The Journal: Chapter IV
Im soooo sorry about how late this is and this isnt even a fun chapter. Finals, comp broke, all sorta of stuff but Im back. You may want to re-read the first three chapters to understand the characters but this mainly focuses on Alex Dirge. Kinda some background information on him, sorta :p
Chapter IV: Entry Two - part one
The street was veiled in mist, a cold moisture that swayed within the air and seemed to moan in pain. Just barely visible through the curtain of mist on either side of the road were rows of houses, all of them without a single light within. Alex took a deep breath, his lungs becoming chilled as the mist was pulled within him. His paws had become almost numb as he stood on the cold and wet road. The panther's heart felt heavy and frightened and yet at the same time the majority of his being felt completely numb. He needed to get out of the cold and with a unusually long hesitation beforehand, he took a step forward and began walking toward the one house that seemed somewhat clear through the mist.
Alex was keenly aware of the world around him. Apart from the occasional moaning of the wind, there not a sound but for the scraping of his paws against the road below and the sound of his own heavy breathing. The mist was causing water droplets to catch on his fur which was somehow quickly becoming covered in a light frost. The feline saw this but had no feelings to it at all. His mind was only focused on the door that he was quickly approaching. When he had reached the walkway that led to the house a strange feeling came over him. He suddenly felt a heavy sense of dread and nausea. He looked up at the house and his brow furrowed, his being overcome with remembrance coupled with grief.
His thoughts drifted back in time. He saw the home in a bright spring setting. The yard was filled with flowers of all kinds. Roses, daisies, carnations, tulips, and many more that the panther simply could not identify. They smelled so beautiful. Within the field of flowers frolicked two young children of around age eight. A boy and girl bunny, dressed in adorable summer clothing. They seemed happy as the scampered through the yard, rolling around in the flowers and laughing as one of the two was startled by the bees that would sometimes fly by. In the doorway stood an old rabbit, the two children's grandmother. She wore an apron and thick glasses and she leaned on the wall of her home, watching as the children played. She had such a wonderful smile on her face, the kind that could make anyone feel at peace.
The image vanished and Alex once again found himself standing in the mist covered driveway. He looked down. There were no longer any flowers, only dead soil, too rotten for even fungus to grow. Children no longer played in a vibrant field of color or breathed in the intoxicating aroma of floral fragrance. The doorway no longer supported an old rabbit who's true joy in life was looking after her grandchildren. The walkway was cracked and broken. The home's windows were shattered. The door itself was splintered and lying in pieces.
The panther stepped through the doorway only to find that it was not warmer inside, it was colder. His fur bristled and became stiff in the cold. He felt a sharp pain in his foot and quickly removed it from the floor to find a broken picture frame with a photograph of the family of rabbits inside.
"They look happy in that picture, don't they Alexander?"
Alex's eyes widened as he slowly turned to see the source of the voice that had spoken from behind him. His heart either started to pound furiously or stopped completely, he wasn't sure of which. On a tattered sofa sat a lion with muscles that looked capable of great strength. His mane had been smoothed down with some sort of gel and his golden fur was covered in frost just like Alex. The lion was dressed in all black, a sort of suit which looked very expensive. A tattoo adorned his neck on the left side but it was impossible to make out with the lion sitting down. He had a smirk on his face but his eyes revealed nothing but hate.
"T-bone..." Alex managed to whisper after an entire minute of standing in silence. "What are you doing here?" Alex swallowed hard and struggled to breath. His body was racked with fear, not only fear of T-bone, but of something else.
