I’ve remembered a dream where we were together

      The hall was mired in viscous semi-darkness. The cold crawled along my numb limbs, causing a herd of goosebumps. He was shouting something in my face, but the sound, as if through a thick layer of water, was blurred, and I could not understand a single word. Suddenly, he felt silent and stared at me. His fists were clenched in blind rage.        “Why are you silent, huh?” the phrase hit my ears with unexpected harshness. I swallowed and tried to answer that I had not heard the question, but the tongue seemed to be stuck, “have you completely gone deaf or something?!”       Without waiting for an answer, the boy attacked me with his fists. From surprise, I swayed, dragging him along with me. We fell to the floor - my back treacherously ached, hitting the tiled floor. He was shorter than me by half a head, but now it did not matter. I didn't notice how he sat on top of me and grabbed my shirt. The buttons creaked, the delicate fabric cracked - he fanatically swung his fists, trying to hit my face. I dodged - my hands felt like lead and didn't want to come off the floor. He started screaming again, but I didn't hear him. Blows scattered across my body in warm spots - I felt how one after another they painfully grew into my skin. I jerked convulsively, knocking him over on his side and kicked with all my strength. He rolled away from me on the smooth floor, sobbing - apparently I hit him in the stomach. In fear, I crawled back a couple of steps. Along with horror, something else was boiling in my blood. Hatred?       Finish him off.       A metallic creak. We raised our heads in unison - the chandelier swayed uncertainly once, then twice and suddenly, like a hawk that had noticed its prey, swooped down. I closed my eyes and cringed - a second later, with a roar, it fell half a meter from me with all its force. Heat washed over me, and I thoughtlessly opened my eyes. Where the boy had been lying a second ago, there lay a copper colossus. Glass fragments of jewelry were scattered across the floor, mixed with expensive stones and wax. The chandelier burst into flames.        He is still there.        Crawling, I rushed to the chandelier, grabbed the beam and immediately instinctively pulled my hands away from the burning metal. His hand, sticking out from under the debris, twitched in agony. Either from pain or from horror, tears came to my eyes. I clung to the chandelier again, trying to do something with a mountain of debris weighing several tons. Someone grabbed my shoulder, but I clutched the copper in my hands in blind hope.       Isn't that what you've wanted for so long?       "He's already dead!" I let go of my hands in surprise and flew back. She appeared right in front of me - she fell to knees, took my face in her hands and looked into my very soul. An angelic beautiful child with a shining fiery halo, "Alastair, he's dead. You can't fix anything now. Don't cry."       Only now did I notice that my cheeks were wet with tears. I sobbed in fear; she pulled me to her and hugged. I clung to her back, noticing that I was staining her peach dress with my bloody palms. Covered in cuts from shrapnel and blisters, stained with a mixture of my own and someone else's blood, they caused a fit of disgust in me. I barely managed to push Yvon away before I vomited on the bloody floor nearby. I was choking while my empty stomach was twisting in painful spasms. She sat next to me, holding my hair and stroking my back. Her face, thoughtful and sad, seemed deathly pale in the light of the blazing body. I looked up at her, frozen in horror.        She saw.        Kill her.       “It's okay,” as if reading my thoughts, Yvonne whispered, “no one will know. This will be our little secret. As long as you are near, I will protect you.”       Don’t trust the liar.       The puddle under me became sticky. I tried to get up, but the bloody liquid sucked me down. Yvonne smiled, looking at my attempts to resist and ignoring the scream.        “I told you that I would protect you,” she cooed, “but firstly...        The gurgling drowned out her words. My nose was flooded with stinking liquid. I lay, nailed to the floor by the chandelier. Pain paralyzed my mouth, and I was unable to scream. The fragments dug deeper - I only jerked my hand sticking out in agony and prayed that someone would help the remains of my body. Hot blood mixed with melted wax and finally warmed my frozen body. Candle flames danced on broken crystal along with death images. Yvonne looked at me with disdain and hugged the trembling boy, not letting me contemplate my death. Through the veil, I could not understand who he was.        Don't turn away.        Don't turn away, at least you.        You alone know everything, you alone remain on my side.        I stretched out my hand, watching how mockingly slowly she turned to him and whispered something tenderly. Salty tears ran down my cheeks, trying to drown me. The pain pierced my body for the last time like a bolt of lightning.        I squeezed her throat. She didn't resist - she just looked at me with disdain. But that one look was enough for my fingers to loosen and my hand to hang limply at my side.       “Have you calmed down?” She rubbed the blue streaks that had spread across her neck. “Thought you had the guts to strangle me? Just because you killed once doesn't mean you can do it a second time.”       I felt the anger boiling in my blood. My veins were pulsing, my nostrils were flaring, but I just bit my lips silently. Salty, warm blood came out in my mouth. She chuckled.       "Calm down, Alastair." She came closer, lightly touching my cheekbones with her hand, "I won't hurt you. Even if you will try to kill me, I just let you do it."       "Then there is no point in your death."       Yvone laughed and ran her finger across my lips, wiping away the blood that came out.              "Well then, you will have to serve me until death. Probably, yours.” She squeezed my jaw hard, forcing me to lean towards her. “You should try to make sure that we don't have such excesses anymore. No matter how much you bare your teeth, for me you are nothing more than a barking puppy. And puppies look comical while trying to impersonate scary dogs. So be gentle and don't bite the hand that feeds you. Bite those who threaten that hand. Be smarter.”              I swallowed. Something in her gaze made me cringe. I nodded, looking down at the floor.       “Yes, my lady.”              I sat up abruptly on the bed. My body was shaking slightly, and beads of cold sweat had gathered on my forehead. I jumped up and began to pace the room, trying to calm my ragged breathing.       That dream. Again.       I sat on the edge of the bed and hid my face in my hands. The silhouettes of the past mockingly jumped around the room, not wanting to dissolve in the twilight. The night's sleepiness still glimmered in my body, not allowing me to fully understand the abstractness of what had happened. I got up again, quickly got dressed and almost ran out of the bedroom. The estate was sleeping peacefully - even the sun was still dozing behind the horizon. In the semi-darkness I could not make out the clock face, but the inky blue sky slyly hinted at the imminent morning.       The wind finally ruffled the remnants of sleep. The jacket didn't warm me at all, but I was rather grateful for that - the unpleasant dampness invigorated me, getting under my shirt. I inhaled the cool night air and wandered towards the sea. Surprisingly quiet, it barely audibly murmured at the foot of the cliffs. I remembered Yvon and how she winced from the salty air. She was eleven. I was fifteen. She reassured me, whispering that I would be safe with her, and the truth wasn't worth being recognized.        Everyone would just think it was an accident. No one would blame you.        There, on the tiled floor, I believed every word she said. I believed when she led me, splashed and tearful, through the hallways, like a beautiful swan leading an ugly duckling. I believed and kept quiet while she assured everyone of my innocence, periodically casting a knowing glance at me. When she handed me a pair of gloves. When she pulled me away from the broken mirror and slapped me.        Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You did what you did, and you didn't even get what you deserved. God gave you a chance, so take it.        I sat down on a stone - the sea licked, gently touched my boots and shyly crawled away. Who was Yvon really? In six years I could not find the answer to this question. But she did not fully know who I was either. The only advantage I had was a sickening lack of emotion, the ability to remain silent and obey. Yvon did not know for sure whether I could bite, and was in no hurry to test the limits of my patience. And I was in no hurry to demonstrate this to her. We were stewing in this mixture of imposed tenderness, with the inability to choose and knives pointed at each other. One step to the side and blood would be spilled. If I had turned out to be "not interesting enough", Yvon would not have wasted her time on me - she would have waited until the Duke, having bequeathed everything to her, died, and would have thrown me out. Or she would have driven me out of the estate even earlier. But she found me interesting enough to be a pet, and kept me around, enjoying the experiments and giving me the attention I required. She loved me because there was no one else, no choice, and she resigned herself to it. And I loved back, as I had been told six years ago.

