The Secrets of Lore Seymour

28. Family Picture

Present

Warning: Mention of sexual assault. Suicidal thoughts and the mention of a suicide.

I swear I can still feel that beasts' nails piercing my shoulder. The scent of all that blood, like rust and death, fills my nostrils. I remember the soggy grass, unclear of what was dirt and what was blood. The memories threaten to drown me. I almost wish they would, if only to see my family again.

For the longest time, I wanted to join them. I had plans to do so, to go out on my own terms. I was about to do it too, but Olere... he stopped me. He and the church were there for me. I had someone and something to keep me afloat, to give me a reason to live. It made the days easier. Helped the nightmares fade. Gave me a purpose.

I swallow back the bile in my throat to finish the tale, "Olere, a champion of the Holy Church, was the one who saved me. They had been tracking a group of vampires high on bloodlust for a few weeks and may have been searching longer if my divinity hadn't awakened."

I don't dare a glance at Lore, who has been listening in utter silence. His gaze mimics a cold breeze picking away at my already fringed nerves. They fire off like sparks at the end of a broken wire.

"After that, I was taken to the church. Without them, I wouldn't be here. Thanks to them, I was raised and loved by a new family. A family that shares my pain and understands what I went through," I add.

That earns Lore's first reaction, which is a low chuckle. I finally face him, slightly perturbed by his narrowed eyes and wrinkled brow.

"Family," he repeats the word like a curse. His cold eyes bore into my own as if he's searching for something. I don't know if it finds it. "Is this the part where you expect me to speak of my family?" he asks, leaning back in his seat. He watches me with that same chilled look.

I don't respond, seeing as there's no point. This either leads nowhere or it'll give me the briefest glimpse of a past others may not know. I pray for the latter because, after recounting my past, I know it will revisit me tonight in my dreams. It used to when I was younger. Every night. And every night I watched my family die again and again until I could paint a clear picture to anyone twisted enough to ask.

"Fine, but know that I do not have as much to tell," Lore states with a meager shrug. He speaks as if this happened yesterday and it doesn't matter at all. "My father was a vampire, a pathetic beast with nothing to his name and a rapist condemned to death by the church after my mother informed them of what he had done to her. He was burned alive for his transgressions, then beheaded for good measure. Unfortunately for my mother, he wasn't the end of her problems. She had me. Perhaps she wanted me in the beginning, at least enough to give birth, but if so, that faded quickly. I don't recall a time when she did love me. She made sure I knew what I was and how she felt everyday, but even her hatred towards me couldn't keep her going. She lasted six years. I went to live at the orphanage after she killed herself."

I'm not sure what I expected; perhaps an ounce of sorrow or even struggling to speak. Lore gave none of that. He sits there, unfazed by a past that would certainly trouble me. There's the argument that it happened long enough ago that he has gotten over the past, but can anyone ever truly get over something like that? Can a childhood ever actually be forgotten or does the past become a scar that we pretend isn't there?

Although Lore was blunt and gave the briefest of information, I've still been given a truthful look, whether he meant to or not. Family; he spoke of his biological parents first. Not the Seymour's. That is a choice, a telling one. Could it be that, even after his troubled childhood, the Seymour family treated him even worse? Worse enough to warrant not bringing them up. Worse enough not to mention or even think of them as family. If that is true, it further points to what Olere, the church, and probably many others believe; Lore may have played a role in the Seymour family's deaths.