"Have you noticed the boy has been antsy since we doubled the medication?" Pretov and Hartmann sat in front of the two-way mirror that them a clear view of the boy attempting to sleep. Occasionally, he tossed and turned, his eyes squinting.
"Yes, I have."
"Why? None of the other kids show the same symptoms."
"Well, he's not exactly a normal boy, is he, Pretrov?" Hartmann chuckled after his sentence. It was received with irritated eyes. "Anyways, are you sure it's the meds that's giving him the nightmares? It already said in his file that he's a light sleeper."
"It has to be. It's not just the nightmares. He started talking to the ceiling as if he was having a whole conversation. It appears that the drugs we're giving him are causing hallucinations."
"Should I visit him?" Hartmann smirked, and Pretrov scoffed.
"Don't you fucking dare."
Kinderhiem 511. The name alone festered a wound in his soul. Franz couldn't comprehend how his experiments were ever associated with such a place. No words could truly capture its depravity, so he never described it. He merely shivered at the name.
Back then, he never cared what happened to those children. He knew of the abuse that went on. He had already accepted himself as an abuser and participated in far worse than what that organization offered. He hated it for stealing his ideas and twisting them into something despicable, even for him, but nothing was enough for him to put an effort into ending it. He had seen hope die in every kind of eye imaginable and felt nothing in return. There was too much to care and his heart only had room for the twins.
But then Anna ran away from him at the mansion, and he started to care. Like how The Beast let his Belle flee the tower as he watched through constricting glass, he too stared at the many windows and watched her escape. He even winced when the thorns from the roses gashed her arm.
Flashes of the tortured children haunted him. He saw their frightened eyes, their trembling hands, their desperate cries for help. He saw their pain, and for the first time, he felt it too. Literally. He felt it. Just as he felt the sharp thorns tear her skin and slice her forearm. It was searing and hot and he wanted to scream. Franz was so used to the bitter coldness that his body grew numb, but the fire of guilt burned and condemned him.
The orphanage shut down after many years, and despite liking to avoid the subject, he listened when Čapek told him that a stunning boy with golden hair and the brightest face was the cause of its downfall. He was the leader of a massacre... or whatever he said.
Since then, he often thought about that boy. Johan. He was much different than his sister yet strikingly, disturbingly similar.
Both had their mother's eyes. Both had small hands that intertwined perfectly.
But this child was no blank canvas. He was not held with gloves.
That fact alone was why Franz believed Čapek, which was a rare case.
...
Franz wrote more after he heard of the fire at the Three Frogs. Newspapers of that incident assisted in burying him more in his work.
On the day of their birth, he held Anna and her tiny hand clutched his clothed finger. Her eyes were wide and innocent, and her enchanting presence of early life allowed him to indulge himself in his delusions... where he was the father, that he and Věra were in love, made love, and loved their children. That did not last long. He watched her cradle Johan, where she smiled at him with a certain sadness, and whispered something in his ear.
Franz shook his head as he wrote his ideas on paper.
Anna was meant to be the troubled one. She was doomed from the start as she was the monster's favorite. After years of carefully nurturing her innocence, keeping her pure, holding her like a fragile flower, the monster inside him studied her as he exposed her violently to darkness. As everyone died from the poison in their drinks, he paid no attention to their screams or coughs. Only Anna. He watched her chest heave and eyes widen.
This experiment was putting himself to the test. Had he stopped the birth of another monster, or will history repeat itself until the end of time? What is the limit? How much can one person handle?
When the torment was over and the mansion was dauntingly still, Franz cupped her face one more time. She was so much like Věra, he could easily trick himself into thinking he was talking to her.
"You two are precious jewels. You mustn't become monsters." He whispered, thick with ache.
He let her run. He let her run because she'd find an ending to his story. A good one, a happy one, he hoped. Please, don't make your life a fairytale, Anna.
Soon his writings became frustrated scrawls that ripped the paper. He never saw the hope drain from her eyes. He never saw anything petrifying inside her... But that little girl loved her brother, and she had no idea he was starving. No, she was always full. She was never a monster.
And her brother was... Why? Why? That wasn't supposed to happen. How did he do it? How could he have absorbed her trauma if he was not there to experience the horrors?
