Doctor Who - 02 - The Art of Forgetting

.13. The Worst Nightmare of Phillip Bright

Faerie are neither beautiful nor friendly. Faerie have big, slanting eyes, and slim bodies, and fragile silvery wings, glistening in moonbeams, but those are the only good things one can say about them. Because faerie have teeth as sharp as daggers in their cynically twisted mouth; the elves are not coming to take you to a fairyland – they are coming to kill you. Faerie know an old magic; which may well not be any magic after all, but some kind of an ancient science. That magic can leave you gobsmacked, enchanted with beauty, dazzled by music, lifted high above ground, sure; but a moment later it will almost certainly kill you in an elaborate, refined and cruel way.

Gold memorised all those truths within barely fifteen minutes from the moment he had found rose petals in dead Doug's mouth. During that time he found out exactly what faerie could do to two teenage girls, a plump mum and a man in his prime. How easily and perversely they could murder them. And then they turned towards Ace...

Pushing Corrie into a corner behind the bed; protecting her with his own body; Gold screamed helplessly when elves got to his friend. He was looking around feverishly, searching for a weapon – any weapon – but of course he did not find it in the School, in the toadstool house, in the underage chick's fable. Corrie grabbed his coat, preventing him from running towards Ace. Gold hated her for doing that, and at the same time he was almost grateful. Elves pressed Ace to the floor. With his arms spread and legs pinned, he fought desperately when they were squeezing his neck with their long fingers, pinching his nose, covering his eyes. And when he finally opened his mouth to scream, a slim arm dove down his throat, pushing rose petals deep, deep into his lungs – contracted with fear and screaming for breath.

When Ace stopped moving, all the elves, as if led by a common thought, turned their triangular faces towards Gold. The boy felt a sudden spasm inside his body; a chill touched his cheeks and forehead. Suddenly Gold was separated from the world, as if swept under a glass jar. He was going to die. In a brief moment he was going to cease to exist.

Elves started laughing, their voices ringing like crystal bells. They let go of Ace's limp body, flown up in the air, coming closer and closer... And then they scampered suddenly, diving past shattered window shutters, into the silvery darkness of the night. Silence drowned the flutter of their wings, the sound of wind catchers.

Gold took a breath that sounded like a sob and went down on his knees.

They did not kill him!

He crawled on all fours towards Ace's body. Rose petals. Bloody rose petals everywhere! He brushed them quickly off his friend's face and chest. Not that it meant anything anymore. He just didn't want to look at them. He didn't want to look at Ace as well. He didn't want to look at all.

"You didn't strain yourself, did you, bro?"

Corrie screamed and Gold jumped backwards, and landed painfully on his backside. Ace, still stretched on the floor, looked at him with semi-translucent eyes in a semi-translucent face.

"O..h!" Gold managed.

"You didn't even try; not much," Ace added. "I tried to figure out why, when they strangled me; you know, weird thoughts are flashing through your head when you're being strangled. For instance – why isn't my friend trying to help me? Why is he staring instead of acting? My best friend. Why? Why is he letting me die?"

"Oh, Ace..."

The blonde boy raised his hand to his eye level and looked at Gold through a barely corporeal flesh and bones.

"Why, brother?"

Gold shook his head, avoiding Ace's gaze.

"How many times we were adventuring together? Huh? Always together, the best mates, Ace and Gold, two of a kind! I thought I could trust you, bro. I never thought you wouldn't have balls big enough to tell me the truth. I thought you'd have... shit, have enough dignity to play with your cards on the table. But no... Genius Gold doesn't do that! Genius Gold cheated on everyone! Again, right?"