***

      By the time I returned to the estate, dawn had broken. The marble floor was bathed in poisonous red rays. Red and golden spots danced on the walls. I wanted to go back to the bedroom, but I froze as I passed the ballroom. One of the rays breaking through the stained glass window under the ceiling fell on the piano. My legs carried me to the instrument. I casually pulled off my jacket, threw it at the feet of the bench, sat down and took a cigarette forgotten by someone from the varnished surface. The flame of the match resembled a pitiful semblance of the dawn blazing outside the windows. I put the cigarette in my mouth and while it was burning, I slowly took off my thin gloves. My hands, covered with scars, had long ceased to arouse disgust - only an incomprehensible regret that I was constantly forced to wear gloves. It was unnecessary, of course, but the people around me did not hide their pity at the sight of my hands, and I continued to hide them in embarrassment.        The acrid smoke rose to the ceiling. I inhaled deeply, feeling the bitterness spreading across my tongue. The gloves flew after the jacket. I sighed, raising my hands. The music burst out like thunder in the middle of the hall. Each chord crashed against the marble walls and crumbled into notes. The nicotine high made me lightheaded. I threw my head back and closed the eyes. My fingers jumped over the jagged keys - I was playing three or four times faster than the piece required. Not a single thought remained in my mind - everything dissolved in a tart mixture of poisonous smoke and intoxicating music.        The last chord struck and I took my hands off the instrument. The remnants of the music, timidly, until I pulled them out again by the tails, ran to the corners and died down. I took the half-burned cigarette out of my mouth and blew a cloud into the air, the grayish ash falling like snow onto my lap. I groaned wearily - the music brought only temporary peace. As soon as it died down, my thoughts, frightened by the roar and the possibility of suffocating in the smoke, returned again. They swarmed around in my head, mockingly rubbing their paws and biting so deeply that they touched the soul. In an hour, two at most, I will be sitting at the same table with her and having breakfast. She will chat sweetly, throwing short glances at me, smiling at her father and chewing on fried eggs. And I will look at her, torn between the desire to strangle her and hug her. And pray that the food is not poisoned. I bent over and rested my head on the keys. The piano involuntarily rattled. I took another drag on my cigarette, quietly playing scales with my free right hand.       One day I'll just go crazy.