Crown The King Killer

05. The Garden

Parkis opened the door and stepped through, "now that this is over you should rest finally." He then started cleaning up and wiping the mess away.

"It will be sunrise in a few hours; I doubt I'll get much sleep." Alexander was already at the bottom of the stairs when he spoke.

"Tomorrow you will start preparing," Parkis' voice was low and quiet as he concentrated on scrubbing the blood.

Alexander yawned and climbed the stairs towards his room. It was warm and comfortable inside as he opened the door leaving it ajar as he walked away. He struck a match lighting the other candles before washing his hands and face in the warm water. For a moment he stared at himself in the polished mirror; starring into his dark brown eyes and glimpsing at the freckles on his nose and cheeks. He remembered the image he saw in the glass eyes of the rabbit mask. He wasn't sure if his mind was playing tricks or if he could see right through them into the mask of Parkis' face. The image made him shiver, brown dead eyes staring back at him through red rabbit ones. They were human eyes, rather, close to those of human eyes with cataracts. Parkis couldn't be blind or vision impaired if he could spot a bird flying far away into the distance; a black speck amongst the violet sky. Whatever is was Alexander had seen, he pushed it to the back of his mind to forget about.

He stripped off his clothes and put his night shirt on and unrolled the blankets that were folded neatly on the bed. The candle that sat on the stand flickered one last time before he blew out its hot glowing flame. Light shining in from downstairs made a beam across the floor, bed and wall of Alexander's room. He stared at the orange glow before closing his eyes to sleep. Without a sound a shadow was cast over his face. Someone was peering through the crack of the door. Alexander's eyes opened wide although to his dismay, there wasn't a single thing to be seen but darkness. He thought it must have been a dream; how silly he was to think Parkis or some other creature was watching him while he slept. Rolling over and brining the covers over his head, he couldn't erase the image of the eyes from his vision. Brown eyes with clouded lenses stared back in his sleep, Parkis was surely to blame but his motives were not clear. Alexander stuck it in his mind that maybe he was checking up on him before going to sleep himself, but why would the fireplace be out?

Sun filtered through Alexander's eyelids which awoke him in the early morning. He winced at the light and rolled over. The bed was warm... and wet...? His eyes fluttered open as words caught in his throat. Blood was pooling out of the bed as he rolled on top of the girl's familiar body. She was dressed in her overalls and her pink hair bows were stained in blood.

"You pushed me..." She whispered with a broken jaw that slacked open a bit. "You made me fall..."

Lucy?! Alexander couldn't speak. It felt like he was drowning in liquid sand. Oh god, Lucy I am sorry! He wanted to scream but he became paralyzed. He fell off the bed with the blood still poring over from an unknown source. He watched her mangled body crawl over the bed in a distorted way, flopping onto the floor with a thump. He couldn't move anymore, Alexander stared wide-eyed like a deer into headlights. Her hands wrapped around his shoulders and shook him violently.

"Alexander!" Parkis called.

Brown eyes flashed open into the dark room. As his eyes adjusted he realised he was having a nightmare. Paralyzed still, Alexander looked around the room with his eyes. Parkis was shaking him lesser as Alexander became aware.

"You would not stop screaming, what is wrong?!" Parkis was truly concerned.

Alexander went to speak, but only sand poured out of his mouth.

"Oh my..." Parkis said watching a slip of paper crumble out of the sand.

Alexander moaned and spit the remaining grains out of his mouth. He shot out of bed and ran over towards the water basin and cupped water into his hands. Parkis lifted the crumpled letter out of the pile of sand in the bed.