All that is dark | ✓

5| reunited

SHE DIDN'T KNOW HOW much time had passed. These days, she didn't even know what was real anymore. Her dreams bloomed the same crimson as her nightmares, that is, if she even slept at all. At dawn she started imagining his face in the roses, at dusk she heard his voice in the shadows. Out of all the people that came to haunt her, he was the most pleasant one. It didn't matter that his hands were stained red, because he was the only one of her ghosts who was gentle to her.

He could've put her in a cell or in a room without windows, but he had tried to make it more comfortable for her. It was a small kindness, but a kindness nonetheless. Even though he was the source of her problems at the moment, she couldn't help but blame herself and thank him. A starving heart accepted anything, she knew, even if it was poisonous. She could see the Stockholm syndrome forming as it clawed it's way into her body, but knowing the symptoms didn't protect her from them. It was no wonder she couldn't even really be angry at her kidnapper, all her cruelty had always been preserved for herself after all.

"Helene."

She had been staring out of the window all day, but her focus had been lost for a while now, her vision hazy. It was when she heard his voice that she snapped back to the present, immediately finding him amidst the familiar sight of the roses. He was standing in the middle of the garden, waving with a wide smile. His dark hair was messy as always, shadows underneath his eyes as dark as the bruises on his knuckles, even the warm light of the sunset seeming to avoid him. She rubbed in her eyes, but he was still standing there when she looked again. Was this a hallucination?

For the first time since she had known him, he was wearing white. It made him look angelic almost in the sea of red around him, were it not for the stained knife strapped to his belt. When he noticed her gaze flicking down towards it, he casually pulled it out, throwing it away without a care.

"Come down," he said warmly," I'll be waiting for you."

There was only one way to find out if this was real, so she turned towards the door, her hand shaking as she turned the knob. When it clicked open, she hated how she still didn't know if what she was seeing was the truth. Anything was better than this room though, this goddamned room, so she started walking, confused as she looked around hallways she didn't recognize. The sun was seeping in through the windows, coloring the house softly, but all the light did was make her feel like she was going to burn.

She walked down the stairs, her footsteps the only sound echoing through the empty house. It was beautifully decorated, but in the way graveyards were, everything resembling death if you looked close enough. Absentmindedly she touched the chrysanthemums withering in the living room, before heading through the open doors towards the garden. After the first step she couldn't get herself to move, feeling like a statue as she stared at the roses in front of her.

How many days had she counted them? In her nightmares she ripped all of them straight out of the ground, hands bleeding with thorns. Now she was standing here she couldn't help but feel her heart get tangled in itself, knowing that one wrong move could shatter her completely. If this was yet another dream, then what was she supposed to trust anymore? She wouldn't be able to take it if this was simply her brain dreaming up false hopes again.

"Come, Helene," Nathan's voice echoed throughout the empty garden," I'm here. You can trust me."

Had he read her mind because he was a fragment of her imagination or simply because it was easy to see that she was losing it? Either way, she took another step forward and another, feeling surreal as she walked amidst the roses. The cobblestone pathway guided her through the maze of flowers, but she already knew exactly where Nathan would be. All these days staring at this garden had made her memorize the way it breathed, the wind softly blowing them to the center of it's heart.