Next update! xD A little too soon but no time for waiting. This will be the last for the week so hope you enjoy it. Next week, we'll be continuing where we left of -w- with sad angst death...
Interlope II
The Part of the Story Nobody Hear: The Wonder Without Answer
That day...was when the nightmares begun.
—Fall, XXXVI. Year Two—
"What you see...is exactly what you're going to get."
"Please! Someone! Someone, help!"
"Aw, how sad. Let's try again. C'mon, one more time. Let's go!"
I woke abruptly to cold sweat and to a silent night. The wind blew outside our window and the faint sound of the cricket from outside kept coming through. I held onto my head and calmed my breath before trying to figure out what had happened.
But I knew too well what it was. It had been happening ever since Alice showed me those images of Claire. Every night...every single night I dreamt of them. And every single, damned time I tried saving her something worse happened. Her death would be even more gruesome than the one before. No matter what, it would happen and still...I tried stopping it.
This was...the thirty-fifth time.
I gazed beside me to find Claire sleeping peacefully and soundly. Thinking some water would do me good, I get up and head for the jug that's always in our room at night. I served myself a glass of water and gazed up at the mirror on the dresser.
At catching the glimpse of my reflection I let go of the glass as it shatters on the floor.
My eyes...they were specked in bright scarlet.
"Cloude...?" Not daring to turn at her calling I simply manage to gaze down at the broken crystal. "Was that you? Are you okay?"
"Y-Yeah," I stammered somewhat. "I dropped the glass of water. Nothing happened though. I'll just clean it up and head back to bed."
"Oh, all right." She yawned and I heard her drop on the bed. I sighed in relief that she hadn't noticed. After picking up the glass that I could and throwing it away, I peaked at my reflection again. It wasn't my imagination. On my cobalt eyes were specks of scarlet.
—3:00 pm—
"We'll stop for now." Fang's sudden declaration after our sparring surprised me somewhat.
"Already? But I still wish to—" Lily's sudden smack on my head made me curse under my breath before she stood beside me.
"No buts! You're too good sometimes. It's getting hard to find something for you to learn," she chided with her hands on her hips. With resignation towards that, I began putting my things away.
It was then that Fang caught me alone. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," I answer not wanting to make eye contact with him.
"You don't seem that well to me. Is everything really okay?"
"Nothing is wrong." Just that I keep seeing my sister die without being able to do anything. Nobody ever knows how to save her in my dreams. But maybe... "Is the master in his study?"
"Yes, why are you asking?" he inquired a bit surprised I asked about him.
"For no reason. Thanks." Before he could question me more, I ran out and headed for Master's study. Catching my breath at the door, I knocked twice before hearing his baritone voice allowing me entrance.
At poking my head in, I saw him watching from his desk and fully turn to face me when I entered. "Cloude."
"Master." I bowed before him before heading inside.
"Is something the matter?"
A grimace came to me at how easy to read I was turning out to be. At first, I was reluctant but who better would understand but the man that looked over us. The one enity that has lived through the centuries, Glen Baskerville. "Yes, actually. I...wish to discuss something with you."
With that one sentence, I started pouring out my every fear and dread that had started with those dreams. I never once mentioned about Alice. It felt that the reason she was locked up in that tower was because of something. And that something we weren't supposed to know about. So I excluded those parts and told him about my recurrent nightmares.
"I see," he said once I finished. "And you say they happen every night?"
"Without fail."
"If that's the case then it seems that one factor coincides with those dreams. Clarice." Somehow, I was dreading he would mention her.
"What would you suggest, Glen-sama?"
"To try something." He came from his chair over to where I was and knelt to face me. "I'll look further into this when I can but for now it would seem that separating you from Claire would be best for you."
"Separating...from Claire?"
"If it doesn't work, you can go back. But nothing will change if we don't try something."
So, I accepted his offer. That day while Claire was out during her practice, servants took my belongings to my new room. It was far from our old room and it was somewhere I wouldn't have to face her when I awoke. Glen-sama had theorized that the nightmares happened when I would sleep with Claire in the same room. And seeing as the nightmares were about her, I saw no flaw in that argument. The further I was from her, the less I would experience them.
Simple and clean.
—Winter, XXIX. Year Two—
Jack came to my room this afternoon. He gave me my birthday present.
"A broche?" I asked looking at the jewel.
"It's a set," he explained. "You've got the blue one. Claire has the green one."
"They're a pair." Two of a kind, like us.
