(1)
It was late afternoon when I step out of my best friend Sylvie’s house in my favourite pink trench Sylvie has gifted me thinking about the amazing last night and all the fun we girls had. We talked about all the teenage stuff, our future after high school and of course boys-being loved for which I always have an infinite craving, being mattered for at least someone. I have always been a nobody for everyone except Sylvie my blonde best friend. I hated my averagely normal life and after my mom it was more tormented. I was nothing more than a piece of fun for my schoolmates. Sometime I felt like I was so bad that I deserved to live a damned life, a life where my breaths don’t matter, a life far worse than death.
The weather reports have announced about the approaching snow storms again, so Sylvie has advised me to reach home as soon as possible. I was hurrying towards my home with my maximum speed and I would be at my home in about 15 minutes. The temperature was below freezing and soon as expected it started to snow and there came my favourite turn to the KnappVille, though I needed to reach home as soon as possible but my craving to endure the lap of nature allured me to KnappVille. I stared at the turn and my feet their self-started walking towards it.
Knappville the oldest treacherous house of the town, whose vicinity was avoided by all, was my favourite place to spend my evening. I secretly used to hang out there. It was a beautiful world away from the realm, the only little adventure in my sorrowful life. The perfection of creation, enchanted gardens, walking on lush green lawns captivated my soul and while enjoying the serenity of dusk and dawn in that flawless and elegant lively mansion I used to live my dreams believing endlessly they will be true one day someday. I loved to walk through the pavement, sit in the garden and rest in the lobby no one has even seen in ages. The undefiled silence, pristine environment – an intoxicated realm where only I existed trying to know every dimension of my soul, making my life more meaningful, glossing it and most importantly living it at least for a while. There was a beautiful pool behind the mansion with all types of fishes golden, red, silver, small, spotted, large where I used to sit and unsoil my soul. In the front lawn there were old trees in different shapes, making figures from them was my favourite pastime. It was a very big villa with so many rooms I have not even count or entered. It seems like a century old palace inhabited by a powerful thoughtful king who dreamt of heaven on earth and accomplished it as Knapp Ville. Every corner every dimension of which was an undeniable example of excellent thought and planning and of course marvelous architecture but for now it was my palace.
Lost in my train of thoughts I reached Knappville and opened the all-time open door and laughing with that cracking eerie sound of the centuries old door I entered the foyer. It was already dark but I can clearly see the beautiful antique furniture draped in the white coat scattered all around, covered with millions of webs, the faded and frayed walls with few antique but ragged hanging paintings mourning on the sad part of the mansion, I turned to my right to enter my favourite room and sat by the window as always, relishing the decorous garden outside. The thousand year old Banyan tree was looking like murk witch carrying a small child on her hunch back, giving me chills. I started looking inside the room to the beautiful furniture and the huge cupboards. I wished I could live here forever. I moved towards the cupboard and opened it like I would find some magic that would change my life forever. Laughing on ma weird imaginations I looked inside the cupboard and there lied a beautiful antique mirror. I took the mirror in my hand and looked at my face; the new liner looked perfect, embossing my face without any smudge enhancing the shape of my eyes. My long black hairs with the curl locks were falling on my shoulder. “I did not look that bad” I thought.
Suddenly I felt a stone hand fastened over my shoulder making every little bit of me to shiver and that was when I heard a spellbinding but terrorizing voice saying “Who are you??”
I have been sitting here every evening from last seven years but not a single soul blotched the far vicinity, though I have always heard of unexplainable events happening here but for me KnappVille was utmost serene. The words stuck to my mind paralyzing it. I was frozen feeling the stinging grasp of death, blood rushed through my veins and I can hear my heart beating like a motorboat, making me feel giddy. Out of any savoir options I arrayed all the courage inside me and turned towards my death. H-e-llll-oo, AA-I-AMM-MM EL-LYOM-MM.
“What are you trying to say???” he said in his unbelievably calm and organized voice.
It took me almost eternity to come back to my senses and realize that I almost stammered my name but not because I was afraid but I was lost in those glittering hazel eyes shaped like two lotus on the innocuous olive skinned face blended with his sandy blonde hair. His thick chiseled brows showed content, understanding like he could read right through my mind and it was something about those full luscious lips that phased me I couldn’t help but stare, he was truly the man of my dreams.
“Are you fine?”
“Yes! I am Elyom.” I said collecting myself in a sudden rush.
“I am Enif, owner of this house!” he said gaping his topaz eyes towards me.
“Oh! I am sorry I broke into your house. It was dark and snowing so I …umm…. I thought I would rest here until the snow stops” I lied!! What would have I told him! That I love to break into his house on a routine basis!!
He looked at me with little suspicion in his lotus eyes and then he said “wise decision!! All roads towards the city have been closed. Come in the living room, it’s quite cold here.”
I looked at him, smiled nervously and followed his chaste walk holding my breath towards the living room.
(2)
To my surprise I walked into an untainted, arranged and properly arrayed lively living room. I was shocked, was I hallucinating?? It wouldn’t have been 30 minutes when I walked through the smutty and sullied foyer with ribald walls covered in webs and now there was not even a small atom of dust. My psyche started screaming something was definitely wrong, it’s not even possible, I have been almost living in this house from last seven years and it’s always been unvisited, like an orphan and now all of a sudden someone claims to own it. Is there any slightest possibility that it could be true?
