Derek woke up in his bed, feeling like hell. It was night, he could see the moonlight rays coming in through the window. He sat up in bed, an the room began to spin. He laid back down, and took a deep breath. His body felt odd, his skin felt like it was going to move and crawl away on its own. He tried to sit up again, and succeeded. He took a deep breath, swung his legs over the bed and tried to stand up.
His legs felt wobbly but he was able to stand. He took a look around the room and took one step forward. As he went to take his second step, he felt a sharp pain on his stomach which radiated out and he doubled over, falling to the floor. The pain was severe, he felt like his body was being torn in two. The pain moved up through his torso and to his neck, he felt his neck clamp, and had trouble breathing. He gripped his throat, desperately trying to take a breath. The harder he tried, the worse it was, he felt almost like he was choking. He was hyperventilating, and his throat closed up. He tried to calm down and breathe slowly. It took some concentration and control, but eventually the cramp in his throat eased and he was able to regulate his breathing.
The pain in his body had subsided some. He once again tried to get up. Unable to do so on his own, he crawled on his stomach to the bed, and grabbed on it and tried to pull himself up. It took a while, but finally he was once again on his own two feet. It was dark, completely dark yet somehow he could see as clear as day. If he had not been in so much pain, he would probably ponder why that was. He decided to go out into the hallway to his parents room to ask for help. On his feet once again, he took another step towards the door. And another and another. The pain seemed to be getting better.
Halfway through his slow steps, the sharp pain to his stomach started again, this time the pain was so severe, it felt like a sword through his mid-section. He collapsed on the floor once again, fiercely grasping his stomach, in fetal position. He breathed slowly waiting for the pain to stop but it didn’t. He felt like he was dying.
He wasn’t sure how long he was on the floor for, but after a while, a long while it seemed, the pain went away. His legs, which had been cramping, felt like they had finally released. He sat up, on the hard floor and waited, expecting the wave of pain to wash over him again. Nothing.
He waited and waited and finally decided to stand up again. He took a few more steps to the door, and waited. Nothing. Feeling more confident, he made his way to the giant double doors that led from his room to the hallway. It was dark.
As he reached the doors, he felt a bit of a cramp on his legs, but nothing like the pain that had so incapacitated him before. He made his way out of his room and down the hallway. He walked all the way down to his father’s room. None of the torches were lit, no candles burned and yet, he could see every detail on the hallway as if it were broad daylight.
He reached his father’s room and the door was cracked open. He pushed through the double doors and went in. His father’s bed was not neatly made, instead it was a tumbled mess of sheets and silk blankets and yet the room was empty. His father had obviously gotten up, and Derek wondered for a while where he could be. With all the lights in the castle out, and his father’s eyesight being as bad as it was, he couldn’t imagine his father making it very far in this darkness.
He left his father’s room and made way to his mother’s room. He saw a similar setting. This was almost eerie. Where could they be?
The castle look undisturbed – everything in its place, yet no one was where they were supposed to be in the middle of the night. Derek got a feeling in the pit of his stomach that something terrible had happened, but he quickly pushed that thought out of his mind, and started to make his way downstairs.
He walked slowly although he felt no more cramping or pain. He did feel a soreness about his midsection, but certainly nothing that he hadn’t felt before. He made his way down, in the dark, and saw no one downstairs. Not that he really expected to see anyone – even the servants would be asleep at this hour. He walked through the great hall and past the library – he was hoping to see a light or something that would show why his family was not where they should be – but all was quiet.
He went back to the hall – opened the front doors and walked outside. Everything looked as it should for being the middle of the night. He heard no strange noises coming from the stables, and he didn’t see anyone lurking about. Come to think of it, he heard no noise at all coming from the stables, which seemed odd.
He started to make his way to the stables to get a closer look and started to wonder to himself why he even expected to be able to hear anything coming from the stables in the middle of the night? Unless the horses were making one hell of a ruckus, he wouldn’t be able to hear anything. He went along the side of the building, looking for the side door. He opened it and stepped inside.
His stomach sank as he saw what he least expected to see. The stables were empty. How was this possible? He checked the stable door and it was secure – latched from the outside as it normally was every night. He looked in each stall, hoping to see a sign, or a vestige of what had taken place – but nothing was there. He was glad he saw no blood or bodies but as he saw one empty stall after another, he could no longer shake the feeling that something horrible had happened. Something was not right.
Derek started to make his way back to the castle when he saw a man walking towards the back of the castle. As much as he had hoped the man was his father, even from this distance, the man looked too tall and his frame too large to be his father. He man seemed to have seen him, but kept walking towards the castle.
- “YOU!” Derek screamed as he made his way back to the castle
- “Stop! I am talking to you!” he continued to run, but the man simply ignored him and went into the kitchen through the service entrance.