"I don't understand why you shun her away," he inquired as if he were concerned. "It's been hard for her to be without you. Reconsider your choices. It's still not too late."
"I'm certain." He seemed to accept and simply left me alone.
That night, I took a picture of Claire and I that we had taken some days after arriving here. With a pair of scissors, I cut the two into sizes for the lockets inside the broches. Putting Claire's into mine, I dared and snuck out to her room. She was already sound asleep and wouldn't wake. At seeing she had left the broche on her nightstand, I grabbed it and placed the picture inside.
Please, don't forget me. I'm doing this for you. Just...wait a little longer.
—Winter, XXX. Year Three—
These past few months without seeing Claire, without having any contact with her have been torture. Yes, the nightmares decreased for a while but after the fifth month they came back with a vengeance.
Just last night...was my sixty-seventh attempt.
It had been so long that I had grown plenty. I looked a bit different than a did before. I wonder if Claire has changed too? I grew somewhat taller, has she? One thing that had changed completely about me was my eyes. What was before cobalt tainted in scarlet was now fully red. Both my eyes had changed color to a bright scarlet. They were the only thing in me that reminded me of her. Now, I don't even have that. Whoever said pain soothed over time was a lying bastard.
It didn't. It just became worse with every passing second.
Today, I came to visit Alice again. The first day those nightmares started I came to Alice to put an end to them. But she didn't know how to do that. She said it wasn't even her fault that they had began haunting me. I doubted that but I had nothing to prove my point. So, instead I focused on accomplishing my end of her bargain.
Ever since that day, it became easier to distinguish the Alice I first met to the one that I had formed the pact with. The Alice I had first met was rude but nice. She was always smiling and loved meat. She loved playing with her stuffed animals, specially her rabbit. The white Alice was frigid towards me and seldom nice. She treated me like a resource that she had at her beck and call. Frankly that's how I felt.
Used.
So to not get myself confused, instead of thinking of the white Alice as 'Alice', the name Alyss came to mind. Since both sounded identical there wouldn't be a problem with it. And it helped me separate each of them as their own separate entity.
"I'm here." At coming in, I hear her laughter while trying to play the piano. Thank goodness. This wasn't Alyss. It's Alice.
When she heard me, she turned to face me and grin at me. "Cloude! How've you been? I haven't seen you for a while." For her it must have been a long time since most of my visits were for her sister.
"Pretty much the same."
"It's nice seeing you again," she called turning back to the piano as I approach her. "I've been dying to meet your sister too. Even if you're twins and all, I've wanted to meet her ever since you mentioned her the first time."
"Well," I began sheepishly while rubbing the back of my neck. For a second I thought I saw her disoriented but continued. "Her and I aren't in the best of terms right now."
"Yep!" Her sudden laughter brought chills to me. "She's been crying all around the garden when Gilbert and Vincent aren't looking!"
"Alyss!" I called out not wanting to hear any more of that.
"I'm sorry I interrupted. But her time here was up for the day." She moved away from the piano and headed to the couch to sit down. "But it isn't her you're here to see. So how's it all going, my servant?"
"Mia Dominia." It still hurt to call her that. She wasn't my dominion. To us, our dominion would be the person we would lay down our lives for and gladly do so, if need be. For me that wasn't Alyss. It was Clarice. "As you suspected Glen's body has began to deteriorate. Soon, he'll need to change vessels."
"I knew it," she said with a small grin. "He wouldn't be missing his visits with her had this not been happening. By the way, since you haven't seen her that much I don't suppose you would know your sister's condition, would you?"
"Miss Charlotte has been filling me in on that," I confessed with a grimace. "She's been deteriorating since last December." Though I never once mentioned the singing or her inheritance.
"Well, that's to be expected. But it's such a shame," she called with a smirk. "For her to be oblivious to the efforts and sacrifices her dear, little brother is making for her. I think it is, don't you?"
"It's none of your concern. It's for her." As long as it was for her, none of that mattered.
"Ah, yes," Alyss called nonchalantly. "It's because of her sickness, right?"
I hated whenever she got cryptic with me. It never boded well for me. But alas, I had to play along with her or she wouldn't cooperate with me. So I answered her. "If I can do anything to avoid those from happening then yes. There's no other reason for me to be here."
"Of course not." These little games pissed me off majorly but I could do nothing except bite my tongue. "After all, ever since I enabled you to see the writings, stopping those happenstances has been your struggle. To keep fate from coming true. And no matter how much I tell you it's worthless, you just don't listen. Are you that blind?"
