A beam collapsed behind me, causing that side of the house to buckle. The steady creaking of the foundation sounded like the wail of a banshee. Why now? Why not before? Had all of this been an illusion created by the hat man? Had the fresh emotions of love for my wife and child caused his shadow-house to come crashing down?
The door to her room lay before me. An empty black maw opened up to keep me from entering. I screwed up my courage and jumped over the expanse. Written on the walls outside of her room were: "The world falls further into chaos because they live.", "Their blood will mend the chain.", and, "You won't remember. Give them to me. You will know peace."
Exhilaration from the endorphins in my blood quickened now with anger. He would not find her, alone and afraid. He would find a demon equal of his worth. He would find me. I didn't know what I could do, but something would be done. This thing would not hurt Cassie. Not while I still breathed.
My hand, sallow and clammy, grasped the door and thrust it open. His presence penetrated down to the cells of my body. I would die; I had no doubt. Never had I known such fear. I gasped loudly. "Tangie. I don't deserve your love. Save all your light for her. Save our baby."
A weak, cloudy figure stood over my daughter. Precisely the same wispy figure that had stood over Tangie on the shore of the lake that day. His malicious smile widened. He turned to greet me by tipping his hat.
Oddly, this room, unlike the rest of the house, remained stable and firm. This room formed a nexus of dark and light energy that bent and collapsed upon itself like the event horizon of a black hole. This room had become a portal.
He turned back to his task. Cassie's screams erupted from within her as he started his torment anew. It crushed my heart to hear her howl with such anguish. I thrust myself between them. I blocked his path to her. Grooves of blood lashed across my skin.
I thrust the dagger between us, the book held tightly under my arm. I winced with each rake of his claws. "Tangie. Please. Help her," I called out.
I heard the rattle of a pill bottle hitting the floor. It rolled to my feet. Her music began to play from Cassie's radio. Those chords thundered like an angry angel of God. She bolstered my courage, even now. I picked the bottle up like a weapon and opened the top. Pink. I downed the entire bottle with a gulp.
Darkness pealed with the rising, desperate trill of a dying gorgon. The pills had opened my sight. He stood exposed, his dreaded cowl stripped away for me to see the bleached wight grinning menacingly at me.
I stood inside the hollow of creation and destruction. Screams of the dying and the birthed deafened me. Light and darkness bent inward and outward across the plane of my vision. I thought I would lose all sense of identity if I couldn't focus on why I was there.
I had to finish what she started. Warm light surrounded my shoulders as I rose the dagger above the book. Insistent, hungry shouts thundered over the maelstrom of creation. He was angry. He rushed towards me. Terror flooded every emotion I could feel. I knew nothing else. I strained to remain conscious. I fought with every ounce of energy I had, and recited the last line of the story Tangie and I wrote.
"Siris, he who sliced creation in two, servant of Demiurge, had failed. He had many knives with which he made his cuts, each a different tool of division and separation from the One. They found, together, a tool he could not use or cut. With love, they defeated him. And for love, a new world was born in unity."
Torrid anger melted my hands as he approached. I thrust the dagger downward, impaling the book to the floor. This had to be the way. He tormented them. They dared to confront him. My wife had lost, and my daughter was losing. And now, it was my turn to face the hat man.
The last thing I remembered, a million cuts. Every fiber of muscle severed itself in the same moment, which could have been instantly, or over the course of several lifetimes. Bones sliced into minute sheaves of organic matter. This slow evisceration of every part I identified as "myself" pulled me under. I plunged into the sea of unconsciousness and disappeared under the depths. Forever.
***
She moved the palm of her hand over his eyes, closing them for the last time. She kissed him gently on his brow. She rocked their blood-soaked bodies together in a soothing rhythm as life drifted away. His thoughts drifted into her consciousness on the warm eddies of the morning sunlight, telling her of the crucible from which he appeared to her.
Blood dripped from her fingertips as she sobbed into the chill morning air. "I love you," she whispered over and over into his ear.
"You saved me."
After saying goodbye, she stood up. The morning sun glowed on her face. Sadness quickly eroded away, replaced by chiseled conviction. She placed her hand upon the window latch and unlocked it. It had been her entrance and exit to this place for the last several months. This would be the last time she would ever see this wretched hell in which her father had placed himself. She raised the window and breathed in the fresh, lively air. She hadn't realized how stale the room had been until now.
She stooped down and picked up the bear plushy. The bear sat in the middle of the pool of blood where her father had lain. A grim reminder of her father's death. All that remained of him existed inside the bear. She hugged it vigorously.
With the unicorn in one hand and the bear in the other, Cassie stood to her full height. A warm, protective feeling emanated from each plushy. She felt safe and loved.
"Yes, daddy. I'm all right, now. We're all right. Your love revived me, for love is binding—the opposite of what he is," she said to the bear. Light shimmered across the bear's eyes.
Those worn, tired eyes, familiar to her since birth, twinkled once more with delight.
Three sets of eyes stared adamantly into the horizon. The unicorn in her left arm and the bear plushy in her right. "I know," she said to the unicorn, "the nightmare isn't over, is it? He’s trying to give me false hope. Papa Bear opened the way for me. There is still a chance."
The walls to the room quaked. Dust crumbled from the ceiling. Cassie's gaze remained on the red morning horizon. A rapid scratching sound came from a part of the room that laying in shadow. Plaster dust fell from the words etched on the wall: "Not in hell."
Cassie leapt through the shattered remains of the window as the rest of the room collapsed into the oblivion of shadow. She had finally found the hollow. It would not be long before he would find her.
"But we’re not in hell. Not anymore.”
About Roy Lawrence Daman
Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror fiction writer R.L.Daman is also the host for AuthorTrope—a YouTube channel dedicated to helping authors get the tools they need to be successful. AuthorTrope sponsors 'I Made the Darkness', an annual Halloween horror writing contest. R.L.Daman is currently working on the Sci-Fi series ‘Age of Dissidence’. You can see his work at the following sites:
Website: http://rldaman.weebly.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RoyLDaman
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ColdHaven
Instagram: https://instagram.com/royldaman/
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Email: [email protected]
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