Skulduggery Pleasant Fan-fiction- Love Amongst The Cain (Sequel to The Cradle Of Magic)

To Kill The Dead.

-Ravel

The darkness was arduous, the throng of mildew and a fractious essence of loneliness radiating around the prison as I sat in the shadows, my head against the wall as one of many salted tears streaked my cheeks. The nights that had been and the nights that were to come.
In the absolute darkness, the moon providing her bitter cold company, there was time to think about what I had done, what I was; a killer, a traitor, a father... Which of those weighed the heaviest on my soul was yet to be seen. One thing was true though, that I was not a good man. I deserved no less than the bitter treatment in which I was given.
And yet, somehow, despite it all there was still a hope of salvation, a tiny pinprick of pure light penetrating through the abyss of my hopeless future, my futile existence. Like the final rays of sun in a dying man's last living day, I clung to her and the vain hope she brought, the memories she left. My Bliv. My beautiful daughter.
The nightmares came in a rally of cursing thoughts through the endless nights, the pain they brought searing into my soul and engraving my thoughts with what had happened and what was to come.
There was nothing to stop them and I simply let them come.
My thoughts trailed to the days where I was alone, the pain that came with the loneliness and the absolute forgotteness of myself after the war had ended.
The days were long and the food had been scarce, the nights cold and the winters harsh. The soldiers that had died had been forgotten in their graves and the men that lived on cast aside into the history books.
It was inevitable, though, that the times would be better. When that would be was to be seen.
I was still waiting for that time.
The world had been harsh to me through those times, spending the majority of my days drinking and the nights with women I barely knew.
It kept me going- towards what I would never know... Until her.
She came one night, her hair strewn and clothes damp with the pouring rain that washed the alfresco of my rented house.
Her name was Annie, and in the broken porch-light that lit her cut and muddied face a soft tear ran down her cheek.
She was my first salvation.
Taking a loose strand of dark hair from her eyes she watched the rain behind her, her tired gaze worried and lip bitten. The times that we had lived in were dark, the world was not a trusted place and strangers were those that would strike out at you from the shadows.
She looked up to me, her eyes green and fuller yet brimming with tears. Her voice was hoarse yet her first words still buried themselves deep into my soul.
"Help me."
Having a job by this time, I had sustained enough for a small house and upon hearing the shouts of the men that frightened her most, let her in, standing in the porch for a fraction of a second before tending to her fading health.
She was fragile, her cuts deep and her mental scars deeper.
Much like myself.
I let her rest by the fire, wrapping her in a tight woollen blanket and letting her sleep 'til the hearth gathered ash and she had fallen asleep curled on a soft armchair; warm and safe.
Little did I know that night quite how much I would fall in love with her, as I watched her sleep, and how she was to become the mother of my child in years to come.
To this day I mourned her death.
She was my Annie and she was the one I loved.

Day was cut abruptly as my eyes flashed open, a familiar crackling that woke us many a time on the Dead Men missions filling my ears.
Fire.
A sickening feeling of shock hardened my throat as I swallowed; eyes blinking rapidly to wake myself up and heart still beating rapidly from my descending nightmare.
My eyes widened sleepily, my body shaking as a great shadow of burnt sienna hue flickering rapidly down the corridor; hoarse screams and wails of prisoners to whom would not escape.
And would never escape.
I swallowed, my head shaking uncontrollably to match my stance as I felt my back to the stone-cold wall.
Fire- I would not die through pain of my greatest fear.
A taught yell escaped my lips as the cold wall hit my skin, the shackles on my hands gathering into a mess of chains as the shadow of the fire came nearer and the screams increased in volume.
There had to be a way out.
A way out of this nightmare.
I closed my eyes as the flames caught my vision, the fire speeding rapidly down the corridor and towards my cell. I looked to the window and once again noted the thin sheen over the exit.
There was no way out.
It was time for the Dead Man to take his last stand.
Backed against the wall I closed my eyes, a soft tear trickling down the rough and cut skin of my cheeks as my mind flicked through images.
The heat of the fire radiated to my cheeks and a harsh sound of burning crackled towards me. Seconds left.
I could never have told her... She was never to have known.
My little girl was alone.
Alone.
The fire came.