Cinderella: A Fractured Fairytale

INSERT -- Chapter 63

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Twisted, gnarled branches grasped and caught on the emptiness, their bony fingers reaching out and entwining with each other, forming barriers and cages in the haunted woods. A cloud had covered the moon, and the unfeeling stars illuminated the scene, winking coldly down at the cruel world.

Alone, in the darkness of a desolate, barren clearing, a young man in a black cloak was sitting on a craggy boulder. His shoulders were shaking violently, and his muffled sobs and shivers echoed out through the clearing, then were lost somewhere in the endless facets of the night.

The heartwrenching sobs were the sound of one whose hope had finally shattered. Hope that had been held onto for so long already, hope that had been already cracking before.

Hope. Hope seemed to be everything at times. Sometimes hope could be the difference between success and failure, between life and death.

But sometimes, hope wasn't enough.

Now all the bits and pieces of strength and determination and endurance he had gathered up were laying in broken fragments on a cold stone floor, with no light left to catch and refract in their falsely promising edges.

Gone.

The shadows pressed in, seeing their victory near. The darkness was closing in, its gripping fingers seeking to still a faltering heartbeat. The hopeless swept everything up in a suffocating torrent of choking despair, trying to drown the sufferer in his own blood.

Echoing whispers were resounding through the clearing, and a slight shifting, a shimmer disturbed the air.

A figure materialized out of nowhere, right beside the boulder. "Oh, Eric..." it whispered, voice full of apparent sympathy.

Eric didn't even look up. Another sob wracked his body, catching in his throat, choking him.

The figure sat down beside him, comforting him, mourning with him. "So much pain..." it murmured.

Eric looked up, his body still trembling, tears streaking his face. "E-Ethan?" His whisper was disbelieving.

Ethan nodded, pulling Eric into a brotherly embrace. "It's not worth it, is it?" he asked softly.

Eric's head went back down again. Another sob shook him. "No." His voice broke. "It isn't. I - can't -" He couldn't go on. A fresh wave of sobs had come over him.

"Don't you see?" Ethan whispered. "It was all meant to cause you pain. They make you, then they break you. She showed you everything you could never have, and when you reached for it, she pulled it away, taking a part of you in the process. Isn't that right?"

Eric nodded. "It hurts," he choked out.

Ethan's voice was full of carefully fabricated passion and understanding. "I've been through your pain, brother. It's unbearable, unquenchable."

"H-how do I make it stop?" His voice cracked.

"I can help you," Ethan whispered, fragments of memories flickering like flames in his mind. "I can make sure you never feel the pain again."

Eric looked up, face twisted with torment, eyes filled with agony. "Will you?" he whispered.

"Is that what you want?" Ethan's expression flickered for a moment, and he seemed eager. "What you truly want?"

Eric didn't notice. He nodded, shoulders hunched under the weight of a falling sky. "Please," he whispered. "I can't do it anymore."

"Come with me," Ethan said softly, standing up and taking his brother's hand. "I will make it stop. I'll heal you."

Eric's stone flickered one last time as he nodded for Ethan to take him away.

Then the light of his stone disappeared for good as they melted away into nothingness.

Gone.

Don't say I didn't warn you

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