Pacifier

🥀Van🍒

We remained, suspended in that moment. Me and Isabelle.

Suspended in a moment that was only the edge of the beginning of the end. Teetering.

I couldnt stand to look up at her and face what I had done.

I couldn't stand to let go of her or pull myself away.

Kill or be killed.

My mother never looked at me the same after that day.

She fell to her knees and she screamed and she held Jamie's limp body to her breast, she cradled him and cried into his hair. Her face contorted agony.

And I stood. The gun at my feet. And I felt the life drain from me.

My father stood behind me, his hand clasped to my shoulder.

"Walk with me lad," he said pushing between my shoulderblades, a gentle nudge forward.

My ears were still ringing. My heart was still racing.

I had felt the power of life and death in my hand and I had shot my twin brother dead in a moment of fear. For a solitary moment I had felt alone in the world and I had let that fear pull the trigger.

Now I would be alone in this world for the rest of my life.

So I stood there, trembling, and i vowed that I would never let fear control me again. More than that, I would never fear again.

"I'm proud of you Van, I didnt think it would be you..." Dad had settled now, his cheeks still flushed a little red but his eyes were grey and his hand was pale as he threw his arm around my shoulder and led me away from my mother.

My mother who had exhausted herself into silence with her grief.

When i glanced over my shoulder her body had curled around my brothers, the two of them blended into one so that I could no longer make out the outline of Jamie and the outline of mum.

Together they shuddered on the floor, shaking and shivering under the strange silvery sunlight.

For a moment they looked alive. But I knew my mother was breathing for both of them now.

"Kill or be killed," hummed dad, chuckling to himself as he lead me away, back to the car without them.

I wanted to ask him why but I couldn't. I couldn't speak.

"Now son," said Dad as we reached the edge of the forest. Closer to the car than i had first thought.

Somewhere along the way we must have looped back on ourselves because we had only been walking for five minutes when I recognised our car, parked solitary at the end of the track.

"There is one more lesson that you must now learn..." dad leant up against the car door opening it for me to climb in the passenger side, "when we go home today you will go upstairs, you will shower straight away, you will wash away the dirt and the blood and then you will forget about this morning completely...."

"How..." I started, and perhaps my insides should have twisted with nausea with rage. With hatred for a man who seemed hell bent on torturing his family, but they didn't.

They just felt heavy. I felt heavy.

"You just will. If anyone asks you what happened today you will tell them that me you and your mam went for a walk,"