One Tainted Secret
Chapter Seven: You Let The Devil In
By: Michelle
It had to be nearly dawn. His wings had shed all its feathers and receded into his backbone, closing up cleanly. His eyes were weary, still making sense of things, barely conscious to the debacle he had caused at cabin #44.
Xiao stirred a little, her hands balled tightly by her face. Jin watched her sleep. As she rested he had time to think, got up and walked around. He struggled with how to tell his story, if she would believe him. He sensed, though he hardly knew her, she could help him, there was a strength about her.
He felt it on her first day at school, her walking into class as if from another planet, that she was an outsider. She did not seek to belong and, because of her adopted relation to him, the popular girls sought her out. Despite that, she remained unaltered by their callow boy-crush ways.
He remembered that evening in her bedroom, their accidental tryst, when he pulled her close and she kissed him, he felt no bad intentions. She knew things about him but did not provoke him, as it did the schoolgirls her age. Instead, she inspired goodness. She did not shriek at him for seeing her naked but, rather calmly, demanded he turn around as she clothed herself properly.
Purity. Jin experienced feelings for her then, a kindness similar to how he felt for his mother, wanting good things for her. Human goodness brought him back, remembering there is good in life.
Shortly after that night was when it started. He began to fade in and out of his thoughts where a voice, not his own, told him things about his ancestry. Dirty, horrible things he refused to imagine possible. At first it was easy to reject, secluding himself from practice, dinner and eventually school, but all it took was for his temper, naturally placid like his mother, to lose patience with the tireless voice.
One day, when he finally lost his composure, it took hold of him. Washed away the memories of his mother and switched his mind into a morally wrong introspection. He became destructive, destroying his bedroom entirely on the fourth floor.
Seeking refuge he took to the forest, where something took a bite out of his upper arm, leaving a mark; it healed and scarred, turning black - an insignia of some sort. Then a terrible pain along his spine, were his flesh parted and black blood and slimy feathers emerged. After this he could recall nothing else except the desire to kill evil people in very brutal ways, removing them of their eyes, teeth, tongues, ears and fingers, robbing them of things humans use to feel and sense - especially their heart, which he ingested.
Being around Xiaoyu, he realized, somehow magically he was able to transform back to his normal self. Something about her kept the devil at bay. The markings on his forehead and chest faded, the expansive wings, grotesque horns and sharp talons shrunk back into his flesh.
Xiaoyu was still asleep. Her breathing was calm and steady, and he sensed she will not wake for a while. He snuggled behind her, scooping her over to him, and was soon asleep in the soft scent of her hair.
She was not surprised to see Jin upon waking, as if used to magical things happening. Intuitively, Xiao sensed something of a dangerous sort, something different about him, but she was not frightened, her heart was glad. She lightly touched the rough dry cracks on his lips, placed her hand gently against his forehead, now unbandaged and warm to the touch, she blew carefully at his swollen eye.
Eventually, he woke, his eyelids slowly opening and closing. There was a color change in his eyes, she noticed they were once black, now almost gold. She detected an epiphany in them, as if he had changed forever.
It was way past noon, but the room was dark, the gray sky unfinished with its storm. Light rain tapped the windows, they could hear it lightly trickling on the rooftops. Facing each other, lying side by side, they did not speak for a while, listening to the distant thunder, pondering each other's thoughts. She was still in her white nightie she had worn as her costume and he had on a fresh shirt.
"Are you really here?" she spoke first, speaking her thoughts. Or am I dreaming?
He put his hand on top of hers. He did not answer but squeezed her palm, marveling at her small fingers.
"I can't tell dreams from truth," she said softly, more to herself than to him. For it's been so long, since I have seen you. I can hardly remember your face anymore.
"Do you remember me, Xiao?" he asked, as if hearing her thoughts.
She nodded quickly.
"Do you remember last night?"
Her eyes wandering away from his as fragments of memory came back to her of the Halloween party. Of cabin #44, of cabin #45, of his name coming from Audrey's lips. She took her hand away from his hold and rolled over on her back, facing the ceiling.
"It's a nasty place to be, Xiao," he said.
"Why were you there?" she asked.
"Because you were there."
"Why were you in cabin #45?" she meant instead.
He had no expression, no answer. All he knew was that he had found her and brought her home safe. He reached for her but she was tense.
"I'm better around you," he said, trying to ease into the story he wanted to tell her. "If you listen, I'll tell you everything," he said. "Where I've been, why I looked the way I did last night."
Xiao faced him, realizing then that he had no idea what cabin was what and that it didn't matter. He was with her now, though she couldn't remember how he brought her home.
"I've been trying to contact you," he said. "But you weren't weak enough to allow me to find you."
"Weak enough?"
"Remember that time in your bedroom?" he tried to explain. "I couldn't have you because you didn't let me. You're strong, in here," he put a finger on her forehead.
When she didn't respond he continued.
"I found some ways to try to reach you, but for it to work you had to respond to it."
"I don't understand," she said.
"You were sad for a long time, Xiao. Have you seen me during these times? In your dreams? Felt me beside you?" He added, "Read what I've written to you?"
"The passage behind the walls," she whispered, her eyes lit up. "The fourth floor."
"But you never came. Not much of a place anyway," he half-joked.
Xiao swallowed, her throat dry. "How did you do those things?"
"I'm something else entirely, Xiao, it cannot be explained," he didn't want to tell her more than she needed to know, maybe some other time. He reached for her again. "But with you, I'm me."
She let him touch her face and neck, it seemed to calm him. "How did you finally find me?"
"You responded, it let the devil in," he said, figuratively and literally. "Maybe you saw something at the party that made you yearn for me." Jin smiled at the embarrassment on her face.