Page 119 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

The feeling of asphyxiation burns my lungs. I stumble back blindly, banging both my shoulders on wood and branches until I reach the tree with the chains.

Like the night of the thunderstorm, I tie myself to the trunk, my hands cuffed, the iron chains fastened to the spruce like a leash. Again and again, the earth shakes beneath me and I stagger sideways like a drunk. When I’m secured, I toss the original key into the undergrowth.

One, two, three, four…

The ground gives way.

Black swirls pass by me. I land on something hard with a thud. I look around confused. The little boy stands in front of me and looks down at me with his timeless gaze. Blood is running from his nose and his reddened eyes have green-blue shiners.

He shakes his head with a serious expression. I know what he’s going to say and beat him to it. “I’ll go.”

“You have no idea, do you?” He rubs his pants with his hands. “You don’t remember what it’s like to be there?”

“I do,” I reply reluctantly. “Of course I remember how it was.”

The little boy laughs and a torrent of mockery pours over me.

Screams ring out from somewhere. Terrible screams like I’ve never heard before.

“I am you!” I say when it’s quiet again and he stays silent.

“What you feel is merely an echo of the pain.” The boy turns on his bare feet and walks down the dark corridor I saw so many times as a child. The notch in the floor, the uneven threshold, the door behind which lie all the horrors I fear.

“Brendan, wait!” I yell, scrambling to my feet. He doesn’t respond; suddenly seems to be somewhere else. The horrible wails pierce my eardrums again.

“Bren!” I yell when it has quieted down.

“I don’t have a name, you know that!” he says angrily now.

“Of course you have a name,” I call after him, suddenly angry at him for not letting me get close to him. “He called you all sorts of things, but your name is Brendan. You simply forgot about it for a long time.” For a very long time. So long, so dark.

“I am nothing, nothing doesn’t need a name,” the boy whispers and suddenly stops.

“You are not nothing. You are me. My name is Brendan. I’m twenty-two and my birthday is in January. I love a wonderful girl. This love is not nothing. You’re not nothing!”

The boy glances at me over his shoulder, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “Is that true?” he whispers and there is an unbearable sadness in his words. It wants to break my heart.

“Yeah,” I choke back, reaching out to him like Lou reached out to me. I want to touch him and tell him that everything will be fine. “He can’t hurt you anymore, Bren. He can’t hurt us anymore.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know, but he no longer has power over us. He is gone.”

“And yet he’s always there.”

“Memories. They are merely memories,” I say softly, stepping toward the boy. “It’s over.” He can’t slip away from me anymore.

Suddenly, he looks as withdrawn as before. “I have to protect you. From these memories,” he says with childish determination.

Without further explanation, he starts to run. He pushes open the door to the basement and this time I run after him. With an outstretched arm, I catch the closing door, hold it open, and take a few steps into the darkness.

“Brendan?” I call out.

Silence.

Then, in a second, the darkness is torn apart like a curtain. My eyes light up and I see the monster bending over the little boy, grabbing him by the collar, and dragging him toward the black coffin.

Full of rage, I throw myself at the man, but I can’t reach him as he vanishes like air between my fingers.

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