⚠️ Warning ⚠️ Murder and Blood ahead.

 When my life ended, I became bound by these scarlet chains. The color of blood, anger, and passion. A color I am well familiar with over the years of endless fighting. 

 And when the fighting stopped, I always had Them to go back to : my wife and children. Until one day I came home to scarlet red. The blood of my family soaking the carpets, the walls, their bodies. It was then I learned the other word associated with red. 

 Revenge.

 I hunted the men responsible like a predator. One by one they fell, moment by moment, my scarlet bounds tightened. Each drop of those disgusting human mens’ blood could never amount to the drops shed by my family. And so my bounds tighten again.

 Five men in total.

 Five men that fell to lust and greed soon fell to Death. And I am more than happy to help them meet Death. To hasten their journey by years sooner. 

 But as they say, in the pursuit of revenge one should dig two graves. So I have dug six. Five for the men and one for me.

 A grave I am scheduled to be put in a few minutes time. Those silver chains that mimicked my scarlet ones, wrapped tightly around my wrists. Achingly bruising but I paid no mind. 

 My focus is on the scarlet chains wrapped tightly around my throat and chest, my arms, my legs. Choking and heavy, I struggled with my burden each day.

 A week ago, I was a free man that finished his quest for revenge. Now I am a prisoner on all fronts. From the law that brought me in, by fate, by a finalized revenge. 

 But to tell the truth in the recesses of my mind, I hold no regrets. It costed me my life, my body, and my soul. But my family’s vengeance has been served with the souls of those men.

 And walking to the stand where I am to be hung on the tallest tree, on the tallest hill overlooking the small town, I could see the remnants of my burnt home in the distance. And in my mind’s eyes I could picture the graves I dug for my wife, my sons, my daughter, and my baby girl. 

 Those scarlet chains wrapped tighter and tighter until my world darkened and I am no longer breathing. One small glimpse of my family, smiling and laughing is all I see before I am whisked away into the eternal darkness.

 Finally, my scarlet chains broke free.

Death. Everyone knows what it is. It is the end of all ends. The end for humans and beasts. It is an end that no one knows what comes after. Will it be cold and empty, an endless abyss where time doesn’t exist? Or will it be warm and peaceful, like a nice summer day at your favorite spot with all your family and friends? Or is it a never-ending torment of past regrets and decisions with bad consequences? For the past few hours, my thoughts have gone round and round on the concept of Death. And with each hour, I have come to accept what will happen. Who knew that one supply run would be the end for me. Quick and easy, get in and get out. A small team of five hungry teenagers scavenging for any supplies. A normal occurrence nowadays after the apocalypse hit three years ago. We had all run in together like we always did. Kevin, Michael, Hunter, Sheila, and I. Kevin and Michael took the back rooms of the run down grocery store while Sheila and I took the front. Hunter staying at the entrance to keep watch for any of the undead roaming around. Or worse, one of the violent gangs of the city. Seven bags full of canned food and medicine and hygiene products later, we started heading back to the entrance. Hunter had turned to look at us, a goofy smile on his face at the sight of the jackpot, when a spray of blood came from his head, a hole in the middle of his forehead. Not giving us much time to think, we had dropped some of the bags by the time he fell over and made a run for it. Sheila got hit in the leg as laughter and cat calls rang out in the silence. “Mike! Kevin!Lila!” She had screamed at us but we had to keep going. They were too close. Too close for us to be able to help her. That is what I kept convincing myself later when we heard the final gunshot as we ran out the back door, blocking the way as we went. Straight into a horde of the undead. A few feet from the van that would lead us to safety they stood. Decaying flesh and grotesque wounds that would have killed a normal person but didn’t faze them. Their teeth gnashing and growling erupting as they spotted us. Handing my lone bag to Michael, I had ordered, “Go!” Pointing at the van I took my rifle and aimed at the one in the front, moments later, no head was to be seen. It went on like that, me aiming and shooting all my ammo into the horde. Keeping them distracted long enough for Michael and Kevin to get the bags into the van and start it up. “Lila come on!” Dropping my now useless rifle, I ran to Kevin half hanging out the back. Seeing one of the undead reaching for him, I had reacted on instinct and pushed him back into the van. Taking my trusty knife, I blocked it’s teeth with my arm as I used my other hand to stab it in the head, killing it instantly. I jumped in, them none the wiser to my deadly infectious injury, and we drove off to the sound of my frantic, “Go! Go! Go!” Leading me to now as I watched them drink sadly to the lost lives of Sheila and Hunter in the safety of our secret underground hideout. Kevin taking his knife and carving their names into the Memory Wall. My feverish eyes taking a look at the forty eight names. Knowing my name would soon be forty nine as I glanced down at my sleeve covered bite. “Lila, you okay?” Michael, ever the sweet one, asked. “Never better,” I smiled. I had to. I didn’t want them to know or see me go down like this. Taking my word for it, he and Kevin went back to their drinking by the fire. As they fell asleep, I shakily stood from where I leant up against the wall. Going over to them, knowing their deep sleep, I kissed each one on their foreheads. Going to the Memory Wall, I carved my name deep. I didn’t know what awaited me. Heaven or Hell. But I was as ready as I could be. Leaving them no sign of my presence except my name and message. “Goodbye.”

