Beyond Harm
By Inscriber
Author's Note: I saw episode 18, Secrets. It so good, but it's really kinda creepy. Especially at the end. I mean, who else shivered with that last line?
Words of a Secret:
A small dirt grave that hides under a shady tree was all that was left of Greta Hayes.
Her ghostly figure was transparent, but not one of the cops saw her as they entered the place that had once been her home. She didn't want them to see though. She didn't allow them the sight of her non-existent tears. No one would be allowed to see her as she mended her broken heart while she sat over the grave that held her broken body. The tears were more felt than real though-death took away the ability to cry. Had she still breathed, though, Greta was positive she would have been crying.
Her translucent body wavered slightly, indicating her movement as she turned to view her make-shift tombstone. The rotting wood smelled of decay and festering rain, but at least people would know her name, though she was now unable to introduce herself. Her eyes flew to the word's that had maimed the headstone, the scraggly letters that had replaced her brother, "Greta Hayes-Beloved Sister". She read it again, standing unseen before her final resting place. Beloved Sister. The words clung to her mind. She wanted to feel something. She wanted her cheeks to flush red and for tears to build up behind her eyes. But they didn't. She could never cry again. How death mocked her. How it stole away her humanity even more than the demonic sword had stolen away her own brother's humanity.
She turned away from the grave to view the figure on the ground. He was regaining consciousness, a light moan escaping his gagged mouth. His form jerked in the night, suddenly aware before he began to thrash like the animal he had become. His eyes were wild and angry, but Greta watched impassively as the man that had once been her brother writhed against his restraints. The police would be out soon enough though. They would take him away. The would take away her murderer and her brother-though both of them bore the same name. The writhing on the ground stopped, and Greta returned her attention back to him. His eyes were locked on her. He could see. She had let him see. She loved him still. She just wanted him to see what he had done.
His eyes widened, and all movement, save the rise and fall of his chest, stopped.
As she walked over to him, Greta could see how he remembered her last night as clearly as she did. After all, this scene was not so different from the last night of her life. The roles however, were reversed. He was the scared one, his body covered in the newly forming dew.
She'd been so young. She'd been so scared. She could remember the coldest metal she'd ever felt tear into her chest like the raging claws of devil fingers. She could remember her brother's face leaning over hers as her vision died away into nothingness. He hadn't looked to regretful. He'd looked…disappointed. But nothing more. Where had her brother gone? Even now, now that her body was empty and hollow beneath the tree she'd played on so many times, she wondered where the smiling boy in the photo had gone.
She was standing above him now, her eyes tracing the person she'd thought she'd known so well in life. Obviously, though, she'd been wrong. She bent down, and she watched as her own brother flinched away from her hand-like she'd been the one holding a blade that night. She said nothing though, and only readjusted her reach so she could grab onto his gag. She gave the material a quick pull, and the fabric fell from his mouth-still intact but now not in front of his jaw, instead now hanging below his mouth. One more thing to remind her that she no longer lived.
Harm gasped heavily, thankful as the hand retreated back to his sister's side. He glanced up at her, his expression terrified but awed-and maybe something else that the poor girl could no longer associate with the man before her.
"Greta?" he asked, and his voice was cautious, more like the brother she had once known. It made her want to cry and to hug him and go trick-or-treating like they had the year before…but that would not happen. She could no longer hug or hold, she could no longer cry, and she could no longer partake in living though her life had been cut far too short.
"Greta, say something." The red haired man demanded, his dark and untamed hair curling darkly around his features. It was a plea, she could tell. A cry for reassurance. But what could she give him? He had already showed her his opinion of love.
Greta sat down right there, crossing her ghostly legs and planting herself in front of him.
Harm looked horrified by this, but he couldn't do anything about it. She was beyond Harm now, in more ways than one. She was beyond being harmed, she was beyond life, she was beyond Harm himself now.
"Harm wants to hear your voice." The man said desperately, and Greta frowned.
"Secret." She said finally, and he paused. She wanted to say so many things, ask so many questions.
Why?
Was it worth it?
Is what my headstone reads true?
But her lips, they only knew one word now. They could only speak the word her eyes had seen before all sight had left her.
Just then, the cops burst through their back door, spilling into the backyard with their guns drawn and their expressions fierce.
Greta stood up calmly, knowing why they were hear and knowing they could not see her ghostly form. They could see only Harm.
The descended down her brother quickly, hoisting him to his resisting feet as they recited to him the rights that were granted to him.
He did not pay attention though-he kept his eyes locked on her. They screamed one thousand different emotions. Hatred, love, pain, anxiety, fear. Regret. But the most dominant of the emotions was anger.
"Greta!" he screamed, thrashing wildly at in one police officer's arms, "GRETA!"
But she only watched, another police officer running through her to help his comrade as the two pushed the man who had once been her brother into the house. And then he was gone.
A few officer's stayed behind, their eyes locked on her grave with a disgusted kind of shock.
She did too, only the emotion missing from her face.
It was so unfair. She had emotion. She had once had feeling. She had once felt happy, and loved, she had once laughed so hard milk had come out her nose! She had been alive. But her face remained impassive, and no tears tugged at her eyes.
Beloved Sister.
And the sad thing was-she believed him.
But when the sun had set-the wilted flowers that had been tossed by her grave meant more than the words ever would.
She stepped pass the officers, to stand on her gave. As she fell into the ground to return to the body that had betrayed her, her eyes fell on a pink and glowing neon sign and she remembered the pain of a dagger ripping into her chest.
And right as she sunk inside her half-hearted coffin-she realized something. She still loved her brother. She found the words on her grave comforting.
But that was a secret.
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Wow…okay, that was kind of dark. This officially counts as the Halloween story I neglected to write.
Please review. I'm not sure about this one.