J's Diary entry.
5th November 2018
I don't know why I'm writing again. My doctor said it would help numb the pain better than any medication, he thought writing down what I remembered from the most painful days of my life would help me in some way. Somehow, it would stop hurting, but nothing has helped me.
It all began 7 years ago today. The day I lost my mother, but even before that, pain was a big part of my life.
My father, Angel White was a maniacal man. He owned a pharmaceutical company, that only seemed to make things harder on me. He was happy up until we were exiled from the US along with every supernatural being in 2002.
A group of supernaturals ruined everything for people like me. We were looked down upon, even children as young as I was were called monsters because 4 men wanted to change the world. We were deemed dangerous and sent to a remote island off the west coast of the United States.
Of course that made it difficult for Angel to run his business, so he took out his rage on me. He blamed everyone on the island for their own exile, something out of control, but he couldn't beat every single one of them. Instead he beat the hell out of me, starving me for days, depriving me of sleep and water, torturing his own son was what seemed to get him off.
Then came his great plan. A way to free himself from the island filled with people he hated.
Kill me
Kill Mom
And he would be allowed to return as he was solely human, nothing even remotely supernatural about him.
He decided he would do it in such a way that it could only be seen as an accident, or at least that would have been the case if he'd hired someone of any use.
My birthday came around on the 5th of November 2011, so he decided to 'treat' me by taking me to Spain. Something that I knew would end badly, even back then. Angel rented a car from the Airport the second we touched down. He was the one who drove us to our deaths.
His men were waiting in an armoured car in a rural area with plenty of ravines and hills. They picked their moment to strike, forcing the car off of the road and into a small ravine with a creek in it. The car landed on it's left side, meaning Mom died the second the car hit the ground and I had been knocked out. When I woke up, I knew what had happened.
Angel had disappeared from the car, almost as if he'd never been there. Mom's body was still there, her eyes closed with a weak smile on her face, the blood trickling out of her mouth, nose and ears blended in with he lipstick and dress.
I didn't know what to do, I didn't have the experience I do now. In that state, I couldn't even cry, all I could do was try and escape. I opened the door and scrambled out of the car only to cut my leg open on the broken glass.
Sadly, the story doesn't get much happier than that for a while.
I didn't get far, I was tired, bleeding and confused.
My vision darkened before I fainted on the bank of the creek.
Sometimes I wonder if I'd been better off drowning in that creek with what happened next. The men who had tried to kill me had decided that I was worth more alive to them than dead. They picked me up and threw me in the car before taking me to some shack in the sticks. When I awoke, I was locked up in a cage with a bandage around my leg and my clothes missing.
Chained up.
There was only one word that I could use that summed up my situation at that point.
Fucked.
They told me that I was to be sold on a slave market, that I would fetch a high price based on what I was.
I can't even describe in words what happened those two nights I was there. 48 hours of pain and suffering.
I was there for 48 hours before they'd decided they'd had their fun, I can still remember the group weighing up the positives and negatives of straight up killing me. In their confusion, they weren't aware that they'd left me unbound for some time. When they were at the height of their tiredness, I made a move.
I killed every single one of them with my bare hands, with strength I shouldn't have had, I broke bones, ripped throats and stabbed them. Today, I could do something like that without thinking, knowing what would happen if I didn't act, it wouldn't be an issue now.
Back then though, things were harder for me. It took me a while to weigh up my options before I did something. Sadly though, at that point and time I didn't exactly care about being killed.
Minutes after I'd gotten my breath back, I walked over to the door and tried to open it. It was like fate had decided to give me a decent hand for once. As I grabbed the handle, the door was kicked open and I went flying back of course. Due to the shock, I was knocked out, but I had a decent idea of what had happened.
Someone had found me, and I was either saved or boned. Seeing as I'm writing this down, you can imagine what happened.
-The document ends. Jason did not continue his records and decided to try alternative therapy-
-Lara-
The second that we got into the hut, the smell hit me more than anything else. Blood and other bodily fluids were flying in the air.