Anna probably refused to leave the inn until he persuaded her. Franz understood how the monster worked. It loved to hunt, to kill, to feed. The only way to stop it was to kill it, to reduce the human host to nothing but an animal... and the tiny bit of humanity left inside the person that hadn't been swallowed will accept death, even encourage it, if that is how the hunting will end. Johan wanted to walk right to his death, wherever it was, while holding her hand.
But how did it get to him? How did it get inside him?
The mystery killed him the way poisoned wine would: when you suffocate and choke on it slowly, yet you try to survive even though you know you've lost.
Though, when Franz really thought about it... it grew more apparent. Johan inherited his mother's vengeance and ability to hate. Just as Franz had with his father. That was why the boy looked at him with such fury when Anna was taken away. Just as Franz hated his father for abusing women (Who was she to him? Why can't he remember?) Just as he hated his brother for stealing his love.
What had Věra whispered to him?
He didn't know many things, but one thing was for certain, Johan would kill him. It was destined by his mother's orders, even if he grew to forget them. As long as someone remembered it, the prophecy would be fulfilled.
And Franz could never forget Věra.
He knew she would be the death of her. He concluded that what she whispered to her son was her perpetrator's sentence.
"But what was it?" was the question. "And how much would he suffer?"
Everything was locked behind a door, and the children unknowingly had the key.
All night, he wrote. His hand ached and his head screamed. Once he finally completed his drafts, he sighed. He went to his editor for what he knew would be the last time.
...
Tomas Zobak, his editor, a man with a perpetually furrowed brow and a penchant for existential questions, asked him about the love story first. When described to him, he leaned back in his chair and sighed.
"You're a great writer, Franz, don't get me wrong, and I'm sure you could find a way to make it work, but it's just too similar to stories that have already been told. It's basically a cross between Sleeping Beauty and Beauty And The Beast."
Franz never looked at him. He only focused on Zobak's daughter playing in the yard with a boy who looked the same age.
The girl's blonde hair cascaded down her back as she climbed an old oak tree. The boy, with a mop of unruly brown hair, was already perched on a sturdy branch, his legs dangling, and extended a hand towards her. She climbed more and was almost within reach of his outstretched hand.
They were young enough to be full of life, playful, and oblivious to the darkness that lurked beneath the surface of their world. Watching the young made growing feel like a curse.
She lost her grip. She missed his hand. Her body swayed precariously for a moment before she tumbled down, landing on the grass below. The boy's laughter extinguished, and he scrambled down from his tree limb. He knelt beside her, wide with worry, as he took her face to examine her. Tears stained her cheeks and her skin was flushed. He wrapped her arms around her, and she took refuge in his chest as she sobbed.
His head swept across the yard as he looked around. It stopped when he saw a rose bush at arm's reach. He plucked a rose gently and tucked it behind her ear. He leaned down, his lips brushing her forehead in a tender kiss.
It was the same way he kissed Věra when she fell asleep.
Her breathing calmed and she turned to him quickly to embrace him. He hugged her tighter and buried his face into her neck as their bodies swayed. The longer he stared, the more they morphed into his jewels...
"You still with me, Franz?"
He snapped back to reality, and looked at him, "Yes. It's fine, Tomas." Nothing more was said as he got up from his chair. He reached the door and opened it. Then stopped.
"What about this one..." He spoke in the doorway, "The Door That Must Not Be Opened..."
"Is it paradise behind it? Does a monster come out?" Zobak inquired. Franz found his morbid curiosity both irritating and strangely alluring, frankly because he was asking the same questions in his head.
"No... you can't open the door, so there's no point." He replied, flat and emotionless. It was unnecessary to ponder what lies behind it if he could never find out, but that only made it all the more frustrating.
He laughed. Zobak wouldn't understand—couldn't understand— the weight of that door or the truth behind it, because even Franz himself couldn't.
He left after that. He didn't just leave the office. He left home. He left town. He left everything.
The identity of Franz Bonaparta was abandoned that day.
...
During the couple of years Franz lived in Ruhenhiem as a child, there was nothing he feared more than the house up the hill. It wasn't the house itself, though its dilapidated state, with peeling paint and broken windows that stared down at intruders, was unsettling enough. It was the silence so profound it felt like a living thing, pressing down on the air, suffocating the very sounds of nature.