We all knew this day would come. When the population outlasted the available resources. Eventually droughts and storms would tear an irreparable hole in the food supply. Medicines would become far more valuable and precious. The only hope to prevent a lawless country rising from the ashes is to do the unthinkable : a mandate that one person from every household must be sacrificed for the greater good. For those that lived alone and had no one to depend on, it didn’t affect. It were the families that would have to sacrifice : a grandmother or grandfather, a mother or father, a sister or brother, aunt or uncle. Didn’t matter so long as everyone participated. But those that opposed were to be executed without trial. The entire family to be wiped out without any reason other than refusal. Just like what happened to the nursing homes a year prior. Wiped out without any reason except the elderly were dragging the resources down. It made my family sick knowing the lives that were lost, knowing that my grandmother was apart of those that were massacred. Now my family had to make another sacrifice. My father, my mother, my little sister or brother, or myself would be gone. We were given 24 hours to make our decision. I can only imagine how my older brother must be feeling with his own household that contained his wife and newly born twins. It is all so twisted. “The government has resources but chooses to hoard most of it for themselves.” My father’s words rang loud and clear in our small apartment as he and mother argued. “It doesn’t matter! If we say anything, we will be all killed!” Her usually calm, sweet toned voice now held a layer of fear. “We can run,” he began before she cut him off. “We can’t! If we do, we are condemning all our children to death!” I leaned against that wall hearing the argument ring over and over again in my head for hours. I remember the dread as my father made his decision that he will sacrifice himself. Just like my older brother. What a sad world to live in. As the military knocked on doors, I noticed quite a few elders being dragged out of the house by their own families, children snatched away from parents that didn’t even flinch. Men kissing their wives and babes goodbye. Mothers tearfully telling her soon to be orphaned children to look to the heavens to find her. Seeing my older brother kissing his wife and twins goodbye, I thought how much they would miss their father. How much time they would have gotten if this hadn’t had happened. He would never get to walk his girls down the aisle to be wed, never get to have more children with his wife. Looking down at my crying younger siblings, tears and snot gathering in their faces, I knew then what I must do. For them. I had a role to play as their older sister.
Taking the distraction of my father consoling mother and the children, I stepped forward when the soldier came to our door. And in a voice that I didn’t recognize in myself, I answered his question, “I volunteer.” I am not forced. I volunteered. “No!” Father and mother screamed, trying to reach me, but the soldier had already taken me by the arm and escorted me onto the cold December street, letting me join my older brother who had shocked tearful eyes fixed on me. I squeezed his hand as with a brief glance behind me, knowing this would be my last time seeing them, I smiled. “I’m sorry,” I told them. Sorry I won’t be here. Sorry I won’t be able to be there for my siblings. Sorry I wouldn’t have another chance to laugh with them. Sorry for so many things but most especially : sorry that I am not sorry of my choice. Looking up at my brother of twenty one summers, we both had an understanding. A connection. For our families we will go. We stayed like that, hand in hand. Even as we were locked in a chamber with hundreds of strangers. I leaned my head against his shoulder as the oxygen was sucked out and we all started to fall to sleep one by one. I saw glimpses of what could have been but I smiled for what I did have with them. The last words I heard were, “Happy birthday Valerie.”