The scene was beyond my comprehension, I couldn't figure out what it was that had happened. The bodies were all mutilated beyond recognition apart from one.
A small boy.
One I recognized.
Jason White was the son of one of my closest friends, Rebecca White. It was her that had helped me out of a tight spot in China, healing my wounds after a failed attempt at climbing the mountain she resided on. I was younger then, but it didn't change the fact I wouldn't be here without her.
Now, her son was lying, strewn amongst the dead bodies, his own body torn up quite a bit itself. Cautiously, I moved in to check him for any sign of life. He was breathing, but the sound his lungs made as he did so was like sandpaper being rubbed on rusty metal. To be honest, I didn't know what to do at that point, to move him would be dangerous in case there was something in his lungs, but I didn't have a choice in the matter.
He was unconscious, which was somewhat good so he wouldn't be in pain as I moved him, but the feeling was off, I couldn't do anything about it, with the amount of bodily fluid on him I couldn't help but feel off as I picked him up out of the pile of bodies. The blood was the worst of it, with how much there was on Jason I couldn't figure out if it was his own, making me move him faster.
Sully and Nate had come to give me back up, Nate staying in the truck for the entire time. Sully seemed to be the only one of us that wasn't on the verge of throwing up. Knowing that Jason could be in a critical condition, I had a stretcher in the back of the truck to hold him if he needed it. Sully had brought it over to me so that I wouldn't need to carry Jason. Never the less, it was still an unpleasant task, it could have been worse, if Jason had died in there I wouldn't have known what to do.
When I placed him on the stretcher though, something happened. As soon as I took my arms out from underneath him, his eyes opened weakly and stared at me. He was definitely responsive, if only for a short time. Suddenly his arm shot up at me like lightning, his hand clenched the air in front of my face like he was trying to grab something. We all watched as he weakly tried to grab something, he was clearly thinking that he was still in the shack, that he still needed to fight.
It was either realising we weren't a threat or the lack of energy that made Jason's arm fall to his side. Either way we were not wasting any time, Sully helped me survey the damage to Jason's body.
His wrists were cut, several times on each wrist. There were several cuts on his back and front too, red marks were he'd been hit with a whip or something similar. The only thing we could do at the time was sterilize the wounds and bind them as tightly as we could with bandages and gauze to help with the bleeding.
One thing was for certain and that was that without help Jason was going to die, but we couldn't waste time messing with the Spanish. We had to get him back into the car for a start.
The car had been modified so that the back looked completely normal from the outside, the back windows had been blacked out. When you opened the trunk, all you could see was a stack of storage cases. Inside was a different story, we knew Jason would need to be snuck out and he was most likely injured. In an attempt to keep him comfortable, we loaded him into the trunk and kept Nate with him. That way if something went wrong, Nate was there to keep an eye on him.
The journey onto the boat was a simple one, we weren't that far from the harbour to which we took a ferry. We gave Nate a radio and told him to stay with Jason until we came back to get off the ferry. Jason appeared to sleep throughout the trip, Nate managing to stay awake throughout the trip although complaining about the lack of snacks and the fact that Jason would occasionally have a coughing fit.
Getting off the boat and travelling back to my home was one thing, getting Jason out of the car was another. Even with everything we'd done to stabilize him he was still not responsive, and we found out exactly what Nate was talking about with Jason's coughing fits. There would be nothing from him for an hour and all of a sudden he started coughing like someone was trying to force something down his throat.
The more I thought about what had happened to him, the more I felt sick, the more I realised what was actually done to him.
It wasn't until we arrived back at the manor and got Jason into the capable hands of a doctor did we really find out what had happened to him.
The doctor who had waited in his car for us walked out and came over to the car, took one look at Jason and looked at the rest of us with a sorry expression. I had Nate help the doctor carry Jason up to the room we were going to let him stay in whilst he recovered.
Whilst Nate took Jason upstairs I took Sully into the kitchen and did what I could.
I put the kettle on.
"Jesus, did you see the way he looked at us Lara?" Sully worried as the kettle began to boil and he pulled some cups from the cupboard.