Now, as an adult, it was just what Franz needed.
He'd hoped the long climb, through the tangled woods, and over the rocky trails, was enough to deter the unwanted and grant him anonymity. Because of the ridiculous journey, any knock was a verification that someone tried to reach him. He dreaded that fate, as then he would feel obligated to respond, fulfill their need, or at least acknowledge them by opening the door, and that required interaction. He'd rather be unseen, but the whispers made him impossible to ignore.
"I'm telling you, guys, that man is a vampire!"
"Oh, give me a break."
"Think about it! He's pale as shit, he only comes out at night, and I heard that place reeks of death."
"Do you think he actually drinks blood?"
"He looks like the type."
He didn't care for the rumors, not truly. Kids spread them around mainly, but the stories were so entertaining in such a sleepy town that even the adults joined in. Regardless of who spoke, they were still childish, pathetic, and nothing more than the echoes of ancient folklore. Franz strove to be invisible, but his refusal to engage amplified the whispers. And given the town's courtesy, he wouldn't be surprised if every family came to him with cookies and smiles with their intentions as innocent as their gossip was malicious.
The first storm since Franz's arrival broke after weeks of unnerving silence. How fitting, he thought. It had been a few days after the death of The Lieberts.
While his final project, Das Ruhenhiem, was still in progress, Franz sought to change the roots of the Hansel and Gretel story he told Anna years ago. He couldn't change the inevitably tragic ending if there were no changes to the beginning... so he filled canvases and pages with words and sketches. Some had the twins side-by-side, their heads resting on each other's shoulders. Some had them embracing, staring, smiling, feeling...
As the storm raged, his hand moved on its own accord. Something possessed him to draw them in a garden, posies surrounding their mouths and chests... Their hands intertwined and their faces inches apart... half-lidded eyes staring into the other with love intense, consuming, uncomfortable. The ink had come to life, dancing around the pages with its disturbing depictions. The twins moved and their lips ghosted each other's.
They moved more, their hands caressing each other's forearms, their heads tilting as they held eye contact.
They were like the only two people left in the world.
The smiles they exchanged were born from those who endured unimaginable suffering, born from those who saw the world in its most wicked state, born from those who clung desperately to the last vestiges of hope, born from those who had their sanity teetering on the edge of a precipice.
The sight of them caused a striking pain to dance along the surface layer of his skin, like fire licking at a wound. When the heat and roaring in his ears became too much to bear, he covered the picture with his hand, his other instinctively reaching to his mouth, and he bit his knuckles to stifle his shrieks.
It was the most vile piece of corruption he had ever drawn. He looked at his hands— he had not been wearing gloves. The ink and blood left dark stains on his skin and they burned into his flesh.
Franz crumbled up the sick piece and threw it at the wall with a grunt. There was an eerie pause when it bounced off and silently hit the floor, then lightning struck.
He knew he was going mad when the sudden light revealed a dark, twisted figure above him. However, that twisted figure was a pretty woman with blonde hair, cruel eyes, and no smile. In all these years, he still remembered her.
He cried. He cried and cried and cried.
He cried because everything was his fault. The monster inside him killed everyone he loved to prove he loved another. The monster isolated him. The monster abused him. Franz knew that when the twins were born. That was why he was careful with holding Anna. Infecting her with just one touch would destroy everything he tried to build. But it was too late. Both were infected, and he had nobody to blame but himself.
He hurt those children, and he cried because the "happy" alternative he struggled to capture would never exist.
His tears leaked through the thin paper, staining the canvases, and further corrupting them. He threw many away, but some of those he stored in the back of the house to hide away in the darkness. He prayed he would have no reason to touch them again, and that they'd be tangled in cobwebs, forgotten, like the love he had lost and the innocence he had destroyed.
He needed a drink.
...
Once the storm passed, Franz walked down the woodsy hill. The chill of the evening air bit at Franz's skin as each step thudded against the silence. He walked through the streets, his head fixed on the pavement. He could feel eyes on him through the windows and hear whispers through the walls, yet he tried to pay no mind...
He was about to open the door to the bar, his hand on the handle, before— "Ludwig!"
That damn dog.