Blind...
"By hope, maybe," was my reply. And yes, I was blind with the hope to save her. Save her from that terrible fate. "But you have a cure to that. And I have gotten what you requested. Now, stop it."
She sighed before hitting me with a heavy low blow. "I can't."
"What?! But you—"
"When this was proposed I said that I knew of a way but never that I was the one who could stop it. That's not in my power to do." No, this couldn't be happening. "You have already entangled yourselves into a mess that only you can bring yourself out of. Just take it as a cautionary tale. The more you experience of it, the more well prepared you'll be to face the event. What's bound to happen, will happen. No ifs or buts."
This...bitch! "You lied to me!"
"Lying is such a mean word. Let's just say I...omitted some information. But don't fret. After all, I said before that all is not lost. There's one solution to your problem that you will find but in it's due time. So in a way, I kept to my word. Do you still not trust me?"
No. I never did. But then no one else had a solution. They just knew that Claire was getting sicker and sicker. At least she, as vague with her answers as she was, had a solution. And for that I would do anything. "Fine. But only because I have to be the one to outlive her. That way...I'll stop the White Sage's curse."
A rustling behind me made me spin on my heels but at seeing who had passed through the curtain, I froze.
"What are you talking about?!" Her tiny voice boomed in the whole room. "Mom was the White Sage. What stupid curse are you be talking about!?"
"Claire...?" What was months felt like an eternity of not seeing her. Her pretty ebony hair was longer and shiny and her eyes were a shinning scarlet...like mine. But instead of questioning why they were that color, the rage in them startled me more.
"Tell me!" she yelled at me again. "What sickness is she talking about? What're the writings?!" I was so taken by her presence that she snapped at me from lack of any response. "Answer me!"
But...I couldn't say anything. I couldn't answer any of her questions.
"She cannot know any of this," Alyss had proclaimed the moment after out pact. "If she even comes close to knowing, you will get no answer and she will pay the ultimate price."
That thought alone brought to me my resolution and to an answer for her. "Why are you here...?"
"Cloude?" It pained and soothed me at the same time to hear her say my name. But I rather not hear it for years than never hear it again.
"Why are you here!" I had never shouted at her before. I never lost my temper. But she would never understand even if I told her. She needed to be kept safe and away from all this.
I needed to keep her safe. "Take care of your sister." It was my job.
"You're not supposed to be here!"
"W-Why won't you tell me anything anymore?" It broke my heart to hear the fear in her voice but I couldn't let myself waver. Not now. So instead, I turned the tables around to see if it made it any easier.
"Because you already left me out! When you have all of them, why would you need me?! The Baskervilles, those two, and Jack too! You've replaced me with them! And if I no longer belong with you then you don't belong with me either!"
It didn't. Saying those lies only pained me more. "That's not true! I didn't leave you. You left me! You left me to gain more power! Tell me, where's that power gotten you!"
And the truth of her words only added salt to the open wound. My head was hurting from all of this. I wanted to cry out but couldn't. So instead I projected it all out...on her. "You don't get it. You don't mean anything to me now! Leave!" I came up and shoved her and she fell to the floor. Not giving myself time to think about it I continued. "Leave and never talk to me again! I don't ever want to see your face again!" Behind every word I spoke I only saw the demon I had become. In the end, the one thing I was determined to become for her sake ended up hurting her. And it drew the last drop at my last words.
"I HATE YOU!"
For an instant I heard nothing but her footsteps fading away. I dropped to my knees, angered and infuriated...at myself.
"We just dodged a bullet on that one," Alyss commented with a yawn. "Everything is back on track now. All that's left is to wait."
But her words didn't compute. Something was happening to me. Something had happened to me. This sadness and pain overwhelmed me and brought me to tears. Something I had never done except when Mama had died.
I didn't mean it. Please know that I was lying. I didn't mean it. Please, forgive me. I didn't mean it. Please, don't cry. I didn't mean it. Please...smile. I'm doing all this just so I could see you smile. So you could live and be happy.
So, why are you crying? I'm trying my hardest but that still isn't enough.
Why? Why? Why?!
Maybe—I raised my head and caught my reflection on the mirror, those scarlet irises spilling tears. Could it be that it wasn't the curse that was hurting her?
Could it be...that the one that was hurting her the most...was me?
—Spring, VI. Year Four—
These past few days have been odd about the mansion. Miss Barma has come to visit more often. I don't like that woman. She didn't bode well with me.