"Of course I did, he'll be fine Sully. That doctor is the best in the country, I'm sure he'll be able to help him out." I focused on making the tea whilst Sully still looked at me with a worried expression.
"Kid." Sully started again.
"He'll be fine Sully." I grasped the counter in frustration.
Nate wandered into the kitchen, interrupting Sully and I's argument.
"The doc kicked me out, is everything alright?" He asked, clearly knowing it wasn't.
"It's fine Nate, here." I handed him a cup of tea and passed another to Sully before taking my own.
Knowing that I couldn't stand around and wait for the doctor, I decieded to lead the others in the main room so we could wait and drink the tea. Whilst we waited, a tense and tired conversation played out.
"Lara, explain to me again why we didn't get him to a doctor back in Spain." Sully huffed as he fell back into the couch with a relieved sigh as he did so.
"Whoever did this to him was bound to go back to the hut at one point, I wanted to keep his trail as cold as possible, this way no-one can trace him coming back here." I explained, I myself relaxing in an armchair facing the couch.
Sully shook his head as he looked towards the fireplace, above the mantle was a picture of my parents who sadly were no longer with us.
"What about his Dad? Shouldn't he be told about this?" Sully rubbed his forehead in frustration.
"Angel White can't be trusted Victor, he's an abusive person. Half the scars you saw or Jason's body are from his father. So no, Sully, he shouldn't. Besides, he was supposedly in the car as it carrered off into that vally." I replied bitterly, remembering my last encounter with Angel not being a pleasant one.
"Do you think he drove it off into the vally, tried to take his wife and kid with him?" Nate paced around, clearly worrying about Jason's well being.
Both Sully and I groaned at the idea, it was a depressing thought and not one we needed at the moment.
"Nate, when he comes around Jason will tell us what happened. The doctor should take care of him for now." I tried to get Nate to calm down.
"But it makes the most sense!" Nate all but yelled at us.
"Kid, calm it!" Sully raised his voice.
Nate had that deer in the headlights look to him again, Sully never had to raise his voice with Nate in front of me before, even though Nate was sixteen sometimes he still needed to be straightened out.
"Nate, it wasn't that long ago you were in the same boat as that kid, he's got no-one left out there for him, as far as we know anyway. All he's got is us, three strangers who he likely thinks are with the guys who did all this to him. The last thing he needs is us theorising about what happened to him." Sully spoke calmly once he had Nate's full attention.
Nate looked sort of defeated for a moment before he really told us what was on his mind.
"The guys in the shack, did he kill them?" Nate pressed.
"Nate, when he's ready, he'll tell us what we want to know. For now we all need to calm down and let the doctor do what he can for him." I tried to get Nate thinking about something else, for all it was worth anyway.
Nate did eventually calm down and sit on the couch next to Sullivan. It wasn't long before Sully asked a burning question.
"So, what happened to the rest of the guys who stayed here?" He questioned, trying to change the subject entirely.
"Winston is visiting some family in Yorkshire, Alistair's doing some work for Cambridge and Zip's in New York." I explained where they were.
"Is he teaching?" Nate asked, he always used to pester Alistair about one thing or another.
"No, he's helping them with some research about renaissance England. I don't have any leads on anything myself and didn't mind really." I smiled lightly, remembering Nate pestering Alistair about Drake.
"Same here, all the treasure in the world and we can't pick up one lead." Sully sighed in a slightly irritated manner.
"Something'll come up. It always does." Nate lit up a little bit.
Sully huffed with a smile, we were all slightly happier than we were beforehand.
That was until the doctor came walking down the stairs, a solemn look on his face. He was carrying the bag filled with the tools of his trade, clearly he had done all he could, that didn't seem like a very encouraging thing based on the look on his face.
"I'm glad you're all laughing." He sighed bitterly.
"What? What's happened?" Nate's face fell entirely.
The doctor looked around at us all before taking a breath.
"He's alive, but barely.