He turned to see Mrs. Hirman struggling to control him. Ludwig's fur bristled and his eyes gleamed with a feral intensity. It was fascinating... how a dog knew what person you were by just one look and smell.
She scolded the mutt before approaching, "I'm sorry, sir. He's usually so friendly. I don't know what's gotten into him—" She stopped abruptly when she recognized him, "Oh... you're the..."
Franz's eyebrows furrowed. Being infamous was so annoying.
"Sorry. You're just the newcomer that everyone's been curious about. Can I ask your name?"
"Klaus," he replied. He turned his back to her and walked into the bar, leaving her to stand at the entrance.
The bartender's eyes brightened when she saw him take a seat. "Well, well, if it isn't The Vampire himself. Your night must've been tough if you came all this way for a drink. Got bored of all of the blood from your goblets?"
He looked at her unamused. He didn't bother to reply. He had no energy nor desire.
Her smile faded and she cleared her throat, "Kidding," she said, her voice subdued.
Franz only talked to her once and that was to order. When she brought a bottle to him, he sat in silence, fixed on the swirling amber liquid in his glass. He could almost drown in the silence until he heard a young voice say, "The usual."
Franz turned to his left, and it was a kid. A kid way too young to be in a bar. Wim, he believed was his name. Franz saw him only a few times when he went out if necessary, and he was always riding his bicycle. There was a cheeky grin but his eyes held a baggage far too heavy for a child. That kind of pain plastered on his face gave him memories he wished he could vomit out of his consciousness.
"Oh, Wim..." the bartender frowned as she went to grab a liquor bottle. "Is it safe for you to return home? I got a place for you to crash if you..."
"It's fine. Tonight isn't that bad." He placed several Euros on the table, and she shook her head.
"Keep your money, Wim. I doubt this is your father's. Go buy you something nice and I'll buy this drink for you."
"Thank you..." he grabbed the bottle and started walking out, but stopped when he saw Franz staring. Wim's acknowledgment snapped him out of a trance he didn't know he was under. He waved the bottle before clarifying, "My dad's," then exited.
He had to be no older than ten. His stance reminded him of Anna— always frightened and confused but hiding it with an unemotional expression. He was rubbing his arms for solace and looking around each corner.
Wim obviously had an abusive father. His paranoia and fatigue contributed to a compelling theory, but the bruises on the kid's wrists were noticed every time he was seen. It was all he needed to prove he was right.
Franz rubbed his own wrists, feeling goosebumps on his skin.
Jaromír. He thought of his son. That boy had no father. Who knew if he still had a mother...?
He took a long swallow of his drink. The burn of the alcohol was the only comfort he could find in the face of his overwhelming despair, but he could never understand growing addicted. He couldn't let himself be enslaved by anything more than what already held him captive.
Maybe he could write to Jaromír. If he did get the letter, what would he do with it?
...
The town had an abandoned hotel. Franz needed another place to spend his days so he could properly abandon his previous home.
He sat on the curb, his back against the rough brick wall of the building , the air thick with the scent of decay.
Footsteps were heard (to be expected, as he knew somehow he wasn't alone), and he didn't need to turn to know who it was. He could see the freckles in the corner of his eye.
"This road is dead," Franz said, sounding harsher than intended.
"Yeah, it's why I ride my bike here. I get to avoid them." Wim emphasized the last word in a way only Franz could understand, as the man had seen how the other boys in this town treated each other. Wim sat beside him and stretched out his legs. "Really I avoid everyone. That's why we're both here."
Franz turned and saw the bike in question. It was a rusty, beat-up contraption leaning against the concrete floor, with one of the tires flat and its frame covered in a layer of grime. It wasn't very good-looking, to put it lightly.
"I could try to fix it."
Wim raised his eyebrows in skepticism, "You know about bikes?"
"No," he admitted. He would feel bad if he lied, "Just thought you needed some hope."
"It's not like it would do much anyway. This is the third time this week it's happened." There was a pause. "What's your name?" Wim asked.
Franz failed to respond, only blinking at him.
"People started calling you 'The Vampire' because they thought you were so pale and scary. You don't look that pale to me... my dad's paler than you because he never goes outside for a fact. And you're far less scary."
"You're comfortable talking about him?"