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Derek ran into the kitchen following the man into the complete darkness of his house.
- “I am the lord of this house, and I command you to STOP NOW!” he screamed to the man.
As he entered the kitchen, he saw the man leaving the kitchen towards the great hall. The man looked familiar but he could not place him. He only saw him from the back, but now that he was closer, he realized how huge this man was, the man easily towered over Derek.
- “Dammit, stop” Derek screamed again, his voice booming with anger.
The man stopped and turned around. He was tall – about a foot taller than Derek at least. He had huge arms and legs, almost as if he was used to hard labor. His hair was long and brown, very straight and shinny just resting on his shoulders. His eyes, were a piercing green, which contrasted with his tanned skin. The man just stared at Derek, not in threatening manner, but almost with pity in his eyes. He wore a simple cotton shirt with a and brown leather riding pants and boots.
- “Who are you and where is my family?” Derek asked him again.
The man was silent. Derek approached, the man didn’t move, he looked up at him and asked in a stronger tone,
- “I asked you a question, who are you and where is my family?”
Nothing, the man simply looked down on him, with those eyes of pity.
- “I AM THE LORD OF THIS HOUSE AND I DEMAND AN ANSWER!” Derek screamed at him with his right hand in a fist of frustration.
- “You should rest”, was all that the man said.
The man turned around and walked into the great room. Derek had a flash of memory and remembered who this man was. He had come to their house about 3 days ago asking if he could stay on the property for a few days to rest from a long trip, and his father had agreed so long as he stayed out of sight. Yes, the condition was for him to stay out of sight and now he was in inside his house? Derek ran into the great room after him.
- “Do not turn your back on me”, Derek said as he reached for the man’s arm.
With the grace and agility the man just pulled his arm away from Derek and stopped to look at him again. Derek reached for him again, and the man simply took a step back easily avoiding Derek’s grasp. Derek felt like he was moving in slow motion almost. He could feel the anger bubble up inside him, like an uncontrollable rage. He had always had a short temper but this time, this time it was different. It was like his anger was rushing up from his stomach to the rest of his body, quickly taking over one muscle at a time.
Without even thinking, Derek lunged at the man, feeling himself feral – almost like an animal. He felt himself trying to claw at the man, not that he had any claws to speak of, but it was pure instinct. The man grabbed both his wrists and held him at arm’s length and Derek lunged forward with his head trying to bite him. It was almost like he had lost his mind, and lost complete control over his body. He was watching himself doing all of this with the inability to do anything about it, least of all control it. He couldn’t understand why this man, here, had made him so mad!
The man held Derek by the wrists and lifted him off the ground, as he continued to hiss and scream at the man.
- “You need to calm down” the man said to Derek.
Little did he know that Derek’s state was beyond control. His family missing, the physical pain in his stomach, and now this intruder in his house – it had all come to a head and he could not control his anger anymore than he could control how hard the wind blew.
The man stared into Derek’s eyes, and said in a stern but not angry tone,
- “You need to calm down, you have not fed.”
Derek continued to hiss but he felt drawn to the man’s green eyes, like he couldn’t break eye contact, almost like it was going to be ok, so long as he kept looking into this man’s eyes…
- “Calm down” the man stated in a quiet but stern voice again.
Derek felt his anger subside almost as quickly as it had taken him. The man’s eyes, his stare was calming almost, and for a brief moment, Derek felt safe, felt like everything was ok, that there was no need for his rage. He calmed down, and stopped hissing at the man. He stopped struggling against him, and the man slowly put him down on the floor. The man lowered Derek’s wrists down and slowly let go of them.
Derek finally broke the man’s stare and blinked, not sure himself of what had happened, he felt deeply ashamed of what he had done. How could he lose his temper like that? He had never done anything like that before – ever. He looked up at the man, although he felt he needed to apologize, he also felt that the man was beneath him, so all he could muster to say was,
- “Thank you” he took a deep breath, “now, please, can you tell me who you are, what you are doing in my home and where my family is?”
The man looked down at him,
- “I am just passing through,” the man said “your family is dead” the man once again had that look of pity, “I am sorry I was not able to save them, I am not even sure I saved you…”
As the man walked off, down the hall towards the servants quarters. All of a sudden the fact that there was a stranger in his home, mattered not. Derek stood there in shock. Dead? How could his family be dead? Although, somehow he had already known that, he just wasn’t ready to admit it to himself. Who had killed them? Derek would destroy them – that was all there was.
Suddenly, Derek remembered Ashley, his young bride to be, who had been visiting along with her mother. They had arrived a week ago, and were going to stay the summer. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he was just imagining that they had arrived.
Derek ran upstairs to the guest wing. He stumbled through some of the steps, since the pain in his stomach had still not subsided completely. He ran down the hallways towards Ashley’s room, hoping and praying that he was wrong – that they had not come to visit.
