Chapter Text
A Pyrrhic Victory
A victory that is obtained at great cost, making the effort to win not worth it.
“Lenore”- Annabel's voice seemed far, far away. The amount of screams they were surrounded by was making her mind numb, in combination with the amount of pills she had taken.
“Lenore, look at me”- she was trembling, her hand reaching her cheek in a desperate attempt to distract her attention from what was happening on the back.
She gasped, trying not to let out an uncontrolled sob. Lenore didn't understand, she felt like her brains were blown up.
“Lenore, I'm sorry”-another gasp-”but please, please take them”- why was Annabel giving her this amount of pills?
She constantly moved her head and shifted herself in order to avoid swallowing the pills.
“This is not working!”
“Can’t we do something else?!”
Lenore felt a pang on her stomach. She took Annabel’s shoulder with one hand and moved her head to the side.
Then the sound of gagging made Annabel turn again and try to make Lenore swallow but it was inevitable, she had puked and her nose had started making a trail of red liquid all the way down Annabel’s knees.
“FUCK!”- Annabel took Lenore by the shoulders, lifting her -”Prospero! This is not working!”
“You brought the gun?”- Annabel’s face shifted, she looked at him with disbelief and fear
“What do you mean by that…?”
“the gun is caliber 32 and their old as the gun itself…if we are lucky, this may end it all”
“Prospero, this is insane-”
“She may not die, Annabel”
“But adrenaline would not make an effect if we do that! How are we sure-!?” -
A high-pitched scream made both of them shiver and travel their gaze to the halls. Ada.
“We don’t have time!”
Her eyelids were heavy and she couldn’t stay in place. She felt a cold metal being pressed against her temple and then like a really strong sound, like when heating a kettle.
Silence.
...
Terribly long car rides, she hated them.
She didn't have the necessity to do it since she moved out to the city some years ago.
But her life took a 360-degree turn when she received the news that her father had died, it seemed like an accident but when she got the report, it wasn't as simple as that.
The only family left for her, her father, the only connection she had with her old town had died.
He was not a good person. That 's for sure.
No one could convince her otherwise. The amount of times she had to run out of her house or when she was locked in her “room”…those memories haunted her even if she tried not to.
The report the police had given her said that he was found in the “attic”. Weird . That was her old room. Why would he even bother to go up there when no one used that room for years by now?
He was on the floor, with no signs of a physical wound or blood. He almost looked like he was asleep.
Weird…maybe a heart attack? Surely that would be the conclusion of all this. But something didn’t make sense at all for her.
…
Lenore parked the car in the big ol’ house. Big as she remembered it.
The brown paint was new, making it look even darker from its original look.
Oh, the times in her childhood she had spended in that hell hole. She entered the house, walking to the stairs that lead to the door while her cane clicked the floor tiles.
Everything was in place, it looked like a dollhouse.
The quiet atmosphere made her stomach twist a little, she was the only one left of all her family. She always thought she would be the first one to go. Not because she didn’t have a hope for her future, no, she simply didn’t visualize herself being all grown up. But there she was, with 30 years and being the last one standing.
She walked towards the big piano placed on a corner. She touched it with caution, like she would be attacked if she wasn’t careful enough. It didn’t even have accumulated dust, it was tidy and splendorous as it had always been.
From the living room she could see the outside.
The big garden where she climbed the trees and scared the neighbor's kids. She let out a little scoff remembering it.
But her little memories were interrupted when a ‘crick’ sound on the wood floor upstairs made her freeze. The sound being way too similar to someone walking made her squeeze the handle of her cane with nervousness.
‘I'm just imagining things’- she repeated to herself, trying to gain her breath.
Obviously, her next destination was upstairs. Ironically? well…cautiously, she traveled herself around the stairs until she was in front of the hall full of doors.
Her parents' room. She placed her finger in the door handle before taking it back, like she was burned by touching the metal. Something inside of her knew she shouldn’t be here, but on the other side, she wanted to stay here forever. She finally opened it, looking around. Everything in that fucking room was tidy, in place.
She never went there when she was a child, as if it was a prohibited place.
The figure of her mom curled up on the side of the bed always haunted her.
Her mom died years ago, she wasn’t a loving mother like others but mainly because she had never seen her sober in her life.
A lot of people told her she would die from sadness…and she did.
They weren’t close. In fact, not even with her brother.
She was like a doll, a mannequin, an empty shell.
She wished she could crawl at her side in the bed and hug her until both fell asleep.
