Sage
Isit next to my brother in the passenger seat of the old Corolla he borrowed from his coworker.
I'm dressed in a nun outfit made of latex, with ruined makeup on my face that Silas forbade me to fix after he ruined it. My eyes drift to the road outside my window; passing trees fill my vision as I try to focus my thoughts. Returning to our hometown feels wrong. It’s not a good idea on so many levels, and even though I did come up with it at first, I have tried to change Silas’s mind so many times since.
None of my arguments landed, though, and now here we are in a car, driving five hours to execute a plan that will either have us in a cell or in the ground by dawn.
Even if we manage to get away with it, I doubt we are going far.
It’s not that no one would recognize us if we tried to run away.
Tattoos and piercings are fun and all, but not the best when you’re trying to blend in.
We have many good qualities, but blending into a crowd isn’t one of them.
“Silas, maybe we shouldn’t go back,” I try to argue once more, but his hand roams over my thigh, giving it a little squeeze. I sigh. It’s pointless.
When my brother has something on his mind, he’s like a dog with a bone.
You have better chances of losing a finger than taking it away.
In this case, jumping off a moving vehicle seems to be the only way I would get out of this situation, and it’s not something I would be into doing.
I may have a temporary epiphany of morality, but even with that, I don’t have a death wish.
It’s funny how sometimes the most depressed people in the world are the ones who want to live more than anyone else.
I happen to be one of those people. Full of a will to live and, at the same time, none at all.
And since I am not going anywhere else soon, I settle with the fact that this plan is in motion whatever I do; but even with that knowledge deeply rooted inside me, I still have my doubts.
Because this is the most terrible idea I ever had in my life, including the fact that I was born.
Of course, I didn’t exactly have a say in that one, but we must have some choice in the matter as souls before we enter our mortal bodies, if the whole heaven, hell, earth, and incarnation thing is correct.
I am not sure I believe in any of this anyway, and God knows how much our mother tried.
She did her best to root the ways of God in both of us and failed miserably.
Maybe it was her way of practicing, or the fact that beating religion with a burning cross into someone’s soul isn’t exactly a Christian practice.
Yet that’s what she did for a good chunk of our lives.
I am pretty sure Silas still believes in God, though, in a sense. Even if he won’t admit it. I can tell sometimes that the deep-rooted ideology surfaces in his thoughts. He still punishes himself from time to time for the unholy thoughts circling in his mind. He is a complicated man, my brother.
“Sage, it was your idea. You said that you wanted them to pay for everything they did,” he reminds me.
It’s not like I denied it. I did come up with the stupid plan, but I was high on cheap weed and drunk from good sex and bad liquor when that stupid idea struck me like a damn lightning bolt.
It seemed like a great one at the time. It wasn’t even twenty-four hours later when I realized how bad of one it really was—when Silas came into our apartment with a set of brand-new knives.
Because obviously, you need brand-new knives when you are about to commit mass murder.
It’s the wise thing to do. It’s like when you start a new job and you buy a new outfit for your first day.
You know, for good luck. That seems to apply to murder, too.
Getting a new gun, a new knife, a pack of cigarettes as backup for when they lock you up. Things like that.
The rainbow blades he specifically chose for himself and the magenta-pink ones he chose for me stared into my soul from their velvet case as he displayed them on the table for me that night.
Just like that, my idea was no longer just an idea; it was a heavy-duty wrecking ball ready to demolish everything in its path. And most importantly... everyone.
The list of future victims is long. Way too long for two people who have only been on this earth for about twenty years.
It does feel longer, though. As if an eternity in this hell has already passed and I am on my sixth cycle of torture.
Maybe that’s actually what hell is: living through a life that you didn’t choose, one that you despise, while trying your best to pretend that you love it.
But has anyone truly loved their life? In a history of millions of people living and dying on this earth, has anyone truly been happy for all of it?
I am not talking about a few moments of happiness in a world of suffering. I am talking about most of life being happy, with some sprinkle of drama and doom. I mean truly being happy. Like a dog or a child before the age of understanding.
As weird as it might sound, I have a theory about this.
I believe some people—not all of them, but some—are meant to suffer more in life.
The universe needs its balance, and in order for children to be blissfully happy, and for some people to have mostly happy lives.
Because again, no one is truly always happy.
You need to have some people suffer more to balance the happiness others get.
You can’t have good without bad, and you can’t have happiness without suffering in the world.
Some people suffer so others can live the dream.
“I did,” I finally admit in a low voice, after being lost in my own head for what seemed like hours since his question.
I can’t deny the truth. A week ago, when I saw on social media that Kyle was hosting a party for Halloween, I came up with a plan of revenge that included knives and so much gore that even the most dedicated horror freaks would shy away from witnessing.
Which is also why I blame the horror movie we were watching, because this wasn’t a reasonable plan at all. Six victims, one night, and matching outfits. Because you have to have matching outfits when you commit a mass murder. What can go wrong, right?
Well, now that we are just a few hours away from the town that shaped us into the monsters we are, I am totally having second thoughts.
I am not sure if it’s the fact that I dread the moment I will have to actually come face-to-face with those people who whispered vile accusations about us, or the fact that if I were on the other end of those accusations, I might have done the same.
They didn’t know better. They didn’t even know the truth. I would judge, too, if I thought two people were blood-related twins who were secretly in love. And that’s what we were. In love. With every cell of our beings. We still are. That was the one thing that never went away.
“Maybe Mother was right; we shouldn’t go back there,” I try to argue.
“You mean the woman who adopted us and forced us to pretend we are the twins she lost at birth, all our lives filled with the delusion that somehow God misplaced them to punish her? That mother?” Silas’s judgmental voice is full of venom as he spits out the word ‘mother’ as if it’s going to poison him.
I don’t blame him. I can’t. He is right.
The woman we call ‘mother’ had never truly been one to either of us, but still, it couldn’t be better growing up under the nuns’ care for all my life.
And for that, I am grateful to our mother.
“She still raised us,” I argue, but it’s pointless. She might have been our mother on paper, but that was the only way she could qualify as one.
Silas always had it worse than me when we were kids.
Even when I was to blame, he endured the punishment to spare me the pain.
At least that was the case until we turned sixteen.
Silas had learned by then how to get on Mother’s good graces.
I, on the other hand, never had that chance.
While Silas was spared from punishment, I endured the worst of it.
Still, he protected me as long as he could, and for that, I am grateful.
It’s one of the reasons that keeps me in this car right now, beside him, on our way to bring hell to those who wronged us.
That should be more poetic than it is. It should feel cathartic, even just the idea of it.
Tell me one person in this world who wouldn’t want to punish everyone who made them suffer.
Well, I am that person. I don’t want to actually punish anyone.
Even though it was my plan. It wasn’t really a plan at all.
It was more one of those things you say just to say them.
You don’t really plan to climb Everest or take pottery classes until your plan backfires and you are actually on top of that mountain, praying for your life because you’ve just discovered you have a deadly fear of heights.
That’s how I feel right now. As if I am on top of Mount Everest, grasping the last thread of my miserable life with both hands, wishing it will save me if I fall to my death.
And that fall... It’s unavoidable. Death is the only way we are going to survive this insane plan.
We both know it. We are both prepared for it.
Well, Silas is. My brother, always the strong one.
The one who’s ready to walk into the flames.
“Dear sister, you know quite well that revenge is owed to us.” Silas’s eyes focus on the road, but a grin forms on his lips at the thought of the mayhem we are about to cause. And I can admit this look on him scares me as much as it makes me wet for him.