All doors were closed – Derek approached the door to room where he thought Ashley had been staying in and grabbed the handle. His hand shook, he pulled away, almost afraid to open the door. He grabbed the handle once again, took a deep breath and slowly opened the door. The room was completely dark, but Derek could see it clearly as if it was broad daylight.
He ignored everything but the large armoire in the back of the room. He walked slowly, eyes fixed on the armoire doors. He couldn’t bear to look at the rest of the room, and quickened his step. He grabbed both doors, one in each hand,
- “Oh please, let it be empty…” he whispered to himself as he opened the doors, slowly.
Derek stood there – his glare fixated on the contents of the Armoire. It was not empty – but he saw gowns he recognized. Next to the Armoire were 2 large trunks that he remembered being unloaded from Ashley’s coach. So did this mean she was dead too?
It was too much to take, Derek collapsed where he stood, and although his father would not proud of him in this moment, be began to weep silently.
Rage…
He had lost everything. His family, his fiancee – everything that he held dear for most of his life, lost. Why? Why had someone done this to his family?
Revenge. That was all he could think of. He would destroy whoever destroyed his life. At seventeen, his father had already been grooming him to take over the estate, to take over in society, in the council – although Derek had tried as hard as he could to get out of attending any council meetings. But now, he would do whatever he had to, and he would take revenge for his family.
He tried to recall what happened, but couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried, he had a blank. He remembered dinner, the night before – at least he thought it was the night before – and then waking up in his bed in pain. Everything else was gone.
The anger started to brew inside him. Slowly sadness gave way to anger and to rage. He wanted blood for blood – nothing else would suffice. So much rage, he felt the loss of control coming over him again like before. Like when he attacked the man downstairs a few moments ago. He didn’t care. He let himself be swept up by his rage, he gave in and let it take him. He felt complete freedom in his rage, and he welcomed anything that would tear his mind away from the horrible events before him.
He must have blacked out, because he didn’t remember leaving the room or the castle for that matter. He didn’t remember running outside at all. But as his rage faded, and slowly he regained control over himself, he realized he was outside. He looked around and saw trees – a lot of trees – and no buildings in sight. He must have just ran out of the castle into the woods. He had no idea how much time had passed.
He felt better though – comforted almost. He started to get up and felt a weight on his leg. He looked down and saw two dead deer, and himself covered in blood. The deer looked like they had been attacked by wild animals. He looked around quickly to see if the attackers were still there. Nothing.
Looking around, in the dead of night, once again the scenery looked clear as day to him. He saw the pool of blood all around the animals and he was in the center. He looked at his hands, covered in blood, he had blood even on his hair, he could feel the stickiness of it. He looked at his hands once more, and realized he had flesh stuck under his nails. The dark realization hit him – he had killed the deer in his state of rage.
- “What the bloody hell is happening to me” he muttered to himself in shock and horror.
He had blood all over his face and realized his mouth tasted of blood as well. What horrified him even more than the graphic scene in front of him, was the fact that he was licking his lips, and it tasted fairly good …
————————————–
Derek scurried away from the carcass of the animals before him, barely able to stand up. He leaned against a tree and looked at the scene. He couldn’t believe it. What had happened? Had he done that? He looked down on himself and saw blood all over his face and his white shirt was now blood red.
He tried hard to remember what happened, but it was all a blur. He remembered sitting in front of Ashley’s closet and being angry, then he remembered running free through the woods. Such freedom he felt, the wind blowing in his face, the feel of the night air around him. The harder he tried, the more blurry it got.
- “Hmm interesting” he heard from behind him
He turned around to see the man from inside the house – his “guest” so to speak, standing behind him. A concerned look on his face, Derek thought it was strange that the man didn’t look horrified at the scene before him – but instead he looked concerned.
- “What’s happening to me?” Derek asked pitifully
- “Well, you were hungry I presume” the man responded
Derek gasped – hungry? Hungry people ate meat and bread, and drank mead and wine – hungry people did not kill deer with their bare hands and ate the meat uncooked. Furthermore, Derek had people that did that for him – he has never had to hunt but for sport, and even never with his bare hands.
- “Well I see that is not your only problem – you won’t blend in very well” The man said from behind Derek.
- “What? Blend in with what? I just killed 2 deer with my bare hands or did you happen to miss that?”
The man pointed to the ground and the tree behind Derek,
- “Well, my friend, it seems that is not the only thing you killed” He said
Derek looked down at the ground – he hadn’t noticed before, but the grass where he sat was withered and dead. He looked at the grass near the dead deer and saw the same thing. Now that he looked closely, he could see a trail of dead grass leading from the Deer back into the woods. He looked back at the tree behind him, and almost as if before his eyes, he saw it wither and start to die. He heard it crack.
