Darling Soul

Chapter Ten

No time for rest
No pillow for my head
Nowhere to run from this
No way to forget
Around, the shadows creep
Like friends, they cover me
Just wanna lay me down and finally
Try to get some sleep

Astra got into bed and waited for the terror to come. She laid her head on her pillow and thought of everything that had happen so far, she thought of what path she chose for herself and begged the stars that she chose the right one. She thought of Eiran's smile and her own lips curved. He made her feel safe, relaxed and comforted, a feeling she only ever felt in the arms of her brother. That's all she wanted to feel, safe and loved. Will Eiran be the one for that?

Her door opened and her body stilled. They are here.

"You idiotic child! How dare you make a fool out of your King and Queen?", her father screamed and she kept very still.

"We're very disappointed in you, Astra.", her mother said. "Your brother wouldn't have behaved this way, you know." She could imagine her mother shaking her head with a  disapproving look.

"Get up.", the King ordered, but she kept still. Tonight it was different, she felt different. The other nights she was used to this, her parents would hurt her but never enough for other people to notice, but tonight she went behind their backs and they were furious.

"Listen to your father, Astra."

"Ungrateful child, we gave you everything! We were scared for a few seconds, but then we remembered how stubborn and proud you are. You won't let anyone know, will you? What would the world think if they knew how scarred and ugly you are? You're nothing without your beauty, Astra. That's all you're good for.", her mother continued and Astra's tears fell from her cheeks.

"Get up this instance!", and this time she obeyed. Astra got out of bed, she walked towards the middle of the room and looked at her parents. They were distraught, angry, furious, and she could only blame herself for that. It's the last time, she thought, she would be okay, she whispered.

Her father reached for something on his back and her breath grew rapid. A knife. He grabbed a knife. Not a whip, a knife.

"Come here.", he ordered and when she didn't move, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her towards him. He turned her around and cut through her dress in the shoulder area, the fabric falling from her shoulders and the dress pooling on her feet.

"Astra, all we wanted for you was to get the greatest achievements, the best life you could have. But you had to ruin it. You always ruin things, don't you?", her mother said from behind her.

She felt it then, the blade of the knife cutting her skin. Her father carved her already scarred skin with new patterns, marks of how many times she misbehaved. He kept cutting and cutting and her tears kept falling, her head hanging low.

Atlas. Eiran. Atlas. Eiran. Atlas. Eiran. She kept chanting in her head, anchoring herself to the two boys that have showed her more love than she thought she deserved. Astra appeared strong to others, even to her own brother, but she knew how weak and scared she was, how the night came to wake her from sleep with horrifying dreams and horror visions.

"Why couldn't you behave, my child?"

The knife kept breaking into her skin and she kept trying to hold on to something, anything, to not lose herself to the pain, to not break. There was so much her soul could handle.

"You're leaving with the bastard.", her father spoke after an eternity of new cuts meaning old ones. "Should we give you a present for your engagement? Would you like that, my dearest daughter?"

The knife pierced her skin, her back, deep and she couldn't help herself but to scream in agony as her father twisted the knife, making a bigger hole in her body. Maybe he wanted to give her a broken back just like he broke her heart years ago.

"Help.", she whispered. "I can't do this anymore." She remembered a younger Astra running through the library laughing as her vision starts to lose focus,  she remembered all of her punishments and all of her night terrors. "My dad broke my heart before any boy could.", she remembered writing in her journal.

He kept stabbing her back with rage and she kept sobbing and screaming, she could her own mother crying. Maybe the horror finally got to her, maybe she saw past the veil and saw the monster in the body of my father. Maybe she finally cared for her.

The door flew open and she whipped her head towards it. She saw the knife stopped in midair, her father frozen looking at the door, the tears falling from her mother's eyes and her mouth hanging open and past them, she managed to look to her brother. It was so hard to stay awake, she thought.

"What the actual fuck is going on?", he yelled and Astra closed her eyes, his voice bringing comfort to her. If her brother is here she would definitely be okay.

"Son, go back to your room.", their mother tried to make him leave but he moved past them, he stopped behind his sister.

"Get out, Atlas.", their father ordered, but Atlas stood there, staring, finally seeing with his own eyes what happened during the nights he was away. Feeling her hurt and pain was one thing, feeling it and seeing it is a completely different thing. He looked at her naked back, ripped open with slashes of a blade, dark red liquid leaving her body from stab wounds their father inflicted on her. He saw for the first time the bloody art their father displayed on his sister's body.

She felt her energy leave her and she fell, her brother catching her before she hit the floor. His own clothes getting soaked with her blood, all he could do was stare at her.

"Son, she needed to learn how to behave, and I-"

"You are a monster. You two were made for each other, truthfully.", he talked as he looked at his twin sister, unconscious in his arms, his heart breaking.

"Let her go and go back to your room.", their father ordered again but he didn't listen.

"I'm taking her with me.", he scooped her on his arms, carefully holding her so he wouldn't touch her back more than necessary and left to his room.

"They won't touch you anymore, Astra.", he whispered to her while walking, his tears falling and mixing with her blood all over him.