Cutting him wasn't the only thing they did to him in that shack, it's clear that they've beaten him badly. He's suffering from some internal bleeding that I can mitigate with medicine. I've sutured the wounds on his wrists and back and yes, they will scar.
There is something else, he's clearly been brutally raped by those men. I've taken a blood sample and swabbed his saliva to take some tests, I'll get them back to you within the week. If he's contacted something serious you'll have no choice but to admit him to a hospital, there'll be nothing I can do.
I've given him some fluids that should keep him stable for the time being, when he comes around he'll be in some serious pain so I'm giving you some codeine you can give him.
If you insist on keeping him out of a hospital, you'll need to keep in contact with me. I should be able to help you over the phone if need be." He explained solemnly before placing a box of codeine and a box of hemostatic medicine on the table.
It took a look at the codeine and realised just how much pain Jason would have been in, the capsules were huge for what they were.
"No more than 4 a day, for a human that is." The doctor sighed.
"Wait, what?" Sully began.
"He's only half Tiwinoku, I'll give him 3 a day just in case. Thank you doctor." I thanked him for his work.
"Tiwi-what?" Nate looked at me confused.
"It's what you paid me for, just try and keep that fact to yourself, supernaturals still don't have the best reputation here. Good day." The doctor gave me a brief smile before walking out of the front door with haste.
I looked at the others, who were still waiting for an explanation.
"What?" I was more confused than they were.
"You didn't tell us that he was supernatural, Jesus Lara." Sully sounded shocked.
"Oh grow up Sullivan, not every supernatural is a madman." I sighed bitterly at him.
"What's a Tiwinoku?" Nate pushed me slightly.
I sighed, it should have been obvious from what I'd just said to Sully.
"A Tiwinoku is a supernatural species of human, he's only half supernatural anyway." I explained briefly.
"After that terror attack in 2002, all the supernaturals in the US were exiled to an island because they thought it was safer for them. The only reason Jason ended up in Spain was that Angel owns that company." I finished off.
Sully was so flustered by the fact I wasn't worried about him that his face was slowly turning red.
"Lara, do not just tell me you glazed over the fact that there is a time bomb upstairs of which when he wakes up is going to be scared, pissed and in pain." Sully was so freaked out that I had to do something to calm him down.
"Alright, in which case I'll stay next to him until he wakes up then." I stood up and began walking up the stairs.
Regardless of the paranoia around supernatural people, I knew Jason wouldn't have the energy to be violent to me. So up I went up to Jason's room -which was next to mine so I could keep an ear open for him- and opened the door.
As I walked into the room I realised just how much blood was on Jason's body when we'd found him. His body was clean now, the doctor must have washed him down to get the dirt off of him and reduce the risk of infection.
His breathing was much cleaner now, he wasn't raspy like he was previously. The doctor was worth every penny, Jason seemed to be on the way to recover quickly, but my hope was quickly diminished. I peeled back the quilt covering Jason's torso from the cold. Clearly, the damage had been done, the bandages and hemostatic patches all over his body told me more than the doctor could have ever done.
Gingerly I put the quilt back over him and let him rest. As quietly as I could, I picked up the chair from the desk and placed it next to the bed and sat there with him for a few moments in silence.
Carefully I took his hand in mine and squeezed in gently.
"Rebecca, I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me." I spoke quietly as not to disturb Jason or alert the others as to what I was doing.
"Don't worry about Jason, I'll take care of him. I promise you, they'll have to go through me to get to him."
I didn't really know what to call what I was doing at that point. Was I praying?
"Rest easy, old friend." I smiled, knowing it didn't matter.
I wished I could have said those things to Rebecca myself. Something told me that she heard my voice though, almost as if she was watching over her son with me sat next to him. Strangely enough, I wasn't the only one who had that feeling.
Jason began to come around a little, his eyes half opened and he looked around the room as though he was looking for someone. When he saw me, his hand clenched slightly before relaxing. He had a panicked look on his face, as though he thought of me as a threat. Quickly I tried to shush him, stop him from moving around and causing himself more discomfort than he was likely already in.