- “You cannot linger in the woods – you are too easy to track” the man said to him
- “What the bloody hell is going on? Are you saying I did this? I killed the grass and trees? But how?”
- “Let us go inside” the man sighed, “I suppose I can teach you enough to get you started at least.” The man said.
Derek got up and started to walk towards the house following the man. Now that he was more attuned to it, he heard the grass crunch under his boot with every step. When he looked down, he saw a trail from the tree, of dead and withered grass, and with each step more the trail grew and grew. A few minutes later he head a large thump – when he turned around, he saw that the tree he was leaning up against had fallen on its side, completely dead. Derek quickened his step and moved up closer to the man. What was happening to him?
They went inside the house, and as Derek walked past the Great Hall and saw the large mirror on the wall, he stopped to look at himself. He almost didn’t recognize himself. There he was, covered in blood from head to toe – his shirt torn, rips on his pants, his hair looked more like wild hay than anything else. He had leaves and pieces of wood and what he thought was animal flesh stuck in it. He frantically started to brush his hands against it, trying to get rid of everything stuck in it. Somehow, he felt that if he could restore himself to the same dignified image he was used to seeing in the mirror, everything would be ok.
He man who had walked up ahead of Derek, stopped and came back. Derek stood there, trying to clean himself off, and the man came and stood next to him. Derek looked up at him, at his image in the mirror. Derek knew the man was much taller than him, but now, looking at the mirror side by side, the man almost looked like a giant.
- “Who are you?” Derek asked the man as he continued to pick grass, leaves and god only knows what else from his hair.
The man looked down on Derek and said in a quiet voice
- “You’re new father so to speak” the man replied, “come with me, lets get you cleaned up”.
The man walked upstairs, and Derek followed him, feeling dazed and confused. Trying hard in his mind to grasp what had happened to him, why he was doing strange things and who this stranger was. He was too tired to protest, to argue or put the man in his place, so he just followed.
The man took Derek upstairs to the washroom, and asked him to sit on a chair. He pulled out some thick cotton cloths, and some soap. He looked down at Derek and said, “Wait here”.
The man left the room and went downstairs again. Some time later, he returned with a huge tub filled with water. The fact that his man was able to carry this tub filled with water up the stairs so fast, didn’t even phase Derek anymore. He was tired of trying to figure things out – he felt numb.
The man poured Most of the water into the brass tub and helped Derek to take his clothes off and get into the water. Derek was used to having servants tend to his every need, so he just sat in the water and let the man clean him up. The water was even strange, it didn’t feel hot or cold to him, it was just there.
- “My name is Claudius”, the man said “you can call me Claude. I have been traveling by the countryside trying to make amends for those less fortunate than myself. I came to your land because I was tracking the ‘bad people’ that attacked your family”.
Claude poured water over Derek’s head and started to rinse off the blood and debris from his hair, “I am sorry I did not realize in time they were so close, that is my fault,” he paused for a moment, “I saw the attack on your girl, but your mother and father were already dead,” he said, “Servants too – although I think they killed the servants first so they wouldn’t come help” he said.
He continued to wash Derek’s back, the water was now a mess of reddish brown with grass and dead leaves floating about in it.
“I killed one of them,” he said quietly, ” but the rest got away, then I saw you were still alive and I tried to help you, but you were too far gone to heal, so instead I turned you” he said.
- “Turned me into what?” Derek asked
- “A killer” Claude replied, “I am not sure why I did it even, I have watched so many die that were in the same manner, and I never felt the need to turn them. Actually I have never turned anyone, you are the first.” he said, “but I heard the pain and anger in your voice, although you were tied to a tree and bleeding to death, you were still trying to free yourself to save your family, and I felt that I had to do something for you.”
- “You turned me into a killer?” Derek asked “what does that even mean?” He murmured.
The man grabbed a large cloth and opened up for Derek, “Here” he said. Derek got out of the water, and wrapped himself in the cloth. He walked to his room and started to dry himself off.
- “Get dressed, go to sleep” Claude said, “we will talk more tomorrow”. He walked over to the curtains and made sure they were closed tightly. He looked at Derek one more time and walked out of the room closing the door behind him.
Derek was standing in his room, naked wrapped in a sheet. He put his sleep shirt on and laid down under the covers – within minutes he was asleep.
Claude walked downstairs, past the servants quarters into the back of the house. He had dug a small corner in the cellar where he could see, smell and feel the earth on the floor. He stood over that spot, and closed his eyes and just let the earth take him. As he sunk in to the safety of the soil, he thought about Derek. Dammed forever. And it was all his fault – he was now as bad as the ones that had done this to him. He closed his eyes and let his senses drift. “Tomorrow he will know the truth – and he will hate me forever,” was the last thought in his mind, before darkness took him.