Chapter 1 #2
My mother seems to think my brother and I believe in that valueless oath of hers—the one she claims to keep—but it is she who keeps us from embracing it.
Because due to her actions, it has become worthless, empty.
The life we live makes it impossible to even consider chasing such a fate.
Maybe we were never destined to be extraordinary, and all of it is merely a fantasy.
But I think it is something a mother wants to hold on to, and she needs us to believe that vow of hers. A part of us still does, I guess, or at least wants to; she, too, must believe it if she wants to keep herself going.
Sometimes it’s better to believe in a hollow promise than to have no hope at all.
I can see the sorrow on her washed-out face. The thin lines from worry, etching deep creases into her skin, casting shadows that make her appear older than she truly is.
When we are on the road, the dirt on her face from the long days of traveling only seems to make it worse; the dark silhouettes are more evident.
Yet, I know she is just doing the best she can, and by reassuring us that her vow has worth, she can keep going.
I can tell from her eyes that there is something vital about it, that damn promise, but I cannot figure out what it is that makes her hold onto it for dear life.
So, for the love of the old Gods and the love I have for my mother, I comfort her by reassuring her that I believe I can have the life I’ve always dreamt of.
The life that she’s always dreamt of for me, for us, even though I hate her for taking that guarantee from me until she is ready to give it freely.
When she claims that we will settle down eventually, start a family, and have all the beautiful things we both deserve, that she thinks we deserve, I nod.
However, I stopped believing those pretty words when I was still a teen, and her continuous refusal to deliver on it only solidifies it.
And so, I nod whenever she tells us again that we will be settling somewhere soon, so we can finally start a family ourselves.
From a very young age, I learned that the vow, my mother's oath to us, her children, was not for me and that I would never get hold of what was dangled in front of me.
The only thing I am promised is constant upheaval.
It is a phantasm. Perhaps this promise had value back in the old days, when the world was different and there was still a balance, but equilibrium is nowhere to be found nowadays.
Everywhere you look, balance no longer exists in each village we pass through. There is no way to retrieve it. It is just gone. There’s no Light to push back the Darkness.
In most towns, like the one we are staying in now, people desperately cling to inhumane coping mechanisms—like sacrificing young girls and women.
They slaughter them like they are cattle and leave them to rot for the crows to eat, until Mother Nature is ready to take back what was forgotten.
The trees surrounding these towns have bones scattered around them, corpses still decomposing while the next one is dumped atop, their bark stained dark red.
Other towns have been rampaged and destroyed during small-scale wars, with humankind always on the losing end. A battle that is wrongly chosen every time. We are too fragile, no match for these dark-natured critters.
Some towns do their best to combat unwanted visitors with their herbs and salts, putting their faith in Mother Nature—a better bet than the old Gods.
I’m sure the witches have a laugh at it regardless. The witches have clearly lost all respect for nature in general, now solely relying on blood for their magic.
Most villagers are too scared to leave their homes, even during the day.
Most activity occurs during the day's peak hours, creating a false sense of safety and a herd mentality, even though many nocturnal creatures are now Daywalkers as well.
For some, it was the result of evolution, while for others, it was due to the black magic the witches possessed.
Because of this, even broad daylight is no longer a safe haven. Children can no longer play outside, and people's lives are dictated by fear.
Abductions are common. I’ve heard they auction off humans in the cities up North, and I’ve also heard rumors of so-called blood banks up there.
Mother interrupted that conversation when she heard, from a distance, what the vampire was telling me. I despised her for it. Vampires both frighten and fascinate me, and it took me a long time to find one willing to even speak to me.
The male vampire told me that it's primarily human children who are abducted, young and fresh, but they will also abduct adults who cannot protect themselves.
There are a few brave humans out there who try to fight off the terrors, and towns that have agreed to a pact to maintain a truce.
Rarely do we come across travelers when we are on foot to a new place where we can live for a short while, and the few humans we do meet have the same compact form of magic as we do. We who can freely roam are the lucky ones since the magic is scarce.
The only others we see have sealed their fates by becoming pets to the beasts.
This holds a form of protection; pets are not to be touched by other darklings.
Although not all dark ones uphold that law, and I have seen bloody fights break out over human pets.
I assume it has to do with their blood, but I’ve never managed to find a Blood Witch willing to speak with me. All they do is taunt and pester me.
Besides some lost relics here and there, there is little magic left in the world, assuredly none strong enough to restore things to how they once were. No Light magic that still exists is capable of bringing down this much darkness. Magic is now used selfishly as a way to survive, as we do.
Mother sometimes speaks about those times, albeit rarely, but I know that magica alba was ample back then. It hurts her to talk about how it used to be—a beautiful and more peaceful world, not one where evil seems to be lurking around every corner and in every shadow, even during the day.
Although she has never experienced this version of the world herself, she has heard stories about her ancestors—about their more peaceful lives, but also about how they failed to keep future generations safe.
She is often plagued with nightmares and visions of the past when asleep, where she is the one responsible, where she failed us all.
Part of her seems to believe she might truly be to blame for all the misery we go through today.
Perhaps that is why she finds it so hard to speak about it out loud.
Each time, her voice cracks, tears well in her eyes.
I sometimes try to imagine it as a world ruled by light rather than darkness, but I find it hard to grasp how the dark was able to overturn the Light.
How humankind and the White Witches, so accustomed to light and the peace it brought, never saw the darkness coming.
I think of them as idiots for being so comfortable; it is because of them that we now suffer.
Whenever Mother speaks about it, she says that for so long, most people chose to believe that all darkness had been erased.
They basked in the fictive sense of safety.
Even though the elders in the towns and villages constantly warned the inhabitants to be careful in the woods, to look out for the shadows that dwelled there.
To be wary if the Light even faintly faded, lost a bit of its spark.
But the people thought that with so much light and magic, the dark could never return.
That the Light had devoured the darkness.
But their mindset did the opposite; it allowed the Darkness to slowly crawl back into the world from which it had almost completely vanished.
It regrouped, prepared, and unleashed itself once more.
Not just to dim the Light but to entirely shatter it into pieces, like a mirror thrown on the ground, breaking into a thousand pieces, with no prospect of repair.
Mother has no idea this occupies my mind so much; neither does my sibling, my twin brother, Fynn.
We might have shared a womb, but we are far removed from being a set of Wonder Twins who can sense each other's emotions in every way and finish each other's sentences.
If anything, the only thing we seem to have going on is some inexplicable, unspoken energy around us all the time, which makes us neither particularly like nor dislike each other; it's more of a neutral feeling, difficult to comprehend.
It probably has to do with our family bond.
Mother told us that the women who give birth to twins have a compelling protective instinct toward them.
However, the twins themselves do not have a strong bond with each other for unfathomable reasons.
Mother hardly wants to talk about it; speaking out was rare for her.
I only know this because I used to complain about Fynn when I was younger.
I’d see other children play together, and my childish jealousy wanted that too, even if it meant spending time with my brother.
She felt the need to explain to me that it wasn’t his fault; he didn't feel the desire to spend time with me—he’d rather be alone.
Fynn has been a solitary being from the moment he was born.
Given my mother’s reluctance to speak about it all, she is exceptionally vague about our little family: what happened to my father—who died when we were still very young—our ancestors, and just our family’s history in general.