Ace

Dream

"Oh come now Ace please don't cry, please. I'm ok honest I am honest, I didn't feel a thing."

"Gen why do you do that? Why don't you let me get what's coming like Daydric?"

"Because you're my baby brother Ace, I won't let nothin' bad happen to ya, hell or high water I'll always make sure your ok before me."

"Oh Genneve please don't say such things, Gen I don't want you to get hurt on my accounts. G-"

"You little rat!"

Daydric charged towards me and scooped me off the floor pinning me to the wall.

"I'll bloody kill you! Why do ya always have to make him mad why?! If you just did as ya'r told then he would be as he is! Or you can take your own damn beatings you coward!"

"Put 'im down Daydric," Genneve demanded, "put him down!"

"Why do you always stand up for the runt?! He ain't anything, all he does is mess up and do stuff he know he shouldn't be and every time you pay for it! Well I'm done Gen. I'm done."

Daydric drops me and turns to Gen throwing he over his shoulder.

"Daydric no! Let me go what are you doing?!"

"What has to be done Gen!"

He picked up rope from the dirty barn floor and walked over to a structure beam, tieing Genneve to it.

"Look away Gen!" he yelled walking towards me.

"Leave him be Daydric!" Genneve screeched.

"Look away little sister," Daydric begin, "put your hands up runt!"

I stood paralyzed.

"I said put your hands up!"

I put two small quivering hands up. And without warning a fist comes flying near my face, I flinch and drop to the ground, the hit missing by an inch.

"Get up coward! Be a man!"

He grabs my collar and pulls me up, then grabs my wrists and puts my hands up.

"Through a punch," he demands, "through a punch!"

My eyes are overflowing and blurry. I feel a stinging throbbing hit to the side of my face and I am knocked to the floor.

"You little rat, you don't care for anyone but yourself!"

I felt as a strong shoed foot went into my stomach

"Ah," I cried as I rolled to my back.

"Shut up!"

Another hit to my side, and another, and another. Until I'm curled into the fetal position crying, trying to catch my breath but even the shallow ones hurt.

"You're a bastard Daydric! Let him go!" Genneve cried, voice braking.

"You be quiet and watch your mouth little lady!"

I hear the clinking and shuffling of a belt coming loose and with a striking pain the lethal hit me.

"Uh," I inhaled shooting up from the ground.

"Ace, hey hey, it's ok," a familiar voice said.

I looked with dreary eyes.

"Grail?" I asked softly.

"Yah love, I'm ok. We're all ok. We did it Ace."

I pulled him closer and hugged him, my breathing shaky and off.

"So what is this?" he asked.

"What?"

"The barn, what is it?"

I looked around and we were on a dirty floor, strands of hay everywhere.

"Great I'm dead, dead or crazy."

"No, no love. You dreamt this, it's a memory from when you were living. I don't know how but here in this place what we imagine becomes real, like god when he first created earth. I dreamt of the war I was in before I died. The trenches, the dirt, the death, and brotherhood. Elend a day at his home cottage in the fall, surrounded by autumn leaves and the smell of rain sound of horses. Nikle hunting with his dad and his dog in the forest, but couldn't bring himself to shoot the deer. His father really tore him a new one."

"D-do the people come back?"

"No, no, the scenery does though. Like this barn, there's rope over on that beam, um, that belt, blo- blood spots? Ace what happened here"

"My brother, what else? I was six maybe seven. I had snuck out of the house t and into the school yard, squatting by a window trying my best to hear what was going on. While I was away my father had woken up furious to see me not there. He slipped out of the house barely able to stand but he got in his truck and found me at the school. As soon as I say that truck I was terrified. He dragged me by my ear to that truck, throwing me into it. The ride home couldn't be long enough. He dragged me inside ready to beat me senseless. But then Genneve pretended to accidentally knock down my father's whisky while cleaning the table. I'm sorry papa I'm sorry I didn't mean to I'm sorry, she cried. You foolish good for nothing girl!- She took my beating. After that the old man stormed out the door and Gen took me out to the barn so Daedric wouldn't come home to me crying. We sat in the barn and she told me it's ok and she didn't feel nothing' and it's ok. But somehow Daydric still found out. Ran into the barn and pinned me to the wall, yelling as always. Then he dropped me and took Gen. Tied her up over there so she couldn't interfere and then he tried to get me to fight him. I didn't. So he beat me up first, first a punch then multiple kicks to the torso. After all that he proceeded by whipping' me with his belt, solid dark brown leather like the one over there."

I laughed, "Genneve was pissed."

"Oh satan lo-"

Don't be sorry, nothing worse then what I did to you. I may not have disserved it then, but I would take it any day if it meant undoing what I did to you."

"Ace no, no don't say that-"

"It's true Grail, I hate myself for what I put you through. I really really do."

"Well don't, Ace, I love you. I love you with all of me, you are everything to me. Don't hang that over your head."

"I don't know how I'm not supposed to."

Then he just leaned in and kissed me.