The Keepers' Evil

Twelve: His mind seems to be made up

Song- Chamber of reflection: Mac DeMarco

"I'm afraid it's really up to Sebastian, and his mind seems to be made up."

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Goodbye; a single word that fluttered from Anne's lips to hold her soft soul, but in reality it stamped out the last remaining flicker of the Sallows' flame.

Goodbye; a single word that opened Sebastian's eyes to the world's burns that his flame had once lashed at the earth.

Goodbye; a single word that threatened to drag him out of his hiding spot in his dreams.

"No, no, Anne, no. Don't you fucking dare say another word." Sebastian spat with an anger so fuelled at a girl so undeserving of it. He used his finger to point harshly towards her, almost creating a barrier of a blurred reality between them. The twins they had known in each other were completely gone; one was stripped entirely of her being, and the other was chained in a cage of his own creation, both unable to hold each other at all.

Sebastian and Anne Sallow were no longer, the people I saw stood in their places were puppets simply acting a play until they reached the pre-destined end.

"Sebastian, please." Anne had the same tint in her tone as Sebastian had done that one poisonous evening, the please a beg of a desperation from so deep inside of her heart that it dripped with the blood from the Sallow's bloodline, the way in which the word was hushed every single time was a generational connotation of the everlasting pain this name refused to let go of.

Anne's breath shuddered as Sebastian forced his shaky limbs to pace before the couch she was confined to. Ominis and I stood a little way to the side, both of us keeping out of the limelight. Ominis rested himself on the counter, leaning, listening, alert, in case she needed him.

The confusion and questions of why suddenly cleared like the winter clouds had suddenly found sunlight, and the strange concoction of conflicted emotions as to why Ominis had given me the ultimatum he had, why he had insisted Sebastian was struck to the bars of a cell, no longer felt like a haunting betrayal of a brother but rather the panicked pulse of a boy who's forever was in his arms, but no longer held the promise of forever.

"Have you been in contact with her this entire time?" I felt the dry soreness my throat scratched with, my eyes fixated on the sight of the bubbling anger that spilled over Sebastian. Ominis crossed his arms like he had to protect his inner-self from the knife my question probed him with, an internal struggle to keep the sharp end away from his heart.

"Look, Madeleine, I can't justify what Sebastian did, but I can make it easier for Anne to justify it. That's her brother and she loves him, she just needed time. She asked me to turn him in and I would've," if it hadn't been for me.

"Maybe it's a good thing I didn't, she didn't want that really. Listen, I've spent the last few months trying to convince her that he's a good enough person to see, and he's not helping that by blaming me. Anne doesn't need a hero to save her, she just needs someone to tell her it won't be like this forever."

Anne had softened Ominis in ways I could've only hoped she could've with her brother. Anne should never have had to accept her fate, but the serene tranquility that came from just being and not fighting brought a quietude to Ominis' mind and for once, he didn't have to worry about how to keep the devil away from his angel because she was already gone. Ominis had done the hardest part, he had accepted that one day soon, Anne's footsteps would become just an echo in his mind and the hand that held his would simply become a memory.