River Of Horrors - A Schlattbur Story

PART 7 - HATRED

RIVER OF HORRORS

PART 7

───── ❝ HATRED ❞ ─────

Warning: this chapter will contain NSFW themes

"You're hiding something from me."

The morning sunlight spills onto the surface of his face through the open window as he bursts through the bedroom door. It's been almost about 2 hours since 6:00AM, but to Wilbur it feels like morning had taken all day to pass.

Schlatt, whose sitting on the bed with his back facing Wilbur, lets out an intuitive sigh.

"You really like following me, huh? You're like a dog, Wil."

Wilbur feels his cheeks flush unprecedentedly, although however much he tries to keep his focus on his task, he finds his thoughts wandering off into the depths of his mind; scattered cages of repression and oblivion. He feels his own feverish fatigue eating him whole; the consequences of the never-ending vigil nights catching up to him.

... No, I'm not letting you dodge my question this time, Schlatt. No matter how tired I am.

"What did you really see, Schlatt?" he presses on, closing and locking the door behind him as he takes a prominent step forward. "I know you're keeping something about your vision from us — from me. Why are you lying to me?"

Schlatt turns around at this, and Wilbur only just now notices the top button of Schlatt's white collar shirt is undone. He usually almost always wears a suit and tie, but considering how he had woken everyone up so early in the morning, he had been wearing his cerulean sweater the whole time. The white collar must have been an undershirt.

With wrapped bandages are obscuring the skin of his neck, he looks at him with slightly ecstatic, but mostly jaded eyes. He opens his mouth, and capriciously says something Wilbur had never anticipated him to say:

"What about your vision, Wilbur?"

And then, Schlatt gets up from the bed, taking steady steps toward Wilbur, as he throws more accusing questions at him.

"Who was the man that attacked you? And the human that it attacked before it 'targeted' you? I know you know, Wilbur. Because it wouldn't make any damn sense if you didn't. You were so arrogant — and annoyingly secretive — about your vision back at the River when I asked. So what the hell made you suddenly change your mind about it and tell it to everyone with ease? Huh? None of that makes any sense. Do you want to explain that?"

Standing only a few feet away from him now, he glares at him with eyes that glimmer with nothing but tempest, demanding accusation. Wilbur can't help but nervously swallow down the lump in his throat. Had he seen through his lie that easily? He clutches his hand, which had grown increasingly sweaty.

"I... well..." he stutters. For the first time, his mind is completely empty. "It's... that's—that's not..."

"Exactly."

Leaning in closer, Schlatt narrows his eyes, not breaking his stare as he hisses through seethed teeth. "Just like how you have things you keep from me, Wilbur, I have things I keep from you."

He lets the words hang there for a while, shunning Wilbur's pellucid uneasiness as the air around the two hardens. The dense atmosphere working in tandem with the stagnant turmoil makes the room exude an overwhelming, fleeting feeling of inculpation.