"Don't worry, you're safe here. Nothing's going to happen to you." I spoke calmly as I ran my fingers through his hair. It was important I kept doing this, if I'd stopped Jason would likely have started panicking further.
He calmed down though, still keeping a cautious eye on me.
"I'm a friend of your mother's. Do you remember me?" I asked him.
He looked at me for a moment, remaining still as he scanned my face with his eyes. He nodded slightly, but even he didn't seem very convinced.
"You were a little young then, can you speak?" I tried to get him to talk with me.
He shook his head before reaching for the bedside table with his bandaged arm. Carefully I took it and put it back on the bed.
"What, this?" I asked pointing at the lamp.
Jason shook his head in a frustrated manner.
The only other thing on the table was a notepad and pen the doctor had left behind, I held it to Jason who took it carefully and placed it on the bed next to himself, before grabbing the pen and writing.
When he was finished, I took the notepad and read the note.
"Dad killed mom, then his friends were supposed to kill me, but they decided to try to sell me in a slave market instead. Who was the guy sleeping in the car with me when we were on the boat?" His handwriting was scrawled, it would be with the angle he'd been writing at.
"Ok, let's try not to think about that for the moment. The boy who was watching you in the car was Nate, he's a friend of a friend, he's very nice but he likes to talk a lot. What about you Jason?" I tried to change the subject.
Jason grimaced when I said his name like he couldn't stand to be called it.
"PLEASE DON'T CALL ME THAT" He scrawled again when he'd gotten the book back.
"Everytime someone calls me that all I can think about is Dad doing the things he's done to me. Just call me J.
I don't talk because he can hear me, if he hears me now he'll know I'm alive and he'll come for me.
I don't want him to come for me." He continued to the next page, he was becoming visibly upset 'talking' about it.
"Ok, J. Listen, I'm going to have someone stay next to you for the next couple of days. We're going to take care of you until you can get back on your feet. In the meantime, I need you to do me a favour. I know you're a supernatural and really don't mind, but please try not to use your powers here." I changed the subject again.
Jason started to look confused like he hadn't heard anything about supernaturals.
"Why?" He asked using the book again.
"Because Ja-... J, you're in a country that still isn't very accepting of supernatural beings, so I need you to be careful about what you do." I made my point sternly.
"Right now I need you to be a good boy and rest, you've been through a lot. You've got a lot of blood to make up, so I don't want you moving around today, especially seeing as those stitches are still fresh, the last thing we need is to tear one, right?"
J nodded in agreement with me and lent his head back into the cushions, looking up at the ceiling. Right then and there, I knew for a fact he was recovering quickly, it was part of being a Tiwinoku that caused this, in a few days the wounds could be healed and gone, but the trauma was going to last much longer.
His blue eyes and his steely gaze into the ceiling gave me all the evidence I needed, those wounds may never heal and Jason would likely be driven by the memory of the previous night to do something reckless.
At the time though I was worrying about nothing, J wouldn't have been able to do anything in the condition he was in, so I took it upon myself to find something to keep J's mind occupied whilst he recovered. There was nothing in the room that would work, so I took a walk around the house looking for something that could keep his hands occupied and possibly help him heal faster.
In the library, I had a lot of books, not something I could really give him to read through, as far as I knew he wasn't the history type. On thing I was sure of was that I didn't want him being bored either. I did have something in the library though, it was a photo album that J's mother had given me, there were a few pictures of Jason that caught my attention but there was one that gave me a relatively good idea.
In the photo Jason stood in front of what looked like a shooting range, holding a lever action rifle and dressed like a cowboy. The smile gave me an indication that he was interested in guns, something told me that giving him an actual gun wasn't going to go down well with the others. Taking it up with the others seemed to be a waste of time as Sully didn't want much to do with him, Nate looked as though he was afraid to be with Jason. Perhaps if they stayed in the same room as him for a while, they'd have a change of heart.