Wim shrugged, "This whole town knows he drinks, and I figured at the bar that you were a smart man."
He rubbed his knuckles and breathed deeply before speaking, "My father drinks too. I know from the bruises on your wrists that he tugs you around too hard."
"Was he...?" Wim began.
"Violent? Not to me... but to many others, he was." He could still hear the muffled screams coming from the closed bedroom door. With every passing year, Franz forgot more and more as to who that woman was to him, he just knew her smile. He wished he knew her name. He wished he knew why she meant so much to him. It wasn't fair. He remembered his father too well.
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know. I don't really care to find out."
He realized he never answered Wim's question. "Klaus."
Wim hummed.
"My name is Klaus Poppe."
"I'm Wim."
"I know."
He looked at the abandoned hotel that towered over them and wondered how dusty it was inside. Regardless, he knew he couldn't clean it on his own...
"It used to be called 'Versteck'" Wim went on, "It was always busy because Ruhenhiem was a popular resting area for people traveling through Germany. But then someone... well, one day someone killed themself, and nobody came anymore. It was a shame, really. It was a nice place and Konrad was really nice."
"Konrad?"
"He was the hotel owner. He still lives here. Maybe we could clean it together for him," Wim's said with infectious enthusiasm.
"We could."
"If we do, you can tell me about those freaky stuff you draw."
Franz couldn't help but smile. It didn't matter to him that Wim spied on him; kids did it all the time. What mattered was that he felt something that wasn't pitiful sadness, and he was laughing with someone because he wanted to, even though he was mocking himself. He supposed they were freaky, especially without any context. Hell, they were absurd even with the context. But he could laugh knowing he would never draw again.
...
When that gunshot was heard, Franz knew exactly what was coming.
Many denied they heard a sound, others rationalizing it as something different, but it was a gunshot. The day had come.
Mrs. Hirman's hyperventilating explained the absence of Ludwig's loud barking. The town was unusually hushed, which was perfect for anticipating a disaster.
"Ludwig is gone!! And you heard that gunshot, didn't you? What if my baby Ludwig was..."
Franz tried to ease her, but his mind was elsewhere, replaying a years-old conversation. Čapek's voice rang and silenced everyone in the room. He was suddenly sitting in a chair, drinking tea, young, cold-hearted, and cruel, listening to his admirer speak nonsense he didn't care for until the topic finally intrigued him.
"It was utter devastation. Everything was gone, and it stunk of blood and burnt wood. No one was spared— no supervisors, no children— he had killed them all."
"Who?"
"A boy, Hartmann said. A stunning boy with golden hair and the brightest face. He orchestrated the massacre and watched it happen."
"You believe that bastard?"
"Yes, Franz, I do."
It was happening again. The fall of Kinderhiem 511 was being recreated in Ruhenhiem. Another massacre led by Johan except now Franz was the victim. He felt the scorching tendrils clench his heart and yank it into the pit of his stomach. Those poor kids, who were slaughtered by their peers, who were abused by their superiors who wanted to continue his experiments... so this was how they felt...
...
He was right in front of him.
His eyes were swollen, and his scent was melancholy.
And he had a gun to his face.
"Johan." He rasped.
The boy didn't speak, but he didn't need to.
This was it. The day he had been anticipating, dreading, and ultimately accepting for years.
Franz never saw the twins grow up as he hoped. He could only watch them through the blurry lens of newspaper clippings and rumors, and with each scrap of information he got a hold of, he devoured like a starved dog. Now, as Johan stood before him, with a gun in his hand, Franz studied his face. The hate was still there, but it was followed with no life or determination. He saw it in his slumped shoulders. He saw it in the way his eyes stared past him, through him, into a void of nothingness. There was no purpose, no goal, no reason to keep going.
Věra possessed the same emptiness the day she was saved. With broken ribs, she couldn't move. With a twisted neck, she couldn't turn. She lay in the bed he made for her every night, her spirit underneath her crushed as well as her body. There was no fight in her, no will to live, just a hollow shell. The only emotion keeping her human was her rage, which she knew had been passed down.
Silent, slow-rolling tears fell down her cheeks. She sobbed quietly for hours, suppressing her whimpers so her babies couldn't hear her as they were cleaned.
