Leaving the Darkness Away

A cold air breezed through the open door and it ran over his spine, making him shiver. He wasn’t scared, to be honest, but he was damn apprehensive. He stopped at his tracks and turned around to look at the girl that made his heart beat in the most devilish way.

She was beautiful and it almost made his heart skip a beat if it wasn’t for the pain that kept him in the dark. She was the reason he was hiding; the reason for his riches to be taken away from him; and, the reason for his only daughter to despise him.

“Who are you?” he asked in a nonchalant voice. Seemingly unhurt, he rummaged for a cigar and a lighter from his coat pocket, lit it and puffed heartily.

The air turned stale with the smoke that continuously coming out of the cigarette and his exhales. He felt better just by smelling the faint smell of tobacco and the lit cigarette gave him exhilarated-drug-high feeling. He preferred it that way; knowing that his ex-wife hated the smell of it – one of the reasons she had left him and ran away with his daughter, who was barely three years old then. Not that it mattered now.

“They’re coming for you,” Jennifer said in a monotone. He knew, and felt, that she never wanted to tell him that news. The darkness was moving fast and they were catching up to him. Running away, he learned, was never the right thing but with the vast connections that he had, it was the right thing to do at the moment. He knew that his colleagues will die if he got caught.

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” were the words that left his mouth as he spoke in between puffs.

Jennifer, who was holding a broom and a dust pan, walked past the smoke that was fogging up the entire room, dropped them all and held him into her hands in an embrace that was nostalgic to the core. He wanted to cry, tears were brimming on the edges of his eyes, but he stood firm on his ground – not letting the tears fall.

For a moment, they didn’t speak – they let the silence surround their feelings as nostalgia set in. It was as if the ten years that they were apart never happened; as if the feelings that they had for each other never changed; and, though it was real, they both felt that it was a dream that they never wanted to wake up from. But everything from that day, the time when she left him, was his living nightmare in every wake.

She shied away from the embrace that she made, wiping the tears that ran down her mascara, and sighed. “The congregation wants you back and we’ve been tracking you down for days.”

The urgency in her voice was clear. She was afraid – he could sense it – but it was in the least of his concerns. The congregation was the reason for all this mess and he wanted out of it – but he was already way into deep when he got his resolve. A lot of his colleagues that were with him in the strike were caught and killed mercilessly and he had to stay to keep himself alive. But the killings never stopped and the only way he could save them all was to leave and find a solution.

“It’s fine,” he replied. “But they’ll never get to me. I’m not afraid.”

The cigarette has lost its embers already, ash falling down on the uncarpeted floor. He flicked the butt to the nearest trash bin and walked to the edge of the bed and sat down. He was gathering his thoughts to the deepest, darkest center of his subconscious. Surely, there was something there that they need to keep him alive.

“If I tell them that you’re here,” Jennifer continued, “are you willing to come back?” She too was afraid of all the consequences. She was afraid for Alexander, the person that she had loved endearingly before the war had erupted and kept them apart because of her ideals.

He was firm with his decision. He had decided for the best. Dying was now the only way he could think of to keep all of his friends alive. They would never know; never realize what he had done in the past. “Kill me here, now.”

“I don’t have the power to kill you,” Jennifer stated. Her fears were growing now; building up in her insides. “Are you really decided?”

“You can kill me. It’s the law that you have signed along with the others. Traitors, whether your family or friends, are killed,” Alexander spoke with fear in his eyes but he was determined. “And I said that's fine, but you're the only one that knows I lied.”

With plain apprehension, she took out the gun that was hidden from the apron that she was wearing and Jennifer pointed the gun on the heart of the person that she cared for the most. A count to three on her mind and at last, the death that Alexander never thought of was done. Crying inside, she was still poised as she called someone to get the body.

“I still love you.”

If only the leader of the congregation wasn't her father, maybe everything would've been different and their lives would have been better than this.