Initium (The Nocte Trilogy 2.50)

The smell of the school gym permeates my nose. The dust motes float in the air, the floor scuffed and hot. Around me, the other kindergartners screech and run because Capture the Flag is our favorite game. Our skin smells like sweat, our breath is heavy and hot in our chests, and the sense of competition is so thick I can taste it.

I look up to find my brother Finn grabbing the other team’s flag. He’s as surprised by this turn of events as I am because one thing about my brother… he’s not athletic. It’s not his thing. His smile is beatific as he sprints toward our side, because if he can just manage this, he’ll be the hero of the day. We’ll win, and it will be because of him.

I wave my arms and motion for him to run harder, as if he weren’t already. His skinny arms are pumping, his legs scrambling. But he needs to run faster because I want everyone else to know how amazing he is.

“Calla!” Finn shrieks, and for a second, I think it’s from the excitement. “Calla!”

The tone of his voice is anxious or desperate and his hair is plastered to his forehead, and he’s not excited. He’s terrified. His eyes are wide and focused on something behind me, on the wall, on nothing.

I’m confused, but panicked, because something in me is triggered. The age-old innate instinct to protect my twin. Fight or Flight. Protect him.

I sprint to catch him, to try and shield him from the kids trying to bombard him for the scrap of material in his hand. I’m not sure what is wrong with him, but he’s no longer trying to play the game. He’s trying to escape it.

When I reach him, his eyes are sightless and he’s screaming in terror. Around me, I hear other kids snickering and see them staring and I want to punch them all, but I don’t have the chance.

Finn drops the flag and it flutters to the ground like an orange ribbon.

Before I can stop him, he shimmies up the old creaking rope, the one that goes to the ceiling. He hovers by the stained ceiling tiles, looking down at me, but not really seeing me.

“It’s here, Calla!” he screams. “It’s here. The demon. The demon. It’s eyes are black.” His eyes widen, and he shrieks again, shirking away as if something unseen is chasing him. He tries to climb higher, but there’s nowhere else to go. He’s at the top, next to the ceiling and something imaginary is chasing him and I can’t breathe.

What is happening?

My heart pounds and I grab the rope, climbing it as quickly as I can to get to my brother.

One hand after the other, I push with my feet. The thick twine cuts into my hands, burning and hot, but it doesn’t matter.

Only Finn matters.

But Finn isn’t seeing me. He looks through me, and shrieks and shrieks and shrieks.

He scrambles away, and I’m terrified.

“Finn, it’s me,” I tell him softly, my voice as steady as I can make it. “It’s me.”

I have to help. I have

to. What’s wrong with him?

I touch his shoe, lightly, so very lightly, so lightly that I think he won’t feel it.

But he does. His face twists and he turns because he thinks I’m a demon, and as he moves, his hands slip away from the rope.

Life is slow motion.

He falls away from the rope and he screams. He flails as he falls and the sound he makes as he hits the gym floor is startlingly soft, like a pillow. How can that be?

I’m stunned and detached as I stare down at my brother, at the blood pooling on the gym floor, at the teacher ushering the kids away from his body, at my brother, at my brother.

Finn’s light blue eyes are open and staring at me, but he’s not seeing me.

Not anymore.

Because he’s dead.

My father is an undertaker, so I know what death looks like.

I don’t remember how I get down from the rope, because my hands are numb, my heart is numb, my head is numb. I don’t remember who picks me up from school. All I remember is lying in bed and staring at the ceiling and feeling lifeless, like the whole world could fall into pieces and float away and I wouldn’t care. Because if Finn is gone, I don’t want to be here either.