Once there was a time of invention, of cold steel buildings and pavements. Of running cars and planes and people. An age of progress with a very high cost.

 Pollution smothered the clean air, clouded the once clear water, poisoned animals. Poisoned people even. But what about the other living thing?

 Mother Nature.

 Beautiful and serene, She gave life to every sprout and blade of grass. Fed every animal and allowed them to pass into the next life on Her soil so they too can give life to the creatures in the ground. 

 Through high heat and rain and snow She endured it all. And for what? Her trees to be cut down cruelly and in their place left barren. Her animals to be killed for sport without necessity. Her oceans filled with oil and waste.

 Yet Mother Nature is also destructive and vindictive. Harsh storms rained down on the Earth. More than any other years before : hurricanes that swept the coasts, tornados that ripped away anything in its path, and earthquakes that burst open the ground in jagged lines. She had enough.

 And when it was all said and done, Mother Nature took over all progress. Creeping lazily across those buildings and cars and landed planes, the rest of the human race restarted again.

 Progress was made but in a whole different way. Gone was the use of batteries and electricity and oil. In its place were the sun and water and wind. Planting more trees and creating more reserves protected the forests and animals. Oceans were cherished more than ever before.

 Progress was made without cost.

 Clear blue skies and rolling forests were the norm with the buildings from before dotting here and there. Green-blue oceans were seen for miles upon miles.

 Mother Nature won and the new and better future was on the horizon.

Have you ever wondered what was in someone’s head? Those little words floating around and around in that skull, unspoken. That urge to hear the words, to know what they really thought.

 What about emotions? Colorful flashes of yellows and greens and blues and reds. Of happiness and envy and sadness and anger.

 How would it feel to hear and see everything? To feel what they felt through their ears, eyes, and even skin. To touch what they have touched, to know every nook and cranny of their minds.

 I know what it’s like.

 I live it every single day. 

 And she does too.

 Twins we were born. Twins we have been bound to. Twins that will know every thought and emotion and touch of the other. Both a blessing and curse, we have lived with it for twenty years.

 “Ace,” my twin sister, Ash, called. No voice was uttered but it rang loud and clear in my head as I lay awake in my bed. Blinking lazily at the tiled ceiling of our humble apartment, I could feel her laying on her side in her own bed one door from mine. As if she was laying right beside me.

 Noticing the underlying trace of fear, I immediately knew why she had called for me. I concentrated and asked, “Nightmare?” Even though we both knew the answer.

 The government still haunted us.

 Twin freaks of nature with a power no one can explain or understand. Fugitives, we had broken free of our prison and ran. Leaving it all behind. Our father who had created us, the doctors like him who experimented on us, and the guards trying to keep us locked up.

 We were done with the needles and pain.

 No more!

 Feeling the rage I had undoubtedly gave off, I felt her putting a hand over my racing heart with her soothing yet guilt ridden words, “Ace, it’s okay.  Just a nightmare. I’m sorry to bother you.”

  Catching the invisible hand that Ash began to withdraw, I willed myself to calmness and gently stroked her knuckles. “Sorry Ash, I’m just so angry we are having to run in the first place.”

 “I know.”

 “Was it Peter?” I asked, an image flashing of a man with a deceptively charming smile and blonde hair with a heart as black as coal. One of the cruelest guards at the laboratory, he had taken a keen interest in Ash. One of the two reasons why we had ran.

