Blind Eyes

Chapter Eighteen

I open my eyes, groggily. They feel so heavy. All around me, I feel heat. It is so hot. And my head, it's resting on something soft, at least something softer than stone.

I blink, heavily and slowly. I come to my senses.

And I see him, Will, crouching over me, his hands holding beneath my head. He looks at me coldly, but sadly, a small smile playing on his lips. I tilt my head around, trying to see what is going on. I am still lying on the street, the burning street. All around me, everything is on fire, and I feel it, destroying everything.

I try to speak, to ask Will what has happened, how he found me, but my voice does not work. Only a small groan comes out. I try to lift my head, to sit up, but I feel as if I am paralyzed. I have no energy, and I cannot sit up. I try, again, to speak, but no words are formed.

I can hear buildings being burned, I can still hear the screams from people. I do not know why they are screaming, if it is of excitement from seeing the town being burned or from something else, something worse. My eyelids feel so heavy, and I close my eyes again. I try to open them fully, but I can barely raise them, only enough to see Will staring at me. He knows that I am awake, that I can hear him.

"Lara," he whispers softly, and I can hear now, in his voice, how he feels.

His voice is dripping with anticipation, but shrouded in sadness. I try to shift away from him, out of his grasp, but I am unable to. I think of the knife, still in my coat pocket. If only I could move my arm, reach for it, plunge it into his arrogant face. I groan again.

"Shh, shh," Will says. Then, he speaks, his voice quiet but clear. "Stay calm Lara. You are safe with me. You are going to be okay."

He strokes my hair. Sickeningly.

"I have a story to tell you. And I have been waiting for such a long time, an unbearably long time, to tell you it. Now - now it is finally the right moment."

I look up at Will, forever his captive, waiting for him to speak again as he looks around breathlessly. His terrible grin is so wide that he can barely contain it, but he suppresses it as he speaks. When he does, his voice shakes, flooded by mockery and feverish excitement, tantalizing yet sorrowful.

"I am going to tell you the story, Lara, of a boy and a girl. A truly emotional story. Now, I want you to listen very, very carefully."

His thumb runs across my forehead slowly, back and forth, and I want nothing more than to run far, far away from him. Out of the all the things I have seen, have witnessed, Will is, by far, the most revolting, utterly vile creature I have ever met.

"Here we go," he says, more to himself than to me. "One day, in a small village, there lived a boy and a girl. Very good friends, the boy and the girl were very good friends. And believe me, it was sickening, how much they cared about one another. Truly sickening."

Will breathes in deeply.

"Now, this boy and this girl, they used to go walk in a forest together, very often. They would go and sit and talk for many hours. About stupid things, foolish things. Foolish, just like they were. And, I shouldn't forget to mention, there is a third person in this story. A man, who could see things for how they truly were. This man would watch the boy and the girl, everyday, through invisible eyes. And through these eyes, he could see, he could see that the boy was not good for the girl. He was ruining her, and no matter how smart the girl thought herself to be, she was blind to this fact."

Will's hand moves to my cheek, and I still cannot move.

"This girl was so foolish, to the point where she believed that the boy loved her, to the point where she even believed that she loved to boy. She was very, very wrong. One day, the girl and the boy said goodbye to each other. They said goodbye to each other, just like very other time they had said goodbye, not knowing this would be their final one."

He laughs softly.

"That night," he continues, "both the girl and the boy went to their houses, ready to go to bed. The man - the man knew that this could not go on any longer. So, on that same night, the man walked to the boy's house. He expected the boy to be sleeping peacefully inside of his house, expected that he would have to enter his house and wake him up, so he was quite surprised to find the boy sitting on a stool outside of his house."

Will pauses, taking a moment to look deeply into my eyes.

"Now, Lara, I need you to understand something. This man, this man had very good intentions, and was not a cruel man in any way; he understood the importance of kindness, of giving choices to people. And so, this man walked right up to the boy. The boy was confused, and he asked the man what he wanted, why he was there. The man told the boy that he was going to give the boy a very important decision to make. The boy shook his head; he was confused, but the man told the boy to keep quiet and let him speak. And, then, the man told the boy his choice. He said that the boy could choose between himself, or the girl. As simple as that. His life, or the girl's."

Will's hand moves again, his fingers on my lips, and I wish I could vomit all over him. I try, yet again, to move, but not matter how hard I try, I cannot move.

"As I have said before, the boy was foolish, and not matter how many times the man told him his situation, he could not seem to understand it. And so, the man rephrased it. He told the boy that either he could choose to hang himself, right then and there, and have the girl live on. Or, he could choose to do nothing, to go with his own life, and sacrifice the girl. If he chose this, the second option, the man told the boy that he would proceed immediately to end the girl's life. Once the boy understand that the man was serious, after the man showed the boy his knife, it did not even become a decision for him anymore. He said at once that he would, of course, choose to end his life over the girl's. And so that is what he chose."

Will's eyes are boring into mine now, mocking me more than he ever has before. He continues.

"And then, Lara, I handed the boy a rope, the one he used for his horse. I was so kind as to even tie a noose for him. And I helped him, Lara, I helped tie the rope to the apple tree. And then, I even helped him slip the noose around his neck as he stood on a small wooden stool below a branch of the tree. And in his final moments - pay attention Lara - as he looked at me, I could see the tears falling down his face. They were falling for you, because he was stupid and weak. And he kept on crying, he was still crying, as I kicked out the bench from under him. I kicked it so very quickly, and he fell into his noose. His neck snapped. And he was dead, Lara, dead."

Will looks at me, at my motionless body.

"You can blame me all you want, Lara, but you have to remember that it wasn't me. He - the boy - he killed himself all on his own. He hung himself, and no matter the circumstances, he was the one who took his own life."

I cannot move, but I am sure that Will can see the pain in my eyes. The pain that comes from knowing the truth. All of this time, when I began to hate him, for what I thought he did, I was hating the wrong person. I thought he had been happy, and I had been right, he was happy. He did not choose to end his life, and he did not deserve to die.

Will deserves to die.

I knew it, of course, from the beginning, that Will knew him somehow. I did not know how. And I did not know that he had something to do with his death. I did not know that he was responsible for it. But Will was lying, and Will killed him.

And I hate him. I did not think it was possible, but I hate him so more than I did before.

"And that, that is my story, Lara, that I have been aching to tell you for quite some time. It is important that you understand now," Will finishes.

And then, as if needing something to sicken me, disgust me even more, he bends his head down and kisses me softly on the forehead. Out of all the pain and suffering I have ever been through, this is the worst thing I have experienced in my entire life. And when he is done, I watch as he stands up and begins to walk away. I hear his footsteps fading, getting further and further away.

I do not know where Will is going, but as I begin to fade out again, into blackness, overcome by lightheadedness, shock, I know that he cannot be going too far. I will find him. Oh, I will find him. I promise to myself, right here, that I will kill him. Will is the sole person responsible for everything that has happened to me, and I am going to end his miserable life, once and for all. When I am strong enough, I will get up and find him.

I am going to end this.