T-bone stood up from the sofa and let one hand rest against the top for support. "Why am I here? What a jokester you are Alex. Yet, it hurts me that you seem so afraid of me. I've never done anything in the past to hurt you." The lion flashed his teeth to Alex and chuckled at the shudder that seemed to run down the panther's spine. "My dear friend, the question isn't why I am here. The question is why are you here?" The lion waited but Alex stood in petrified silence. "No idea huh? If it were up to me to decide I would say you came here to escape something, the cold I would assume. Ah, but I am sure that you are already very much aware that it is no warmer in here than it is out there in the street. The warmth left this house long ago never to return." T-bone paused, seemingly collecting his thoughts. "Did you know it is proper etiquette to announce yourself before asking questions of others? Then again, you never were very good with respecting others. Such a shame indeed." T-bone's eyes narrowed. "Your eyes, close them Alex."
Without completely understanding why, Alex did what he was told. As the darkness covered his eyes he began to relax a bit. The darkness removed the home, removed T-bone, removed the starkness of it all from his world. The comfort was not fated to last long though for soon T-bone had ordered Alex to reopen his eyes. When he did, he wanted to scream. Before him, tied up and on their knees were the two rabbit children, their grandmother, and another face. A lioness, her eyes sewn shut.
T-bone stood behind the three with a seriously look on his face. "Look back Alex. Look back to that night..." The lion's voice started to fade out as well as the world around Alex. Colors seemed to shift and objects swirled around him. His world went black and then in an instant was filled with color again.
Alex was standing next to a smiling lioness, hope shining though her bight green eyes. The room they were standing in was beautiful and the spring sun shown through the window, bathing the place in warmth. The grandmother rabbit was sitting on the couch and sipping tea while the two children were fast asleep on the hardwood floor. The three that were still awake smiled. Alex was happy. He was seventeen and found comfort in this home after his own family had thrown him out. It had been a rough year to be sure with much adjusting and compromise but things were finally starting to look up. On top of that, his lioness friend, Ruth, had been keeping him company and making sure everything was going as well as it could. Ruth was a few years older than Alex but they had been friends for as long as he could remember. Many days they used to just lay in the sun together and soak up its rays. That ended one day as all things do though.
Ruth had gotten involved with a gang known as the mad jesters. Alex didn't understand at first why she had joined and questioned Ruth but she only answered that she had no choice. It turned out that Alex didn't either. The panther needed money and more importantly family and a sense of purpose so he too eventually joined the gang against Ruth's wishes. Alex's foster family didn't know of course. He could never tell that sweet saint of a grandmother something that would hurt her heart so much.
Alex returned to his thoughts to the moment and saw Ruth staring out the window. She looked so calm, happy, and peaceful. He wished he could someday attain that sense of being. Something was wrong though. Ruth's eyes got big and her mouth formed into a shape to scream. She dove at Alex and tackled him down to the floor as the sound of shattering glass filled the room along with the clattering of metal. Bullets.
Ruth rolled off Alex and cursed, running over to the rabbit family, attempting to demand they get to safety that instant. The front door splintered open and in through the doorway rushed an enormous oxen with a pistol drawn. He shot at Ruth but missed and hit the grandmother in the side. All the noise has caused the children to wake up and start howling with fear. Ruth roared in a rage and scratched the oxen across the face causing him to drop the gun in pain.. The ox swung at Ruth with his huge arm and threw here across the table, shattering class and photos as she flew across it. The children were crying in agony for their grandmother and pounded futilely against the ox's legs. The intruder gave a hard kick to each of their little bodies without any remorse or hesitation, filling the air with the sound of braking bone.
Ruth charged back at the ox but he managed to grab her arms and hold her back. The lioness screamed at Alex to get the gun, to get the gun and shoot the guy. Alex had been stunned until Ruth had yelled at him. He had never seen anything like this before in all his life. He clambered to his feet and ran to the gun. He grabbed it but as he did he heard a scream, a scream from Ruth. He felt a warm liquid fall on his face and looked up to see one of the oxen's horns stuck inside Ruth's chest with blood draining out rapidly. Alex pulled the trigger and the oxen fell. Alex closed his eyes. He wanted to vomit.
