Something wakes me up…a sound…a gasp.
My eyes flutter open as the night greets me. I rub my eyes with the back of my hand and look over to the opposite bed where my brother is fast asleep after his soccer practice today.
Looking at the clock I see the time being after midnight.
The gasp echoes again making me frown in confusion as I sit up. Sleep escapes from my eyes as I start to stalk out of my room. My feet lightly make the wooden floor screech.
But the more steps I take down the hallway the more the gasp turns louder.
But something about it makes an agitation course through my nerves.
At the end of the hallway are our parents’ room, where the door is slightly ajar with the light from the room streaming out. And the sounds are coming from there.
“Oh God,” I heard the familiar voice of my father in a raspy tone.
I feel my heart racing against my chest as I hear the THUMP THUMP sound in my ears.
I stop beside the door frame and lean forward to see the light illuminating on my face with the rectangular gap size. But what I see makes my eyes widen with shock and my body is still turning like a statue.
“It feels so good, dear God,” father whispers while he stands naked behind a woman, who isn’t my mother. She has short blond hair unlike my mother’s black hair. He holds onto her waist tightly and the woman seems to be in pain as her eyes are shut tightly.
Tears stream down her face as she cries out loud but father doesn’t stop.
My whole body starts to shiver as I feel…disgust…dread looming over me.
“Ah God!” he grunts, increasing his motion and holding onto the woman’s hair into a tight fist.
Gulping nervously and feeling my breathing turning shallow, I think about returning back to my room. I want to go back and pretend this night has never happened and it’s possibly a nightmare.
But when I take a few steps back, I feel my back hitting another body. I quickly turn with a gasp and see mother standing with her brows furrowed.
Without thinking, I quickly warp my small arms around her waist, hugging her tightly. A wave of relief and comfort washes over me…just like it does every time mother is with me.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
Should I tell her?
“I…I heard something,” I whisper against her belly.
“What did you hear?” She kneels in front of me, pushing back my hair before her hands cup my face.
“I saw…I…father with…” I stutter, unable to think of my next words.
But as if mother understands my words, I see the realization crossing her face followed by a small smile.
“We thought to wait. But now that you have seen it, then you have stepped into the world.”
I frown in confusion, waiting for her to explain further.
But rather than speaking, she takes my hand and guides me back to her room where father is still with the woman in bed. I try to pull away from my mother’s hold with my eyes tight shut.
“No, mother. Please, no,” I beg, wanting nothing more but to leave the room.
She doesn’t listen and locks the door.
“Wilson,” she calls out father’s name and I hear the sounds stopping.
“What is he doing here?” he asks in a shocked tone.
“It is time for him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. The sooner the better.”
There is silence for a moment and taking a risk I open my eyes, seeing my parents gazing upon me. But the look is serious and distant that sent shivers down my spine. I have never seen them this way and at this moment, I don’t feel they are my parents…they are strangers.
“Please, mother…I want to go. I don’t want to be here.”
She shakes her head, gesturing me to be quiet with her index finger against her lips.
Tears start to blur my vision as she guides me to the bed where the woman is with father moving aside and putting on his pants.
I look away, feeling ill all of a sudden. Sweat starts to course down from my neck to my back.
“Eryx, look at the woman,” father orders.
But for the first time, I deny him. I can’t and I won’t do it. Suddenly, I feel my father’s hand gripping my jaw with a familiar grip as he forces me to turn and face the woman.
She is in a kneeling position, showing her naked body.
I shut my eyes and try to look away, but father intensifies his grip, urging me to look back.
“She isn’t just a woman, Eryx. She is an angel,” mother mutters.
What? An angel?
“What?” I whisper.
Mother sits beside the woman who looks like every ounce of emotion is wiped away from her face. It’s like moments ago even the pain she felt was no longer there.
She is like a living statue.
Mother cups the woman’s face, caressing her cheek like she does to me. “She will be sent back to God and we will be rewarded later for it.”
“What? I…I don’t understand.”
“You will understand everything soon, my sweet little boy. But tonight is your beginning…your first step towards the Magdalene.”
Nothing but discomfort, pain and revulsion shadows upon me. I can’t help but start crying as I beg mother to let me out of here.
“Please, I want to go back to my room. Please, mother. I don’t want to be here or near her…please.”
“You have no other choice because you will need to please the angel before she is sent back to heaven.”
I scowl. “Please her?”
She nods. Turning towards the woman she urges to face her and before I know it their lips touch each other.
