Everything must happen quickly. I must stay focused. Analyze. Analyze Aston. What, where, how. I first examine the wood of the galleon in the middle of the cell. I run to it, knowing I can’t waste time. No, not here. Too hard. It must be rotten. Rotten enough to break through. I run further, leaving the children in my brother’s cell. I dash from one cell to another, the darkness making me paranoid that someone might come at any moment.
Finally. Rotten wood. I look inside the cell, which is three away from where my brother lies, to find hard objects. A body lies in the filth. I grab the arm of the already mutilated corpse and tear it off. Then, I swing the hard bone of a Red against the rotten spots of the wood.
To drown out the noise, I pretend to groan. I pretend I’m hitting the children. I repeat over and over how lovely it is when children don’t scream during the act, but rather when they’re unconscious.
After countless acts of this sickening charade, which makes me as repulsive as those above who do this every day, the wood finally breaks. I pull at it further, the splinters cutting into my hands, blue blood flowing from my palms as the pain from the adrenaline starts to fade. Finally. Strangely, I find myself grinning as the hole becomes large enough for a barrel to fit through. A barrel.
My eyes scan the darkness. There should be some here. A flash of thought runs through my mind, and I run again. I grab the heavy barrel, which has a few holes in it, and roll it toward the large hole in the wall. I run to Lieben, grab him, and drag him through the very thing he loathed.
Now I just need to get him inside, perhaps fill it with other things, making it heavier than the water, and let him disappear for now.
My breath remains heavy, my heart heavier, bordering on a miracle that I haven’t passed out from the stress. I curse inwardly. What wouldn’t I give for some of the empty herbs from our rose garden?
But I focus again. I slap my dirty, bloody hands against my face and look one last time at my brother.
His closed eyes, his long blonde hair, as magnificent as mine—only longer—his half-open mouth. But he is dead. There’s no going back. Even if there was, I wouldn’t change this moment. Not because I wouldn’t want to, but because I know something like that would never happen. My eyes flicker for a moment, but I grab his shoulders, his arms, and break them. Again, I groan, pretending I’m starting another round with the children, a third, fifth, or however many more. Tears come again, even though I don’t want them to. Not for him. Is it perhaps brutality? That I must break his limbs, his legs, so I can stuff him into the small barrel?
That as I squeeze him in, I mix him with the other red ones who died days ago? The sounds I make, the ones that escape me, are strange, but then, when I lick my brother’s blue blood to activate my shapeshifting ability, I understand why. I weep, because, despite him being my brother, I am just as cold as he was to the reds, just as cold to him, to my family, and to everything my bloodline represents. I’m like them—a monster. A monster shaped by this absurd, brutal world. But I can’t cry any more tears. I mustn’t. I have to focus.
I calmly place the lid on the barrel, my hands shaking slightly, as I lift it, surprised by the strength within me, through the high hole, while I continue to groan, pretending to be in pleasure. I scream, as if I’ve reached the peak for the umpteenth time, to cover the sound of the barrel’s contents, my brother, bursting. To drown out the bubbling sound as the barrel fills with water and the air escapes. And through it all, I just stare at the sinking barrel. At the bubbles, and then up to the sky, which has taken on a violet hue. Not yet the golden moon in an hour, but in about three. It’s beautiful. A beautiful view. A beautiful world. But this world needs to be cleansed. Cleansed of the parasites that spoil its beauty, even if they are friends. Even if they are loved ones. Even if they are family.