scorned him, congratulated him for accepting the animal inside.
Looking down at his hands, worn spindly and blood covered, he felt the tears well in his eyes as his brain unlocked the memories of the previous night and the details of how he became a murderer.
He licked his dried lips and suddenly realized he could still taste the metallic of the boy's blood there. He could still remember the sick sense of release it had brought him to rip the flesh from the young boy's body, to lick the blood off the corpse of an innocent. The meat of the body was not even eaten; it was just prey to be killed for the sake of killing, for the power and the freedom. It was his human side condoning the actions the werewolf within had always begged to be allowed.
In his stomach, he felt sick. Automatically, he leaned forward and retched. Very little emerged, the soup and tea he had eaten before transforming, some blood from the boy.
With that, he ran. He ran away from the woods. He ran towards humanity, towards the sanctity and sanity of being human, of knowing right from wrong. He ran with the panic of a beast in his veins. He ran with the terror of being a victim of that beast.
When he reached his cabin, he noticed the unused chains hanging off the cabin wall. He noticed his clothes lying undisturbed next to them, the key glimmering in the afternoon sun on top. The anger and remorse filled his heart to the brim of despair. It was entirely his fault, no longer just the wolf's but as well as his human side. He had let himself go, even if it was for one fleeting second, he had let himself allow the wolf to take charge, to destroy.
Now only the most severe punishment would do.
He stormed through the front door, barely remembering to close it. First to his bedroom to find appropriate clothing and then to the kitchen where an owl perched patiently at the window. He did not greet it, but simply sat at the mediocre wooden table and composed a letter to the correct officials. He signed it Remus J. Lupin and with that sealed the end of his life.
In not two hours, four Ministry officers were banging down his door to collect a murderous werewolf.