"Of course! Who hasn't?" She responds, and she's right. Anyone over ten has probably heard of this case, which just makes me even more nervous. I feel my palms start to sweat, and my heartbeat is in my head.
"Well, I doubt you've heard the full story." I take a deep breath and hold it for a second, before letting go. "You see, the Doyle case is really hard to explain, because so many things happened in such a short amount of time, but basically here's what happened, at least from my perspective. The only thing is, you have to promise that you aren't going to interrupt me, and you aren't going to tell anyone."
"I promise!" Sabrina quickly swears, sitting down next to me on the bed.
"Okay. Well, I guess I should start at the beginning. William Doyle and his wife Thalia were good people, at the beginning. Or at least that's what I heard from family friends. They never showed that side to me, at least. They ran a small family business a town over from where they lived in Meril, where William worked hand carving little wooden sculptures. It was called The Whittling Doyle. It did well for a while, and because of that, they decided to have a daughter. They named her Mary. Right after Mary was born, however, the business went bankrupt." I fold my arms and try to breathe at this point, holding onto myself tightly. Then, Sabrina wraps her arms around me, and starts breathing along with me, which helps me calm down. I continue, "The costs of running the business was greater than their profit, and that, along with the loan they had taken out in order to start the business in the first place, left them in severe debt. A lot of their property ended up getting seized by various loan collecting agencies, and the Doyles had nothing. What used to be their pride and joy was now too much for them to take care of. They called Mary a cursed child.
"Years went by, and the environment Mary grew up in kept getting exponentially worse, going from minor things, like her parents not paying attention sometimes, to her mother getting a drinking problem, and her father taking whatever jobs he could just to get by, causing him to be gone most days. Thalia and William often got into fights, and sometimes Mary wouldn't see one of her parents for weeks. They always came back, though. I don't know if that was a good or bad thing. After a couple years, I don't know what happened, but they had another child, a girl named Rose. Mary cherished Rose. She was Mary's one bit of happiness, so pure and innocent. Mary didn't mind having to take care of Rose while her parents fought. Rose was everything to her, and she would do anything for her.
"A little while after having Rose, William gets back into contact with a man he had known since his childhood in order to get some work. This man agrees to help him. Slowly, but surely, William gets more involved with him, not knowing his work is helping to launder money. It starts off with him helping them sharpen knives, then he helps start a business which he handles the money for. Thalia, Mary, Rose, and William go back to living like they used to- They have parties, and go out, and just generally start caring about each other again. Soon, however, William notices something's wrong with the finances. When he inquires about it to the man, he finds out the truth. He starts wanting to leave. Quickly, though, he realises it's too late- He knows that the man is cunning, and not afraid to get his hands dirty. One wrong move, and he could die.
"So William keeps working, and his jobs escalate. He starts keeping track of weapons. Then robberies. After half a year, he ends up joining the man's gang as a trusted ally. Nothing was too much for them, and they committed countless atrocities as a nameless group, appearing and disappearing before anyone knew they were even nearby. Of course, all things must come to an end at some point, and one day, after a meeting with William at his home, the leader of the gang disappeared, presumed dead. It's that same day that," My hold on Sabrina tightens, and I almost start crying- Something I hate. I almost don't want to continue- But I have to tell her now, or I never will. "Rose's corpse was found under William and Thalia's bed, with reports saying it must have been there for weeks. They say she had suffocated, having been swaddled too tightly by Thalia. They say her tiny body, only being around 16 months old, tried to come out and had wiggled off the bed, and died after a couple minutes. They say Thalia hid the body and left it there. They say nothing could have been done. I don't know whether I believe that or not, but Thalia ended up being charged with negligence and manslaughter, sending her to jail.
YOU ARE READING
In Flames Lie Darkness (Incomplete Fist Draft)
Action(Used to be Burning) If someone had told me that three years after my best friend went missing, I would be the one to stop the impending doom of the human race, just to bring them down myself, I would have called you crazy. But now, it seems I have...
