Be Holden

Chapter 4: Hate

You look at the steps of the stairs and a foreign memory comes into your mind. The image of two translucent women glitch into the woods around the manor and both of them have straight hair. Their shoulder length hair shifts as their image glitches further into the woods. They hold each other's hand. They are not facing you. A shadow stops them from leaving the woods. It jumps in every direction they turn. Their bare feet stopped touching the dirt and they floated up. The shadow ran with an inhuman speed toward them and catapulted into the air. He grabbed the leg of the girl with rusty brown hair. The women screamed until the girl being held let go of the other girl with black hair. "Go on without me!" She says before the shadow bites her neck. "No!" The black haired girl screamed as she floated to the sky.

You lift your foot to take another step but a hand grabs your shoulder and pauses yourascent. "Stop whatever you are doing, right now." The black gloved man says. "No." The almost clear woman says behind you. Her rage wiggled just underneath the surface of that word making it sound more like a growl than an intelligible response. He was a few steps ahead of you but he accelerates backward without moving. He is one step ahead of you, now. He slowly turns his upper body to face the two of you. All this time, the wood is creaking with his every move. The gloved hand resting on the banister shakes as he lifts it and directs it to her hand. Is he scared? His hand lands on her hand with more force than you expected. Your shoulder moves back a little and she is soundless at the moment. The glove peels her hand off of your shoulder like it is a scab. He holds it tightly and pushes her back.

"I hate you." She enunciates every word in the sentence. He roughly pulls her forward and she slams into your back. "You can fuck him with that vacuum between your legs and get into his head, but I don't trust you. I never will. I don't know what my best friend sees in you. Just remember the feeling is always mutual." He says. They are both seething. He throws her hands back and stomps up the stairs. She walks away. You slowly ascend while taking careful breaths. When you reach the top, you do not see a trace of him in the hall. All the doors are open. Sunlight streams out of every room you pass and then you find him. He is in a room lying on a bare, wooden floor facing away from the door. "Hey." You say. "What do you want?" He asks in a weary tone.

"What was that all about? Why are you two like that with each other?"

"She knows her place. She always crosses the boundary line."

"How?"

"She is not equal to me and I am not equal to her. She is- She is a Hoofdsleutel and I am an overseer."

"I don-"

"She is disrespectful! She is nothing but a sex toy. It's probably the only thing she can do. Do you want to know why I am here? Go ahead! Ask me my reason for being here."

"Why are-"

"I am here to kill that wicked bitch. I can't wait until she fucks up. I will be right there... waiting to drag her to the end of her existence."

You left the room and now you want to know more about their feud. You briskly walk to the stairwell. Boom! You hear a wall quake from a nearby room. "Stay up here!" He yells to you from the room. You scurry into a room and look out the window. This reminds you of the time your father found out your sister was not with some drug lord like you thought. She was living in a attic with a guy who sold marijuana in the neighborhood and lived with his parents. He told your father to pick her up off of a nearby corner because he believed that she was "old ass." Your father was livid. You were a light sleeper. When your father slammed the front door and began reprimanding your sister with a speech about him wasting time and money on her, you heard it all. Your sister's responses gave away how disinterested she was with the speech and how much she did not care about your parents. You shook your head and pulled the covers over your head. You already predicted that they would lapse back into spoiling her. You began to think about people you know from college that would let you stay with them. It was no big deal for you to cut ties with family demons. You were not that close to your family. You smiled to yourself thinking about your plans. You are an adult, now. No longer, did you have to stomach the sickening spoiling of your sister. You could leave and she could have what you know she wanted, which is the fulfillment of living as if she was an only child. A princess that would get anything she wanted without begging or working for it. The room and everything she could possibly want or need just waiting for her to seize.

Your mother ran up the stairs past your room to the master bedroom. You could hear her sobbing and sniffling. You squeezed your eyelids together as if it would mute everything and make it all vanish. Instead of silence, you heard a polyurethane belt introduce itself. Whip! Crack! Whip! Crack! Whip! Your father was whipping your sister. "I should have done this a long time ago!" Your father said. "You cannot do this to me! I am calling the police!" Your sister screamed. The whipping stopped. Clack! Clack! Clack! The plastic wireless house phone hit the white marble floor downstairs. You can just imagine the plastic chunks flying through the air. "What are you going to use to call them with?" He asks. His breathing was ragged. "I-"

"No, I will speak. From when you were born, you did not belong to me and I was in denial. How could another man's child look better than mine? I was loyal to my wife. I am a good man. My child is a plain person that undoubtedly would live a mundane life, but you- you are gorgeous. Now, I regret taking your unfaithful, slutty mother back. Accepting both of you as if you did nothing wrong and was free of all wrong doing, was wrong. I should have started a new chapter in my life. Leave the whore where she lay, but I didn't. I am too kind. I was being gullible and that is not an attribute. It just gives the gift of resentment and bitterness without a hint of satisfaction. I thought that I could revive this marriage and my happiness. I will not take this. No longer will I accept the actions of either of you. I will give you what your soul truly craves, punishment and constant pain."

"Daddy, why are you saying-?"

"I am not you father."

Heavy breaths, crying, and whimpering are what you heard all night. Eventually, you drifted off to sleep but woke early in the morning when your bed shifted, your mother was sitting at the foot of your bed with bags and dark circles under hereyes. She looked at your sister in the bed next to yours. Your sister's hair was disheveled and there was dried blood on her lip. Your mother got up and walked to your sister's bed. She stood before your sister with her back facing you. She leaned forward and peeled the covers partially off of your sister's body. She sucked in a breath. Your sister did not have any clothing on her lower body. She sat by your sister on the bed. Then attempted to squeeze your sister's neck. Sorrow stopped her in the end. She cried for a long time but your sister did not wake. Your mother got up. You turned away and shut your eyes.