I shut my eyes again feeling repulsed.
“You have to watch, son,” father mutters, close to my ears. “Do it or else I will beat you until your skin starts to bleed.”
I don’t doubt my father’s words because I have experienced that pain several times from him. Finding no other choice, I open my eyes and have to forcefully witness my mother kissing a stranger, whose skin is turning red like she is blushing.
But when their kiss broke, she became emotionless again. Mother looks at me with a soft smile and holds onto my shoulder.
“Now your turn,” she whispers.
What?
“You will please her just like I did. If you do then the angel will help us be part of heaven.”
I shake my head vigorously and try to get down from the bed. But father tightens his hold and pushes me towards the woman.
As if understanding my hesitation, she leans forward and in the next second I feel her lips on mine. My mouth is immobile and still while she moves her lips and uses her tongue to trace mine. I feel bile forming in my throat as I want to puke badly. My heart is thumping faster and faster while the tears won’t stop streaming.
Let this be over soon, God. Please let this be over.
Thankfully it does and she moves back. Mother and father offer me a prideful smile even though I don’t feel an ounce of honor.
“She is pleased by your act, son,” father murmurs while caressing my hair and mother touching my cheek.
“There is nothing to cry about, sweetie. It’s part of the Magdalene. And tonight, you took your first step. There is more to come. But now it’s time for our angel to go. Let’s bid her farewell,” mother says and the three of them get up.
Mother takes my hand and guides me with them towards the basement- whereas I want nothing more but to escape from this horrific night.
Father locks the basement door when we reach the room. Unlike other times, the room is illuminated by candles that are placed around a circle. There is a star shaped mark inside it and there is something white and dusty, with huge horns and black hollowed eyes…it looks like a monster.
“Come with me,” mother speaks to the woman who follows her to the center of the circle.
Father stays behind me, holding my shoulders, witnessing the sight like me.
What is happening?
Why is mother doing this? Why did father force me?
Who is this woman?
So many questions roam in my head but I don’t achieve an answer for one.
The woman faces the white monster and kneels in front of it with her head casted down. Mother stands right behind her and retrieves something from the ground.
“She will be returning to God, Eryx. She is going to be free from here, happy and pleased.”
The way my mother’s eyes darkened with an overwhelming happiness that I have never seen before, makes me scared of my own mother for the first time.
I have been afraid of my father mostly because of the way he punished me and my brother for the smallest mistakes. But with our mother we seek comfort and protection.
Tonight, even that notion is proved to be wrong.
Because what happens next, paralyzes my mind and soul.
“Do you wish to be free?” she asks the woman who simply nods and arches her head back.
“We serve you, master. Let her be free and come to you. Let our sins be forgiven and allow this angel to be the witness and evidence to help us repent,” mother mutters, her head leans back as she looks at the ceiling. Her voice sounds as if she means each and every word from the depths of her heart.
Before I can contemplate, I see a knife in her hand with its sharpness being highlighted by the candles. Mother brings it towards the woman’s neck and cuts her neck.
Instant fright shakes me to my core, making my body tremble as I see the woman’s neck gushing out blood and soon being cut off from her body.
The rest of her body falls forward with mother holding her head.
I can’t move…can’t think…can’t speak.
The woman is dead…mother killed her…she is dead…dead…
That is the last sight I envision before my world turns from blurry to dark and I collapse on the ground letting myself be engulfed by slumber that I want to stay in forever.
A week passes by after that night.
The next day when I woke up, it all felt like a dream. I immediately rushed to the basement but there was no sign of the circle, candles or the white monster.
Mother found me there but instead of lashing at me she greeted me with her chirpy voice and guided me back to the house. Even my father pretended like nothing happened the other night.
He was simply reading his newspaper while mother was making breakfast.
Everything felt…normal.
Was I dreaming?
I didn’t see that woman again though my mind couldn’t stop seeing the flashes of her head being cut off from her body.
For the next few nights, I couldn’t blink a sleep. I tossed and turned, thinking about the woman again and again. But eventually, I made myself think it was just a nightmare and the woman didn’t exist.
With that comforting thought I let my mind feel the calmness I lost a few days ago.
It was a dream…a bad dream.
None of it happened.
But it turns out to be a lie one night.
I’m in a deep sleep but it’s broken by a hand shaking me by my shoulder vigorously. My eyes snap open to my younger brother. He is in his white pajamas like mine with his raven black hair tousled in a mess. But what catches my attention are the tears of distress streaming down his face.
