mason "shadow" winterhold | district six

Blackwater Orphanage was silent. It was the night of Scar's fourteenth birthday. I felt something eerie in the atmosphere that day. Throughout the hours of the daylight and the hours of the evening, my heart carried this grave heaviness—dread of what was to come. And then the moment finally arrived.

The moment darkness made its second mark.

Her nimble hands began to unbutton my shirt, but I pull away from her. Our eyes locked for a moment, and all I saw in those blue depths was ice. The realization hit me like a blade to the heart—but it was already too late for me—and reached as deep as my bones, turning everything to cold, cold fear.

"Stop," I told her.

She did not relent.

"Daria, stop," I repeated, my trembling voice hinting a plea.

She smiled, a wicked curve of the lips.

"You're such a good liar, Mason," she said, her voice saccharine. She was talking as if her mind was absent from the cruel reality that was about to unfold. (I still wonder if she was blind to her own sadism.) "Sometimes I can't tell if you're lying or telling the truth. I guess we have that one thing in common."

"Don't call me Mason," I retorted scornfully.

When she continued to unbutton my shirt, I grasped onto her hand with force that surprised me, and held it in the air, away from me.

"Let's play a game, Mason." She cast her glacial gaze upon me, a beam of ice and mercilessness. "I dare you to lie to me," she said softly. "And we'll see if I can tell."

"Fuck you," I spat. "I'm stronger than you."

But to prove me wrong, she took her palm and pressed it to my chest. With a shocking amount of force in those delicate hands, she slammed me against the wall with a resounding thud. She leaned in, her hair—I remember how fragrant it was, like coconuts and loveliness—tickling my collarbone. Her voice sent chills running up and down my spine as she whispered, her soft lips pressed to my ear, "Liar."

(She would have been so beautiful if she wasn't a monster.)

Her voice was velvet and gentle like her touch. It was soft summer rain and sweet, smooth molasses. It was a beautiful voice that paralyzed me with fear each time it reached my ears. Just as it did at that moment. Paralyzed me. Every fiber of my body was screaming, Shadow run run run run run run RUN RUN R U N it's what you do best isn't it? but I could not. With a single soft whisper like a violin melody, I was frozen, rigid as stone. Even if I could have run, she was a streak of lightning and I paled in comparison. Even if I could have fought, she was a powerful jaguar rippling with astounding strength and I was a feeble fawn with breakable twigs for legs—predator and prey, that's what we were. Not a man and woman. No, she had dehumanized me far too much for that and I cannot bring myself to call her human.

And so the nightmare began.

Every kiss, a stab to the heart.

Every touch, a flame to the skin.

Every breath, a g o n y, like breathing in toxic air.

My heartbeats were screams.

Swallowed tears burned away my vocal cords.

I would not let her have the pleasure of hearing my desperate screams of sheer terror or seeing an ocean pour out of my eyes.

She already had the pleasure of ripping me apart by the seams.

The tables had turned. I was the jaguar; she was the deer. I was the one wielding the power this time. And I was without mercy. When she carved me out and stole everything I had, made me hollow, in all of her avarice she took mercy, too. And oh, how she would pay for it and every other dark deed she had done.

It was Scar's sixteenth birthday. Everyone was outside on the grounds, celebrating, laughing, smiling, cheering, blowing out candles and gorging on feasting on cake. We had melted into the shadows, and this time it was I who brought her to the bedroom at the end of the hall on the highest floor—her bedroom. I like to think that my intentions were not as sinister as hers.

The first thing I did was bash her head against the wall. I had to stop myself from going further once she was knocked out cold.

I tied her to a chair with rope that had a rough, uncomfortable texture. Her arms were tied to the arms of the chair, the undersides facing the ceiling, exposing her major blood veins.

When she woke up, my pocketknife was ready in my hand.

I remember how her face changed: first confusion, and then horror, finally realizing what I was about to do. Her eyes were fixed on the knife, wide and fearful.

"I think that's the first remotely human emotion I've seen you expose," I said. "Or maybe fear is the only human emotion you can feel."

"What are you doing?"

"You already know."

She shakes her head in a plea as tears gather in her eyes, threatening to brim over. I found myself astounded, completely taken aback by her display of fear. I loved every moment of it. She deserved to feel everything I felt, and if not that, than at least a fraction of the agony.

I moved closer to her, holding the knife close to her face so she could catch a glimpse of what I had in store for her. The rhythm of her breathing quickened, and her breaths became short and desperate, as if I was about to shove her head underwater. I would do worse than that.

"Please. Please, M—Shadow.

"I dare you to lie to me, Daria," I said, my voice hushed but sinister, as cruel and wicked as the smile that crept up her face that horror of a night. "Tell me how sorry you are."

I knew that her empty apologies and promises are false and that they would not numb my pain, that they are not the morphine I craved. The morphine I craved was revenge. (Even if it did not at least contribute to healing—if my cavernous, bleeding wounds will ever heal—I still desired it as intensely as an alcoholic desires whiskey.)

"I'm sorry," she sobs pathetically, tears running down her face like rivers. "I shouldn't have—I shouldn't have done those things. I'm sorry, I really am. Just please don't kill me."

I laughed bitterly like a mad man isn't that what I am and I leaned in and whispered gently, as sweetly as she had done to me, "Liar." My lips burned where they had been pressed against her ear.

I brought the pocketknife down on her wrist, digging the blade into her veins—but not deep enough to cause her to bleed out—and dragged it in a straight line, summoning a stripe of crimson. It is a perfect, surgical incision—I am a skilled medic. (I doubt my instructor had this in mind while teaching me.) opens her mouth to scream, but then I said, "Scream and I promise this suffering will last as long as mine."

She looked into my eyes, their fathoms full of cruelty and bloodlust. She must have seen the eyes of a killer—the truth—and knew that I would not show her even a glimpse of humanity, that I had no mercy to grant her. She knew she was a monster and that she would be slain.

Ten stripes for each arm.

Twenty stripes total.

Twenty lines of pain, but not enough.

No amount of her anguish would ever be enough for me.

I was starving to see her bloody, mangled, cold body, no longer recognizable as Daria Blackwater. I was starving to see my hands, covered in crimson. But I am not a fool. If I fail to make Daria's death appear to be a suicide, I will surely be caught.

So when I was done slitting her wrists, I got out another coil of rope.

She was weak, slowly fading. But she was still coherent, her eyes, dull with exhaustion, but trained on me. Her eyes no longer burned with anger or heinous plots. They were just tired and pained.

"No. No . . . no please," she begged pitifully.

But I had no remorse. In my eyes, she was less than human. (Humans could not be cable of . . . of such disturbing acts.)

"You see all of that blood on the floor?" I said to her. (It was beautiful to me, like little carmine lakes, shining in the vague moonlight streaming in from the window.) She nodded. "If I could, I would scrub away my misery with your blood."

"If only I could," I sighed.

"Please! Please! I'm sorry! I am!"

"I dare you to lie to me."

And she hung.