He had met the boy's doctor. Kenzo Tenma was his name. He wondered if Tenma saw the same expression. Not just angry, and not necessarily betrayed, but completely, and utterly exhausted with life. How did he feel when he realized he aided in the monster's plans? Did he hate himself?
Franz felt a tear slide down his own cheek, but he didn't deserve to cry. He doesn't have a say in how to feel sad.
He would like to think Johan shared the same grievances as him when it came to infamy, but the former's were regrettably more harrowing. Franz was only compared to a vampire by the townsfolk, which could be flattering depending on who you're asking... but the boy was compared to the most evil creature known to man by humanity. The Monster. The Devil. That was never flattering.
And while Franz saw a mangled creation of what was meant to be a saintly creature... A Frankenstein that looked at him with dread on his face... He also saw a man. A starving, broken man.
Even in his desolation, he was beautiful. Unbearably beautiful. It was the kind of beauty that stole Franz's breath and manifested a physical ache behind his eyes and spread through his body. It twisted his insides and he begged to shrivel up and die.
He saw it now. The ink. The ink that tainted his blank canvas.
This boy was the embodiment of all his messy, incomplete scribbles; nothing but a sad, lonely, empty essence while attempting to convey peace.
Franz knew the ink was there— it was not invisible— but he told himself it was the trick of the light or his lack of skill. His deluded mind tried avoiding the smudges and spots with curved lines. He tried blanketing the imperfections by drawing the twins with smiles.
But he was never good at painting happy pictures. Franz knew that too.
That boy and girl, those perfect children, those jewels, Johan and Anna... loved each other abnormally so. Their whole life has been abnormal.
To accept that, he'd have to accept that a world where the twins were happy doesn't exist.
It made sense, in a sick, twisted way.
"Even if I die, the children growing inside me will get their revenge."
Johan was supposed to carry out that promise for her. But Franz saw right through him. That boy does not care for his mother the same way he does for his sister. The mad bitterness that birthed the day Anna was taken only amplified as he grew, as Franz predicted, and the sting was magnified by Věra choosing to have Anna taken. That conscious decision irrevocably shattered his perception of both her and the world and left him with a gaping wound that would never heal. That monster took advantage of such a vulnerable boy. It climbed inside his skin through the hole that was stabbed in his back and consumed him.
Dare he say Johan hated his own mother.
"You're doing this for Anna. Everything was for Anna, wasn't it?" His voice came out husky in his old, worn-out throat.
Johan did not answer right away, but there was a shift in his eyes when her name was said. He only needed that reaction to prove he was right.
"You ruined her life." His soft tone did not muffle his wrath.
Franz understood that Johan wasn't just talking to him, but also to himself. He had killed the Fortners (he overheard it from Anna); he fractured any future instance of a normal life for her. Both were responsible for her trauma; one had started it, and the other continued it. The monster is never too different from his creator.
Indeed they had ruined her life, but she did not become a monster.
"I know. You were everything to her. You were her whole world."
Johan shook his head slowly. "You ripped our soul apart. I spent forever in that chamber, cold and empty, waiting for her return. When she finally did, her eyes were different, and I knew you killed her. I begged her to kill me that night— to kill me the same way you killed her. All she had to do was tell me what happened... and then, I felt it grow inside me. We became exactly what you wanted us to be."
"I never wanted it. Everything you did, I've already done. I killed, I manipulated, and I isolated anyone I could, all while I awaited the day of my execution, and it's finally come."
And I loved. I loved your mother more than I could ever possibly love myself.
A wordless conversation arose, one that spoke of Anna. Her eyes are not bitter or angry. Anna forgave Johan. She loved him. He loved her more. Way more. He loved her so much that he hated her. He hated her because every action he took and breath he drew was for her sake. She was the reason he lived. He hated how much he would do for her, how he would kill and die for her. He hated the way she was his everything, so, with her absence, he had nothing.
It was always her. He accepted Anna as his world, but he refused to believe he belonged in hers.
It was tragic and haunting, yet mesmerizing and fantastical like fairytales born from nightmares.