Sully
I heard the door to the library shut behind Lara as she went looking for something, I took that as my opportunity to take a look at Jason, and maybe get a better idea of what he was. Quickly I got up the stairs and into the room as quietly as I could so that I wouldn't disturb the kid.
I walked over to the four poster bed that he was pretty much glued to at that point and time, there was an IV bag hanging off the top of the bed and filling him with fluids. I felt guilty for a while after seeing him like that, even though he was supernatural, but it didn't change the fact that he could still be dangerous.
I noticed there was a notebook next to him, clearly, he'd been writing on it. Carefully I took it and began to take a look at what he'd written. Out of context, it seemed like he'd lost his mind to be writing the things he'd written, but based on how he had been breathing in the car I reasoned he was using the book to talk to Lara.
Reading his account of what had happened was strange, clearly, he didn't want to go into detail of what had happened, but he knew it happened.
"Damn, poor kid." I sighed as I looked at him.
He was clean, but still looked troubled. That was until his eyes opened, he looked at me in shock and grabbed the pen next to him and gripped it firmly. Quickly I took his wrist and tried to wrestle the pen out of his hand, but damn the kid still had some strength left.
"Kid, stop, you're going to tear a stitch!" I raised my voice as I tried to reason with him.
It just seemed to make the situation worse, clearly, he was upset and still felt like he was in danger. As he got more upset he stopped wrestling with me and let the pen go, still looking at me like I was the scariest thing he'd ever seen.
"Hey, I'm a friend of Lara's. Try and calm down, Kid." I tried to calm him down as I put the pen on the pad and set it on the table next to me.
His eyes darted between me, the notepad and the door before I gave up.
"Alright, I'm going to give you the pad. If you try and stab me with the pen again, you'll be in trouble kid." I lent forward to him.
It looked like he was thinking about it for a few seconds before he nodded, so cautiously I gave him the notepad.
He scribbled on it and gave it back to me.
"Where am I?"
"You're in England, safest place you could possibly be right now kid." I started to smile to give him a sense of security as I gave him back the notepad.
He took the pad and began to write on it again, but he stopped halfway through, the pen resting on the paper like it was nothing to worry about. The condition he was in though combined with the uneasy look on his face told me something was resting on his mind, clearly, something wasn't right.
"Kid, whatever's on your mind, tell me and I'll see if I can help you with it." I was genuinely trying to help, keeping him calm seemed like the best option but I didn't want dark thoughts brewing in his mind.
Eventually, he continued to write, his hand shaking more so as he wrote. He was about to cross a line through what he'd written but I'd taken the pad before he could do anything else.
"I don't know what's wrong with me. I killed those men in there like it was nothing, I've never done something like that before. What happened to me?" He'd written, but the last part was barely readable with how much his hand had been shaking.
"You were pushed too far, kid." I spoke simply.
Jason had been a victim of a terrible act, a crime against nature. It was something I witnessed myself and every time I'd managed to do something, even if it meant drawing my revolver. The kid didn't have the luxury of a gun, he had to kill them with his bare hands. At the time I figured that I knew how he felt like there was nothing I could do except the extreme and that was the last thing I ever wanted to do.
The kid thought he was a murderer when in reality he'd defended himself.
I couldn't say he didn't know what he was doing, he clearly did as he remembered the whole thing.
One thing I could say though was that he was brave.
I didn't know how long he'd been in that shack, any amount of time would have been enough to send me over the edge and into fight mode, but the kid must have been so damn scared he didn't know what to do until it clicked.
"Sometimes in life there's something that you don't want to do because at the time you think it's the wrong thing to do. The thing is you'll end up doing it and afterwards you'll feel like you've hit rock bottom. That there's nowhere for you to go." I started trying to lift the kid's spirits, but it didn't seem to work.
I handed the pad back to him carefully.
"Where do you think you can go from here kid?" I asked gently.
He scribbled before showing me the pad.
"No kid, where do you think you can go from the lowest point there is?" I asked as I rubbed my forehead, trying to understand what he was thinking.
I was interrupted by the kid tapping on the pad.
"Up" It read.
"That's right kid. Things can only get better from here." I smiled again.