 “Yeah.” 

 Feeling her fear again, I rolled over onto my side to mirror her. I could see in my mind’s eye of her white blonde hair so like mine, splayed out on the pillow and reddened silver eyes from crying. Without a word, I reached an arm over and pulled her closer into me, knowing she could feel the warmth and solidity.

 “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I felt her overwhelming fear and sadness reach it’s peak. My hate for Peter only growing more and more, even if he’s long dead and gone.

 “I-I can’t help but remember h-him.”

 Another image of Peter, this time his bloodied form laying on her prison floor. And an image of me standing over him with blood staining my white lab rat uniform, speckling my hair and face. My hands soaked in it from my shoulder.

 “You had no choice Ash, he would have killed us. Worse even to you.” I soothed as pain lanced through her as she remembered what she had done. What had happened that night, the night that became our second reason why we ran.

 I remember hearing Ash crying, feeling her pain as it felt as if her hair was being pulled. Her arm grasped in a bruising grip and I knew immediately what was happening. I didn’t think at the time. How I had no weapon and Peter did. Or his strength compared to mine.

 I didn’t care. My sister was in trouble.

 I had burst inside and pulled him off of her. A flurry of fists and kicks between us erupting, pain flashing as black eyes and bruises were made. All I could see and hear and feel was my sister’s pain and fear. 

 When I had gotten shot and just as he was about to kill me, Ash had taken his gun and fired the killing shot.

 Like that day, I hugged her tight and said, “I’ll always be there for you, forever.” And I meant every telepathic word.

Mr. Bane was not ordinary. Far from it. His only solace is Halloween night. A night when people did not flinch or scream in fear at his appearance, their faces twisting in disgust.

 People did not realize that his skeletal figure and greenish pallor were real. These white dead like eyes of his were real. His cracked and dead like nails and teeth. They all believed it to be a disguise, a mask.

 Mr. Bane is in fact a product of alchemy from hundreds of years ago. His creator was long dead and gone but his creation had lived and been passed down from generation to generation. Until recently, his last and final descendant had passed.

 An old man he was with graying hair and wrinkles that made his skin look like leather. His eyes had looked at the creation, Mr. Bane, with something akin to a paternal bond. He had bade Mr. Bane to find something to live for.

 Mr. Bane was confused but had promised his dying master and so for twenty years he had sought what he had meant. But had yet to find anything.

 So every year on Halloween night, he searched. And through those years, he realized what the foreign feeling was : loneliness. 

 Bundled in his black trench coat and gray turtleneck that covered his lipless mouth, Mr. Bane waited on the corner of the street under his black umbrella. His hopes being washed away with the rain. No one in sight on this lonely, cold night. 

 Mr. Bane felt a heavy weight in his chest as his head slowly turned downwards at the growing puddle, hand clenching the base of his umbrella until a single turquoise colored butterfly graced his dead hand.

 The butterfly flapped it’s wings lazily as he studied the creature in curiosity. It’s feathery touch barely registered as he pondered how such a beautiful creature could not fear him. If anything the butterfly looked content perching on his fingers.

 “Beautiful aren’t they?” A calming, gentle voice said. Looking up, Mr. Bane couldn’t believe that something could be more beautiful than the butterfly. 

 Dressed in a Victorian styled navy blue dress with black and silver designs, stood a woman with a matching umbrella. Her eyelids lightly shadowed with a similar blue and rosy pink lips, her cerulean blue eyes gazed at the creature then at him. Black hair laying in ringlets down her back as she tilted her head studying him.

 Without his realizing it, the butterfly had flown away when she spoke once again, “Not much of a talker huh.” Smiling at his expression, she continued, “What you doing out here alone?”

 “Waiting.” Mr. Bane’s voice can be described as rough and gravely yet soft, as if he didn’t speak very often. Yet the tone of it spoke to his inner gentleness.

 “Are you waiting for someone?”

