Page 68 of Sick Bargain

Groaning, I force myself to sit straighter, still scared but less so because I know Krypt is the one demanding my music. I look around the dark chamber, noticing I’m the only thing spotlighted by the moon. The corners are dark, and Krypt lurks within one.

My fingers twitch around the length of a bow, and despite how infrequently I play anymore, it’s second nature. The instrument between my legs is comforting because I’ve spent so much of my life playing it, using it to speak instead of saying words, letting it convey everything inside me, bringing it to the outside.

Moments ago, or maybe hours, I almost killed myself again. Now, I’ll play. Because it’s the only thing I know how to do.

I sit straighter, gaining movement and energy as the buzz of the shock wears off. My crotch is wet, but I barely pay it any mind, too far gone to worry about dignity. I don’t know what to say or how to speak to Krypt, so I’ll let my music do the talking.

I clear my throat, grip the bow, and hold it to the strings. My left hand comes to the fingerboard, positioning the cello how I like it. Familiar. Comfortable. Safe. I don’t know what he wants me to play or why he even wants me to play at all, but my fingers naturally find the strings they want to start on, and my bow brings them to life.

I play.

Through the sound of my music, I tell Krypt how sorry I am. I let him feel my sorrow and despair. I bring to life the depth of my darkness and the absolution of my doom. I show him how helpless and afraid I am, and how cynical I feel towards everyone, but mostly myself. I cry when my fear comes through the notes, blending into the harmony that signifies my pain. Because pain is at the very root of everything.

It fucking hurts. It hurts to be a nobody. It hurts to own a music shop that feeds a town’s needs, but to have none of my own needs met by the town. It hurts to be a Sauder. It hurts to have lost, to have feared love, to have lived half a life on the outskirts of sensation. It hurts to know I’ve wasted my limited time here, never getting close to anyone or experiencing anything great. It hurts to amount to nothing. And it hurts to know that when I’m gone, the accumulation of everything I was will narrow down to the words ‘friend, brother, son’ on yet another headstone in a long line of them.

I play harder.

I express sorrow and shame. Malice and anger. Terror and foreboding. I play it all for Krypt because he’s the only person listening. I play for so long that my fingertips bleed and my shoulder burns from moving the bow. My tears have turned dryand my heartbeat has settled into something as melancholic as my mood. The lump in my throat eases, making my voice want to join my music. But I don’t let it. I don’t trust the lyrics.

When the emotions are purged from my soul, my bow falls away to hang at my side, the tip resting on the stone floor. The shaft of moonlight has moved, highlighting me from a new direction and marking time passed. My fingers slide down the fingerboard, shrieking soft notes before blanketing me in silence. Because there’s nothing left to say.

I sit and breathe. Just breathe. Not seeing. Not feeling. Not rationalizing. But living. Alive. For now.

23

I FEEL

KRYPT

Remiel staresat where I’m standing, but he doesn’t see me. Even if I wasn’t concealed by shadows, his eyes would not register me. He’s purging himself of his demons, half dead with the effort of it. Now, it’s my turn to scare him back to life. Living for real this time.

I step from the shadows and approach him, removing the cello and the bow from his fingers. He doesn’t move or acknowledge me, but when I crouch in front of him, his eyes meet mine. I’ve never seen them so empty.

“Life hurts, hero,” I tell him, absolutely hating him in Kyd’s clothing. “Going to live it or give it up?”

He stares, blank-faced and void.

I grab his wrist and haul him to his feet, and he lets me steer him to the edge of the cavernous room. The asylum has many old stories, and this chamber is one of them. Tiered, circular seating lines the circumference, but it’s dark and unseen for now. I push his back to a gate, and when he still doesn’t respond, I tether him to it with a set of shackles. His wrists bound to it beside his head. He still doesn’t react.

But when I strap a metal collar around his neck and latch it to the bars of the gate, his eyes shoot up to meet mine.

“What’re you doing?” he asks, voice timid and pathetic.

I hold up a knife, letting it glint in the moonlight so he knows it’s coming. “It’s in your bloodline, right? The curse?” I cut open the hoodie, slicing through that disgusting glowing unicorn. I rip it open and cut it off his arms, watching his skin pebble with goosebumps. All his abs flex, coated in sweat and grime that darkens his skin and makes it glisten.

“Only the men,” he answers, watching me with indifference.

The shirt falls to the floor in tatters, and my name on his collarbone sates me slightly. Remiel swallows against the rigid collar, watching my eyes while I undo his pants and force them down his legs.

“And you are a man. A Sauder man.” I grip his soft cock for the first time, liking the weight and warmth of it. His breath shudders and his chest heaves, but he says nothing. “A Sauder man with the Sauder curse.”

“Yes,” he whispers.

“Want to surrender to it, Remiel? Or do you want to fight it?”

The metal manacles rattle against the gate, and Remiel looks at me with false hope in his eyes. “It can’t be fought. It’s… like you said. It’s in my blood.”

I press the tip of my blade to the hollow of his throat, just below the collar. “This room used to be a viewing room. When the asylum was new and they were experimenting with medical procedures, they’d bring insane patients here, believing that their sicknesses were possessions. Schizophrenics were possessed by demons, so doctors brought in exorcists to purge them.”

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