Jason smiled weakly at me, before looking at the window. Light was dying outside, with how long it took us to get Jason back to England, it was starting to get a little late. Not to mention the rain clouds surrounding the area, with how cold it was outside, it wouldn't have surprised me if snow was coming.
"Remember that kid, for now, try and get some rest." I patted his arm gently.
He grabbed my arm quickly, but almost instantly let go. I realised that it was too soon to try contact with him, it'd take a couple of days at least to get him approachable in that way.
"Alright Kid, sorry." I nodded realising why he'd grabbed me.
Jason
The older guy walked out, leaving me on my own in the room. It was a nicer room than the one I was in previously, it didn't have me any less on edge.
Anxiety struck me, being on my own made some sense, but I still had thoughts in my mind about what had happened. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't sleep, every time I got close to sleeping all I could see was one of their faces, the men in the shack.
With what Sully had said to me, things seemed more bearable. After the fourth time of trying to sleep failed me, I laid in bed for what seemed like an hour, staring at the ceiling and trying to think of something to take my mind off of what had just happened to me.
I looked around the room to find that no-one was there, so I took the initiative and sat up in the bed, pulled the sheet off of me and swung my legs off of the bed. With the IV in my arm still, I couldn't move anywhere. My legs didn't hurt me anymore which was a blessing, what was also a blessing was the fact that a note on the bedside table was left for me.
"J, I wish I could stay with you but we're all so tired that we need the sleep. Sully said it would be a good idea to leave you alone for a while and I tend to agree.
There's a bathroom behind the door on your left, just don't shower or anything until we're awake, you'll need to change your bandages afterwards.
Lara."
At the time, I didn't want to go to the bathroom, I wanted to go over to the window to take a look at the world again. From the plane to Spain, seeing the ocean span for mile was strangely beautiful even though I couldn't stand being in the deep water, it was the depressed dark side of my brain that made me think of it as a sign of freedom, but the dreams of living on the ocean, like on a boat or something was still on my mind, it was still the most calming thing I was had at the time.
Carefully, I pinched the IV tube together and pulled out the needle in my vein. After closing the valve on the IV tube and hooking the needle to the bag, I tried to stand up, but it took me a few moments to get my footing, I was so drowsy with being on my back for what seemed like days, but I still managed to stay standing.
As cautiously as I could possibly manage, I walked over to the window to take a look. The rain had started to pour outside, but as I looked up to the sky, I saw what looked like snow beginning to fall. With a smile, I neared the window only to see frost begin to form as I neared it. I wondered why this continued to happen, it seemed like it was only in the winter months that this began to happen.
I knew I was supernatural, I didn't need Sully to tell me that, I knew I was supernatural from the cold feeling around my wounds like my body was trying to freeze the wounds to make the hurting stop.
No amount of supernatural powers could stop me feeling another pain, a pain that would haunt me for years.
My mother was dead and I did nothing to stop it.
My mood darkened as my left leg began to shake from under me, quickly I grabbed the small desk in front of me to stop myself falling over. I knew there was something that I could do.
Mom told me about the legends surrounding Tiwinoku and their beliefs, one of their fundamental beliefs were about the dead and how you could communicate with them.
The most common way to communicate the dead was to write them a letter and set it on fire. There were things I had to say to mom, things that she had to know before my time came, things I wouldn't be able to tell her after I died. It was best to get it out of the way and if anything it would have made me feel so much better.
Thankfully the desk had some paper and pens on it, it must have been in case something happened and I didn't have anything to do, something to keep my mind occupied.
I took a piece and set it down in front of me and sat with the pen on the top of it.
"Mom
I know there were things that we couldn't say with Dad around, especially with dad around.
I blamed you for so much, I blamed you because you wouldn't take me away from him, you wouldn't let me have a life away from him. I could sit here all day thinking about how good my life could have been if you'd just taken me after the first time he hit me. I mean, after he cut my abdomen open to see what my insides looked like I would have picked up my kid and ran as far as I could.
