Hansel and Gretel

Complications

Gretel

        I wake up before Hansel again, but this time, it isn't the same.  I look out the window and see that it's still dark.  'What time is it?'  I get out of bed quietly and turn to Hansel, seeing a sight that shocks me to the core.  Hansel is asleep, I can tell because of the peaceful look on his face.  He never has that look when he's awake.  The shocking thing is that his eyes are wide awake.  They are glowing very faintly, a luminescent silver color.  The air feels charged, that must have been what woke me, and Hansel's mouth is moving very faintly.  I hear a rusty whisper, like a knife sliced across a chalkboard.  I lean in and listen closely.

“-on't trust the interloper, she wil- Demise.  Form the bond quic- The time is almost he-”

        'No!  This can't be happening, it just can't.'  The last time Hansel did this, almost ten years ago to this day, my mother died.  She was shot in the head in the Forest District less than a week after Hans first whispered like this.  I was there when it happened, and it went down just like he said it would.  “A gun in the dark, the silent hood concealing.  A single shot, a single fall.  Death for the Exalted one, sparing the Pearl.”  My brother didn't know those words.  He didn't have that voice.  But it was him saying these awful things.  I didn't know what it meant at the time, all I know is that it scared me and I woke him.  Mom and I were walking home from a store in the Forest District, the cheapest place around,  when a man dressed all in black, except for a single red line drawn around his throat.  I yelled for mom, but he pulled a gun out from his pocket and shot her and she fell.  A single shot.  A single fall.  The shooter just melted back into the shadows as I stood over the bleeding body of my mother and cried.  Her last words were, “Take good care of Hansel for me honey.  He's the key to this all.”  Yeah.  'No I love you's, no 'I'll miss you's.  Just, “Take care of Hansel.”  I love him, I really do, but that was quite the responsibility to put on your seven year old daughter.

        Hans has always been in tune with his emotions, trying not to harming anyone, giving away money, even though we don't have it, helping anyone he could.  Since that faithful day, I've had to become tough, I've had to protect him.  Someone needs stolen from?  Let me.  Somebody stole from us?  I'll sharpen the knife.  I hated it, but when your dying mother gives you an order, you tend to so it.  Inferiority complex doesn't even begin to describe what I have.  Hansel is the key.  She pretty much told me he was more important!  I hated her for the longest time, but there's no changing what happened in the past.  I know that Hansel still visits that stupid old park our mom used to take us to, but I have to stay grounded in the present, not lost in the past.  Plus, all I have left of her are the painful memories.  Every time I look in the mirror I see her face looking back at me, her blood leaking out, her innocently harmful words.  Of course they were innocent.  She would never hurt me on purpose, but  it still hurt.  And still does, to this day.  So, when I see Hansel do it again, all I can wonder is, “Who'll hurt me next?  Things start finally looking up, and then Hansel ruins it with his freaky power.”

        I shake him awake.  “Hans, wake up!  I think I heard someone outside.  Will you please go look for me?”  He wakes up slowly, with bleary eyes and bed head that could win a contest.  “Why can't you do it, Gret?”  “Come on, Hans!  Be the knight in shining armor!  Save the fair princess from the interlope-” Only then do I realize what I just said, and all the pieces connect.  I fall to the ground out of surprise.  I think about what I heard Hansel saying.  His words were hard to understand, but he said something about an interloper and demise.  Interloper as in someone who doesn't belong.  Demise as in death.  I couldn't hear anything for a few seconds after that, but then he said something about forming the bond quickly.  'What bond?  What do you mean, the time is almost here?'  Something big was coming, something big and something bad.

        “Gret!  Gret, get up!  What is wrong with you, Gretel?!  Do I need to get Father?!”  I finally realize that while I had been piecing together this bizarre puzzle Hansel had given me, he had been looking at the collapsed body of his sister on the floor.  “Oh!  Hansel, I'm fine!  I'm so sorry I worried you!  I must have just been tired, let's just go back to bed.”  “But, Gret...  Are you sure you're okay?  You just collapsed on the floor and didn't respond to me yelling and poking you for five minutes!”  “Yeah, Hans, I'm fine.  Let's just sleep.”  I get out of the floor, dust myself off, and give Hansel a bear hug.  “You're big sister will be just fine!  I'm sure I was just tired.”  He tries to argue, but I shove him into bed and tell him to sleep.  When I finally hear his breathing steady, I get in my own bed.  But I can't sleep.  I just lay there all night and think over this new complication.