When he reopened them he was back in the cold destroyed room with T-bone glaring angrily at Alex. "Yes, that's right you remember. A member of our rival gang, heathen, had entered this house and done considerable damage. Do you know why he entered this house? Let me tell you. You were stupid enough to stash large amounts of one our shipments in your own home and heathen found about it. So what did they do? They sent somebody to take it." T-bone clenched his fist a couple of times and then continued. "Ruth always was good at understanding limits and was aware of the injuries that they had all suffered. They would not be able to cover much ground before more members of heathen found the ox's body and came to find them as well. Heathen is known for torturing those who bring down their members or even cross them the wrong way. So Ruth asked you to kill them. The children first so they would not have to watch their grandmother die, then the grandmother, and finally Ruth herself." He turned to face Alex. "So do it Alex. They are right here, as defenseless as before. Kill them"
Alex began shaking and felt his hand close around the cold steel of a pistol. Against his own will, his hand rose and started to take aim at one of the young rabbits. The panther slammed his eyes shut with tears streaming down his cheeks. He fought with all his might against his own body. He cried and screamed in defiance. He wouldn't shoot, he couldn't shoot. Never! Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Alex regained control over his arm and threw the pistol away. His eyes slowly opened to see the four lying dead in a single pool of blood. Alex collapsed and scrambled back against the far wall, trying to get away from the bodies.
T-bone picked up the pistol and sighed. "The entire family and my dear sister Ruth. You killed them all. Why then, should you deserve to live?" T-bone pointed placed the barrel of the gun between Alexander's eyes. "I'll be merciful though. I'll shoot you between the eyes and make it quick and painless. The same way you killed my sister." T-bone cocked the gun and slowly pulled the trigger. Bang.
Alex awoke with a start and grasped at his right ear to feel the four earrings that lined it. He was sweating and ripped the sheets off of him as he sat up on his bed. A dream, it had been a dream but still... He got out of bed and looked in the mirror. He was a mess. His eyes looked blood shot and his body was covered in drops of sweat. He grimaced when he saw the tattoo on the left side of his chest, an image of laughing jester holding knives in both hands. He rummaged looked at the clock sitting on the nightstand next to his bed and saw that it was still. Early in the morning, the sun had not even come up yet.
He sat back down on his bed in the very small apartment that he and Jay shared. The porcupine was still asleep which made Alex a little calmer. He opened the closet, found the one back suit he owned and put it on. He left the apartment and started walking down the street, picking wild flowers as he went. He walked for hours eventually the sun rose to meet him.
When Alex finally stopped walking, he stood in front of the same house he had been standing in front of in his dreams. The house had been condemned. The sun warmed his fur but his insides still felt an unearthly cold. He walked down the driveway, his arms full of many flowers. He had made sure to pick the flowers so that roots were still in-tact. The soil around the driveway was sparsely filled with flowers but nothing like it once was. After the family had died, there was nobody left to take care of the flowers and they all died or were chocked by weeds. Alex took out his cell phone and called Jay. "Hey man listen. Tell Andrew I'm going to be late today." Without waiting for answer Alex turned his phone off. He then pulled his sleeves up, got down on his knees and started digging in the soil and began to plant the flowers.
He looked at the doorway and pretended he could see the image of the grandmother rabbit standing in the door way. "You know, " Alex said aloud, "Andrew told me one time how cool the thought my earrings looked on me. I ended up yelling at him and storming out of the room. It wasn't until later after I had calmed down that Andrew had no idea what these rings mean, that they symbolize the lives that I have taken and now carry with me every day. I hope that boy never decides to imitate me in any way... I'm not sure I could be able to live with that. He's just so innocent." He laughed. "And he hangs out with me. What a waste... Still, I'm happy for his company and Jay's as well. They are my family. I promise to protect them, always..."
He looked up to the sky. He would never be able to forgive himself for what he had done. The least he could do was to plant some flowers in the yard. He had been at it for a few months and slowly some of the beauty was beginning to come back. Perhaps if he planted enough, just maybe, one day the flowers would be visible from heaven.