Tonight they're having a party downstairs. Since I'm not of age yet, I've stayed behind in my room. Surely both Lily and Claire are in their rooms also.
A suddenly earthquake shook and took me by surprise. It shook for a well into a couple of minutes and once it calmed down it left me a bit scared.
Not long after, Fang burst into my room which surprised me even more. Specially when he handed me one of the red cloaks. The mark of all Baskervilles. Claire and I were supposed to get one once we reached of age. Why did he have one with him now?
"Fang?"
"We're being called by the Master," he simply said and passed me the cloak. "Put it on and meet me outside Lily's room." I did as I was told and once he had gathered us we left to Master's audience chamber. When we came close to it I immediately saw Miss Charlotte and next to her was Claire with the hood of her own cloak up. What was she doing here?
"Go on ahead," Charlotte said and we heeded. It was only a glance that I manage to take of Claire's face but that one glimpse calmed me. Whatever happened I could endure if it was for her.
Inside we waited until Charlotte came in. Only then did Master appear before us and gave his orders. "Master Glen—" Fang said in disbelief. "What did you...say just now?"
But he didn't hesitate. "Kill everyone in this town!" Why...? Why would he want us to do that?
Fang remained quiet but not for long. "Why must we do that, Master Glen?"
"Shut up!" We all flinched when he stabbed his sword upon the floor. "It's an order. No matter women or children! Kill every person in this town, immediately!"
I haven't seen this journal since that day, one hundred and sixteen years ago.
It seems Fang had found it around town. Poorly taken care of and falling apart. But still usable. So, it's with much hope for the future, that I write on you now. In the hope that you might reach her one day to tell her this.
I was wrong.
Everything I did was for nothing. Alyss' solution was for me to kill and absorb the entity inside of you. But that wouldn't have solved the problem. You died because of my hand. As long as one lived the other cannot. So instead, I will detach that darkness from you and destroy it myself.
I rip this and keep it apart from the book in the case that it doesn't survive the journey. On it I will write all I wish from our future.
If we are ever to be reborn, I wish we could be twins again and be together.
"Cloude." I raise my head to find Charlotte entering the room. I close the book gently with the paper inside.
"Miss Charlotte?"
"Will you be going to Sablier with Zwei and I?" she asked.
"I will be." Walking up to her, I give her a sincere smile. "Miss Charlotte, could I ask a favor from you?"
"What is it?" Her tone towards me had been harsh ever since she found out I had hurt Claire. But that didn't matter much now. It would stop. Now.
"I don't really trust the Nightray boy. Not his words or nor his actions. Which is why—" I sighed heavily before passing the book to her. "I didn't want him here when I gave you this."
"This...?" she asked taking it and passing her hand over the worn-out cover. "Claire used to have one like this."
"It's the journals Fang gave us when we arrived at the mansion. And I want you to be the one to pass it on to Claire."
She gazed up at me before furrowing her brow. "Why can't you? You're coming back," she answered playfully but straight forth. I smiled a little at her antiques to cheer me up. But they wouldn't work.
"Promise me, Charlotte, that you will find a way to give this to her in person."
She averted her gaze but met my eyes in the end. "I promise you I will. But I know I won't have to. We'll all come back from this."
"Thank you..."
The door suddenly opened to let Zwei in. "Are we leaving yet?"
Charlotte quickly hid the journal in her robes and turned to face the girl. "Not yet. But soon we'll leave to Sablier."
And soon it will happen. In a few hours the date will be the 29th at 12:28 pm. The exact time I saw those nightmares happen. Every death I had to watch was that exact time and date.
Tonight would be my hundredth time. And I wouldn't lose. Tonight either she lived or we both died because I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing I couldn't stop it.
But I will. I will change the writings. I will not let it happen.
"We should start leaving now," Charlotte spoke making us head out.
I wonder one last thing before leaving. Once I'm gone, who will it be that receives your earnest love and affection? Who will it be, then, who will receive it all in my place?
Who will you love most of all in this world?
I wonder...
Fuck, writing this made me tear a little. I love my brothers so much and Cloude reminds me a lot of the youngest of them before me whom I get along with the best. He's always there for me. Cloude and Claire is basically me wanting to project some kind of sibling love representing our own. We love each other and it pains us to see each other hurt.
So this gave me the feels for that and so many reasons -w- Well that's that. Hoped you enjoyed it :D I will be posting Chapter 30 next week c: Hopefully you can wait till then for that ;3 Stayed tuned and thanks for reading!