“Eryx, wake up. Please wake up,” he begs with a choked-up voice.
I instantly sit up and hold his hands for comfort. “What happened? What is wrong?”
“Mother…father…t-they.”
I frown and the only scenario I can think of is that night. “They are what?”
He continues sobbing and hugs me tightly. “T-they…knife…I saw a woman…she is…mother she…-”
His words get halted when the door of our bedroom bursts open with our parents entering like the dark monsters we always thought hide under the bed. But we never thought those monsters lived with us.
This is reality and so was that night.
My eyes land on the blood-stained knife on mother’s hand but this time father’s hands are covered in blood too.
Protectiveness overpowers me as I cage my brother in my arms with a harsh grip as I lean us towards the corner of my bed. There is no other place to go but I will do everything in my power to protect him. Even if it required me to sacrifice myself…I will do it.
Our parents have forced me to step into their dark world but I won’t let my brother be a part of a world where he doesn’t belong.
“No! Stay away from him!” I shout at them for the first time. “Don’t you dare touch him!”
“Eryx, sweetie,” mother starts while heading towards my bed, “-we want you to be a part of this. Both of you. Because when we die and go to heaven, we want you both with us and this will secure that motive.”
“Listen to your mother, boys. We just want the best for you.”
“By killing strangers in front of your sons?” I yell while my brother’s sobbing makes my body shake. I try to soothe him by caressing his back even though I know it won’t help much.
“We aren’t killing strangers, sweetie. We are sending the angels back to heaven. It’s part of the Magdalene.”
“We don’t want to be part of anything. This is sick! You two are insane and unworthy of even being called parents,” I sneer.
Father strides towards me and doesn’t hesitate to slap me across my face so hard that it darkens my vision for a moment. “How dare you insult your parents like that? God doesn’t forgive those who disrespect their parents!” he yells, with a sudden vengeful anger boiling in his eyes.
“You will be part of the Magdalene like us. This is where we belong and so will you two…by hook or by crook.”
His warning is enough for me to know that our parents are serious about this and nothing will change their minds. Whatever this darkness is…it has blinded them deeply that they didn’t care how it would be affecting their sons.
“Tonight, is time for another angel to go. Both of you must join,” mother whispers, lightly caressing my cheek where father slapped me.
“You have always made me proud, Eryx. Do this and I will be prouder knowing our son wants to be with us when we go to heaven.”
I shake my head. “I won’t be part of your sick world.”
Her soft smile disappears in the blink of an eye and she leans back with the same emotionless look that woman carried.
I have never feared my mother so much as I do at this moment.
She simply leans forward and brings the bloody knife close to my face. I try to mask my fright but my shivering body gives it away.
“You will do this. You have to otherwise,” she brings the tip of the knife towards my brother’s hair and skimming it lower to his neck, “I won’t hesitate to send him with the angel tonight.”
My heart skips a beat just from the thought of losing my brother by my lunatic parents. I tighten my hold around him while he does the same like he doesn’t want to let go of me for a second. He is as scared as I am but I have to be there for him and be brave.
“You will be a part of the Magdalene and keep continuing this tradition until you take your last breath. With time you will know how to find an angel. And when you do, you will please them and help them be sent to God. They are trapped in this sinful world like we are, sweetie,” her voice turns soft all of a sudden, with her eyes glimmering, “-if we could escape, we would. But poor and innocent souls like us are imprisoned in this devious world. We have all committed sins and will be punished despite leading this miserable life. This can’t be the world God made for us…it is tainted by the devil. The devil tainted us.”
She smiles again, cupping my cheek with one hand and while holding the knife she strokes her other son’s hair- who is in no condition to feel the affection of a monstrous mother like her.
“But by the help of the angels we can be together in the afterlife,” she whispers. “They will be our key to happily ever after. So, you need to do this for us…for yourself. Will you do it, Eryx?”
Rather than answering her, my gaze shifts to the knife she holds close to my brother’s head while faking she cares for him…and for me.
But it’s all an act…a trap they want me to fall in. But I know at this moment it is impossible to escape this nightmare. I don’t want to risk my brother’s life and let his innocent soul get darkened.
So, I do what I have to do for my brother…only for him.
My gaze returns to my mother and then to my father, while I question God why he let us have such parents.
There is no solution but only one that I wish wasn’t an option. I let out a shaky breath, trying to control my emotions before I give a simple nod.
“Yes, mother. I will do this.”