 A nod to her question, her smile only grew. “Well it’s awful cold out here. Are you sure they are coming?” 

 A shake of his head this time.

 “Well the name is Leah.” She held out her pale hand which Mr. Bane hesitantly took hold of, knowing she could feel the roughness of his skin. 

 “Bane,” came his reply. 

 “Well Mr. Bane, would you do me the honor of escorting me?” Not perturbed at his appearance or at his touch, he felt something warm inside of him as he nodded.

 Together, hand in hand, they walked together down those lonely streets. And for the first time in a long time, Mr. Bane wasn’t lonely.

 It continued like that. Never once did she question his appearance. Or how he always spoke little.

 Mr. Bane and Miss. Leah were content. Even when he revealed himself and his origins, she only hugged him. That moment made something profound happen inside of him. He had found his reason for living.

 And through the years, Miss. Leah became Mrs. Bane. Even though they did not have any children of their own, they were happy.

 And when the time came and she grew old and died, Mr. Bane too finally passed with her. His expiration date had come the moment she had passed. They had laid together, side by side, hand in hand, one rainy day in October. Just like how they had met.

Dear Diary,

 I have never used you before. When Mom gave you to me, her final gift before she had passed, I never believed I would have a use for you. But after tonight, I find myself huddled in the deepest darkest corner I can find with nothing but my flashlight to see. 

 That’s right. I am hiding in my closet.

 What brought me here? 

 I saw something. Something not right. Something that I can’t ever tell anyone. Not if  I wish to keep myself out of a nuthouse. So I guess here I am, writing in an unused book for people that will never know.

 I was laying in my bed, covers pulled to my ears. It was two o’ clock in the morning when I woke up. A time I am usually never awake but for some reason I had opened my eyes.

 I didn’t understand why at first until I heard it. The creaking of a floorboard from the hallway. I just thought it was a mouse or something but then I heard it again, closer now.

 I laid in bed frozen with my front facing the window as that sound got closer and closer till it stopped just in front of my bedroom door.

 I didn’t hear it again so I had closed my eyes, a shaky breath leaving my lips, when I opened my eyes again. There IT was.

 A shadow standing over me, a clawed hand outstretching slowly with a long chain dangling from its arm. And those eyes peeking beneath its hood, they were hollow. Like a skull’s.

 I had tried to run but I couldn’t. Something was holding me there. Something I couldn’t describe except it was cold, like ice, when IT touched me.

 Mom used to tell me that our house was haunted ghosts. But I never once believed her. Not till then. 

 Those claws scraped my cheek, drawing raised lines. Lines I still feel right now, a stinging reminder of the event.

 The darkness shadowed over it’s form, but I vaguely saw it looked like a man tilting his head as it regarded me with interest. Those claws stroking my face almost lovingly.

 “Maria.”

 That was the name HE had spoken to me.

 MY name.

 But it wasn’t the name that sent chills down my spine but the words after that. Those three simple words.

 “You must die.”

 HIS hand closed over my mouth, suffocating and cold. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move. It was as if I was bound. As if I could fill my life source draining.

 I don’t know what happened next. 

 I woke up feeling drained and scared. So very scared. I am still scared. Terrified. I don’t know what I saw. Nightmare or real.

 I had these scratches, this drained feeling, this coldness that hasn’t faded since I woke up. 

 No one can know. I can’t be the crazy girl in town. Not like Mom, the tarot card reading woman who believed in the paranormal and strange. 

 I know Mom would believe me. I know because she has told me how she has seen things. Things that can’t be explained. But I am not her!

 But I can’t explain what I saw. I just have this feeling that something bad is going to happen today. I don’t know what. But at least I have written it down in case something does happen. Even if no one sees this.

 I have no family or friends. All people will find in this old house is antiques and bad memories. And some girl’s crazy nightmare in the only entry written in this diary. 

 Well, I guess that is it. The end of this one and only entry by the one and only crazy girl in this small town. Goodbye forever.



                                                  Maria Harris