It doesn't matter though, you're dead now and he's somewhere out there, waiting for me.
Unfortunately, I can't bring you back, but I can send you this letter.
I only ask that you look over me and you help me wherever you can, I know Dante definitely will be.
That place I was in after they found me again, what they did to me and what I did to them is something I will never be able to forget. I won't need to though, I'll be there looking after myself, making sure that this can never happen again.
I can't begin to wonder what I'm going to do now, but knowing you're at rest makes this much more bearable." I began to write.
Suddenly I began to feel selfish, I didn't want her looking over me, knowing that in the future I could easily be hurt again.
"I don't want you to see me in pain, so please don't look over me for long, I need you to be happy wherever you are now.
I know there were things you wanted to tell me, but I'll never know unless I go home and figure it out, I promise when I get home I'm going to find what it was you wanted to tell me. When I do, I'm going to make you proud. I promise you, I'll do everything I can to make this world better, do something to make people happier.
I promise you this as well.
There's no way I'm letting him get away with this, there's no way I'll let him.
Be free, Mom.
I'm sorry."
I finished the letter to what I felt was enough after all mom never liked reading much. Carefully, I folded up the letter just like mom had shown me in the past into the shape of a crane.
I dragged myself up from the desk and walked over to the door. With the scrub pants the doctor had given me I was modest enough to be seen. I opened the door and walked through the corridor of the manor. Everything about the house was grand, how it was kept clean was a mystery to me. When I opened the door on the other side of the corridor, I found myself looking over a balcony into the main area of the manor.
It was huge, the floor below was made of stone and the rugs scattered around made it seem more homely, the fireplace was perfect for what I needed. There were still embers of light coming from the fireplace, enough for what I needed though. I walked down the stairs to the area in front of the fireplace and looked at the massive portrait above it.
A man and woman, clearly husband and wife were pictured together, I figured they were Lara's parents based on the fact she clearly owned the house. For a while, I began to wonder about what had happened to them, how it affected Lara and how she managed to climb that barrier after the fact.
It wasn't until I felt a warm hand on my shoulder that I realised I'd been staring at the painting the whole time, of which it was clearly a few hours.
"Are you alright?" Lara asked as she came close to the side of me.
I nodded, it was the only thing that I could do. I was about to pocket the crane until I realised it wasn't in my hand anymore. Quickly, I looked around for it to see it at my feet on the floor.
"How long have you been down here?" She asked, looking concerned about my well being.
I shrugged, not knowing myself. I showed her the crane and pointed at the fireplace before pointing at myself then the portrait and then tapped my head again.
Lara smiled, still clearly worried about me.
"Come on, let me get you back to bed." She tried to get me to leave, but I couldn't until I sent the letter to mom.
I shook my head before pointing at the crane, then the fireplace, then the ceiling.
"J, come on. What are you trying to do?" Lara bent down to be eye level with me.
Frustrated, I pointed at the crane and made a motion that I'd written on it, pretended to throw it at the fire and pointed at the ceiling and guestered that someone would read it.
"Ah. Is it a letter for your mother?" She asked.
I nodded, to which Lara smiled before she straightened up and let me walk over to the fireplace, the embers had died but it didn't matter.
I kneeled down to the fireplace and closed my eyes. For moment, I felt close to mom, but I knew that it was only in my mind. After a moment of reflection, I place the paper crane on the fireplace and blew gently at the ashes. A few embers managed to rise and fall onto the paper, after the paper began to start smouldering a little, I blew again until the crane began to burn fully.
I stayed there, kneeled on the floor in front of the fire until the crane turned to ashes. Lara knelt down next to me as well, staying with me until I raised my head. I began to doubt my faith, after all I was never one for prayer, but at the time it seemed right to do. Don't get me wrong, I was on the verge of tears, but I kept a straight face, knowing that she was watching over me.
How I hoped she hadn't been watching for long.
"Come on, let's get you some breakfast. How did you know how to use the IV?" Lara patted me on the back as she stood up.
I promise this is the last time I rewrite this chapter.