Calling their life a fairytale sounded ironic, yet it shouldn't. Fairytales lull children and adults into a comforting illusion of promised happily-ever-afters. However, in essence, their true intentions are to be torture devices for the soul; storytellers have just coated this fact in saccharine lies. The finality of the ending is never a resolution, but a merciful release. This was no different. It was why Franz always failed to change the ending. Their lives were fairytales, in which happiness doesn't exist.
"You can kill me now." Franz even closed his eyes, anticipating the final blow, "You want to." And I want you to.
But that final blow never came.
Johan's position remained unchanged. The gun was still pointed at his head, and there was no intention of lowering it.
"I love her." The boy mumbled, his words meant only for himself.
Franz shivered, yet he uttered those same words countless times.
He was being given a chance to talk. "I told her a story," he finally spoke, "A story that I knew was a prophecy in disguise. I drew you two so many times to try and change the ending, but it was too late. It had already been set in motion. I failed."
Those drawings are your dreams, Johan. Where you're happy with her and can express your love freely. Instead you can only express it like this. The monster kills everyone to prove love to another.
"...Where?"
Franz barely heard him amidst the loud atmosphere.
"In the house at the south hill. It's the only one there that's still standing. Anna never accepted the story, because she knew you loved her, and she loved you too."
I'm so sorry you live with the feelings I've instilled within you.
For a while, all Franz felt was the rain pouring on him.
Johan never shot him. Instead, he walked past him.
Johan wasn't the only victim of his circumstance. Mr. Grimmer was too. What a sweet man, a soul so gentle, so kind, yet he wished something so cruel for Franz to endure. He wanted him to live with his sins for the rest of his life and carry the weight of his guilt until the boulders on his back crushed him slowly.
"I won't let you die... I'm going to take you out of this town alive, so you can tell the entire world what you did. You're going to let the world know who the monster you awoke is... I'm going to keep you safe until that happens."
Johan spared him for the same reason. It would be merciful to give him a quick death.
And his mother's order didn't matter to him; he just wanted his sister. So he left Franz in the rain. Alone. Cold. But the fire in his chest still burned. He used to think that rain washed everything away, that cleans everything up, like sadness, hatred, and fear; instead, it only blows up larger than life. In so, the rain showcased no chance of redemption, for the town reeked of death, and the suffocating miasma of sorrow clung to every cobblestone and every windowpane.
Johan didn't shoot him then.
And he didn't shoot him now. As everyone gathered around. As Tenma shouted at them to take cover. As Wim shook in the arms of a man he trusted (but shouldn't).
He understood he needed to confess to the world, that the proper punishment was to be a burden to his own existence, but Franz was selfish. He was always selfish. He kept asking himself: why the hell am I still alive?
Even as he slowly approached him, Johan didn't shoot. There wasn't even a gun in his hand.
"Let us die..." His gun pointed to the boy's forehead, "Together... Let's die..."
The only way to stop a monster was to kill it.
Right when Franz's finger landed on the trigger, a sharp, searing pain erupted in his neck, a sensation so intense that it stole his breath. A wave of nausea intensified his agony as he felt a warm wetness drip down his skin and fill his mouth.
Johan still hadn't shot him. It was someone else. But he couldn't turn to see. Just another mystery.
The echoes of the gunshot reverberated through his mind as he collapsed to the ground.
Now he was choking on his blood, which was black as pitch as it trailed along with puddles of rain.
He wasn't dead yet; he could still feel Wim shaking his body in defiance. But he couldn't move. He could barely breathe.
They always said hearing was the last thing to go when you die. He heard Doctor Tenma's surprised gasp, his murderer's footsteps, Anna screaming, and Wim crying, but he heard nothing from Johan. His vision blurred and there was nothing to look at anymore.
Except for that dark, twisty figure, that exceptionally beautiful, tortured figure, his victim, that engulfed the darkness of his sight.
Oh, Věra,
When the monster is starving it does unspeakable things. Especially to the one its host loves the most.
He wondered if she was still alive...
He doesn't know. He won't ever know... but he remembered her. He will always remember her.
Had she forgiven him?
His body relaxed and he imagined the twins happy, in a field, with the sun beating on their faces. Nothing could chase them. No monsters. No witches. No beasts. Nothing could corrupt them. No darkness. Just light.
For the first time, his vision was genuine.
Franz cried when he perished. The canvases drenched in his tears cried with him too.