Of The Dark

Chapter 12

An hour later, I was still hanging over my stone cold sister, still unable to shed a single tear.

"Come on, Hana. Get up." Oskar pressed, gently dropping a hand on my shoulder which I was quick to shove off.

"Don't touch me." I growled through gritted teeth. His touch felt almost as painful as the bullet that had just gone through my sister, only the deep mark it left was imprinted in the inside of my head rather than through it.

"Hana –"

"I don't care."

My laboured breaths echoed in hiccups of cries as I clutched Lola's limp shoulder, trying to force her back to life but it wasn't working.

Nothing I did could rejuvenate her back to the lovely child she was. She was stone cold as her spirit escaped her, leaving a greying wake in its path.

Dead.

My sister was dead.

"Hana, stand up." I didn't register what he was saying as my insides stirred with disbelief. I held her tighter to me. "Hana, get up now. That's an order."

I couldn't think straight. Words were not coming to my mouth. Strength was not coming to my bones. When he grasped my arm and forced me up, I did not have the energy to stop him, so I let him drag me away from my sister as my eyes remained fixated on the direction of her resting body, numb to the world.

By the time he had hauled me to the cabins, I felt more weak and limp than ever. When his hand let go of my arm, my shoulders sank and my knees felt like liquid as I pressed myself against the wood of the walls, trying to keep myself up.

"I'm sorry." He muttered, twisting his foot in the thick snow to make a small hole. The lamps dropped a yellow glow over his face where there was no shadow, flickering restlessly as he eyed the indent his shoes made in the snow. "I know it won't change anything, but I really am."

Lola was dead and what did he care? He could have stopped it but he chose not to. When the life of all the family I had remaining sat at the mercy of his hands, he discarded it nonchalantly like lint he just picked off his coat.

"And if someone just came up and told you that you shouldn't love them anymore, could you?"

Liar.

If he could drop love in a second, he definitely had not felt it at all.

"What if it was Elsa?" The question came out sharp and hit him hard, almost like a bullet to the head.

He swallowed cautiously, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "I don't understand your question."

"What if it was your sister in Lola's position? You would never have let her die like that!" I found myself shouting with all the power vested in my lungs, which was not enough to make it more than a screech. Against the subzero temperature, I was boiling. Fuming. Burning with rage.

"I said I'm sorry."

"And I said 'I don't care'." I growled, clutching my turbulent stomach with one hand before grasping the handle of the door with the other. "Goodnight, Herr Diedrich."

When I made it to my bunk, I ignored the searing stares stabbing at my presence. Instead, I silently fed myself into the side of the bed, which was already refilled with two newcomers.

Losing my family burned.

It stabbed a dagger in my chest and twisted it until all that was left was a tragic mess of bone splinters and decaying muscles. It left a harrowing wind slamming against my face every time I tried to stand up and threw me down to the ground with brute force to leave its mark. It wrapped around me like the packaging of a present but then the ribbons became too tight and the pressure became too unbearable until I was ready to combust.