She shrugged and tried to move to the next room. The bathroom was not relevant in her ‘expedition’ so she moved to the next and last door of the corridor.
Theo 's room.
They were inseparable. He was the perfect older brother in contrast to her, a riot.
But he was gone, he really was.
Sometimes she felt his presence so near…so there .
She didn't know if it was the place, the circumstances or what but sometimes she could still hear his voice.
Inside, it was tidy. His violin was always resting on his bed, and as it was placed the first time, it was placed now.
She missed him everyday, every night and all the time.
But he was gone, and it was all her fault.
The reminder that he was not here transported her to that day, the downfall of her own life.
That cursed day when he disappeared out of the blue.
1996
Lenore ran, ran as fast as her legs permitted her.
If that damned town was known for something it had to be the big forests it had. The rain was like a big wave coming towards her, slapping and hitting directly at her whole body as she ran without a specific destination.
She felt her own body pressing her down, making her palms take all the weight of the fall.
She let the rain drown her on the floor. God, what was she doing? What was she thinking running out like this in the middle of the night storm?
Her body was trembling, her once tied hair was now over her eyes and face and she could feel a stinging feeling in her knees.
She gasped and forced her body off the ground, pressing herself in a tree to regain her breath and watch for the first time her surroundings. If she moved some distance from where she was, she will have access to what she thought was the road, so obviously she started running.
When she was finally there, she pressed her hands on her knees, watching them fill with a reddish tone. She looked like a mess, probably anyone who passed driving would think she was attacked or anything out of a slasher movie, crazy, right?
She needed to think of her new plan, what would she do now that she was waaaay far from her house? Immediately she thought about someone. Her best childhood friend, Morella.
If she wasn’t wrong, she lived near, maybe some…15 min walk?
She was freezing, the rain had stopped now, being only funny little drops.
When she was near the edge of the neighborhood, she heard her own name.
A car was going behind her and she froze in place, fuck, her dad.
But as she turned she heard better, that was not her fucking dad, that was Theo.
Hallelujah
She probably looked like a deer caught in headlights but she was more than grateful her brother was there.
He stopped the car, lowering the window to talk.
“Lenore! Why the hell are you all the way down here? What happened?”
“Dad, he-” she could barely breathe, she was in pain and she looked like shit “he-”
Theo didn’t waste any time, opening the copilot door so she could finally sit. They stood for some time in silence, Theo driving and Lenore regaining her compsture, pressing her head on the door.
“What happened?” He finally spoke. He looked worried . The most worried, anxious expression she had ever seen her brother with.
“They say I need help. I'm just not what they want me to be.”
Theo furrowed slightly, pressing her mouth in a thin line. He swallowed and focused on the road.
“They want me to go there”
“Lenore, they will not take you away”
“How did you know I was here?” She changed the topic after a small pause, sniffing and looking through the window. They were in the back of the neighborhood, pressed by the forest's big trees on one side and wooden fences on the other.
“I just…knew you'd be here” He sounded serious, almost with no emotion in his voice. That made Lenore scoff a little.
“Seriously,-”
“Im serious, Lenore” He interrupted, with the same no emotion from early “I don’t even remember driving all the way from here…maybe was the fright”
Lenore stared at him for a few seconds and swallowed. She didn’t know why this interaction was making her feel uneasy, almost even scared. When she unfocused on her knees to look to the front, she stumbled with the image of a slender black figure in front of the road, just in the middle.
“Watch out!” Lenore screamed and grasped Theo’s shoulder when his hand pressed her body to the seat. But it was too late.
They had hit it.
Whatever that thing was, crawled, disappearing and getting inside the woods, only leaving a nasty black liquid on the front part of the car.
“What the fuck..was that?” Lenore mumbled, trying to watch from inside the damage.
“Don’t move from there” Theo pushed the glove compartment open, taking the revolver their father had hidden there, in his own words, for any inconvenience .
He opened the door, carefully enough to pass half of his now standing body through it and see the front of the car.
The black liquid was smudged all over the lights, the windshield and tires. Theo closed the door, walking a little between the front and the main road. Then he turned his gaze to the big trees and obscure ambiance of the forest, standing still.
He slowly started to approach the end of the concrete and got more into where the trees were planted.
Lenore swallowed hard, she was told to keep herself on the car but she just wanted to get the fuck out of there, not caring about what they had hit.
“Theo, get back here.”
Nothing, not a sound. He just stood there.
Lenore fought with her belt and opened the car door, stumbling a little when she got to finally put her feet on the floor.
She turned, finding silence again.
He wasn’t there anymore.