I looked around for Enif. He was in the kitchen making coffee. I could not help myself to stop staring at him as if it was not the first time we have met, as if I knew him through ages, as if I was waiting for him like forever, as if I owned him, as if he was a mirror of my own self. My psyche was battling my heart to save me from getting entrapped in the dangerous web of love with a man I barely know. But the spell on my heart was much stronger than all the vain efforts of my psyche and I found myself adulating the surrender of my psyche and I finally accepted I was undeniably and unconditionally in love with a stranger.
Enif came with a cup of coffee and a dress for me making me overwhelmed with his gesture for an uninvited guest he barely knew. I was slightly wet but the chilling breezes were making me tremble.
I came dressed in the elegant purple dress he has given me, which was surprisingly an exact fit. He came near me and pulled my hair backwards through his finger and said “you are beautiful Elyom”.
My lips stretched on their own in a curve and I blushed. To my surprise he lifted my face to his own and his strawberry lips were resting upon mine sucking my breathe gracefully but with a passionate desperation. I could taste the serenity, the longing, the indescribable feeling of belonging when his lips possessed my mouth. His fingers intertwined to mine and his other hand crumbling at my bare back making me feel the pleasure of being in love for the first time. I could feel the rush in my every neuron. He bit the edge of my lower lip gently, slid me closer to him and started to undress me. I could feel the perfection in every move of his, which was seducing me endlessly. My eyelids fall for a brief second beguiled by his charm and he lifted me like a paper leaf and took me in his room to his bed. He was lavishing me with his chivalry, his tactile sensation, nibbling my earlob
e, snipping and stroking my cheeks tenderly with uttermost care and love as if I was a flower with any petal of me ready to get detached at any moment. I stared into his beautiful eyes to find that serenity, chaste but they were glazed and ensnared with desire, at that moment he was like a hungry man in a banquet with the utmost delicacies in front of him confused from where to start. He tilted and arched his masculine shoulders with his bare ensnaring chest lingering upon mine and kissed my closed eyelids while the secrets of my femininity were lying in front of him. I embraced him with all my strength desiring to get dissolved into him, never be apart from this roaring eruption of adrenaline faster than blood rushing through my veins, with the speed of light, brushing his bare chest with tips of my fingers. We were intoxicated with this undefiled vine of love. I could feel the sweet scent of arousal, the rush of love boiling in my body. I have consecrated myself to him and like a small beam of light illuminating a dark room his love was illuminating my soul. He was deep into me in every possible way touching my soul, claiming his right upon me giving me the endless imaginable pleasure made me skip my breath like for a second time has stopped out of jealousy to feel the immense pleasure I was feeling, to get drowned in unexplainable love like me, to make a perfect sensational love.
”I love you ELYOM” his words were vibrating in my heart in the most enticing tune I have ever heard. That was the day when I understood the true meaning of EROS.
(3)
I woke up smiling lost in the thoughts of the beautiful night which have been engraved on my soul forever, still belligering myself to avoid opening my eyes , scared that the serene dream will elope in nadir. It was amazing how he spoke right to my soul without saying a word we conversed for hours, the understanding, the love we shared was understandable and unexplainable and I wanted to live it again. At last I opened my eyes to find myself on his bed in his room…wasn’t I dreaming, I really made love with him, he really existed, he really wanted me to stay till the evening when he will be back and love me again. A lot of unanswered questions hovering over my mind whose answer lied in the unexplainable truth hard to believe. I decided to wait till evening and know the truth. I descended from his bed finding myself tired, pale and somewhat ill like I have lost a dozen kilo grams in a single night. I almost ran towards the mirror, screaming at the dreadly me, I have become extremely thin like a skin coat on a skull, I have lost all my curves, there were dark circles below my eyes, my face has lost all his gloss. I covered my face with my hands, tears rolled down my flattened cheeks unable to understand what has happened to me in a single night. I pinched myself in hope that I would wake up realizing that it was a mere nightmare far far away from reality, one of my wild imaginations that would never be true, though I never wanted to forget Enif but he could not be real. I was losing all my senses; I collected my stuff in a total rush and ran towards the exit of Knapp Ville to find out the reality later. I started walking towards the door and it seemed that door was walking away from me. I accelerated and so does the door; I started shivering but I gathered all my strength and ran somehow managing to open the door to find myself hanging ---- the exit to the Knapp Ville has become the entrance to the Knapp Ville or hanging Knapp Ville. It was like that the gate was an invisible inverse mirror and as I walked out of door I entered again to Knapp to my surprise Ville. I looked around to find some window or any other exit to get out of here but my every try was a waste, there was no means out of here.
My senses froze, I knew I was stuck, something was definitely wrong and there was no way out. I have to fight the evil, might be my love too, to protect myself, to save myself, though I was nothing more than a pregnable skull that can hardly protect herself. I don’t know how I will but I have to but my heart believed in the serenity of those beautiful eyes, as I was sure that he was undefiled, he knew nothing about this havoc. I folded my hand over the cross hanging in my neck….and at the same minute I heard someone crying. I moved in the direction of the voice toward the small room beside the kitchen. I grabbed a huge knife though I doubted if it could really protect me, dragging myself slowly towards my mausoleum. I held my breath grabbed the old rusted knob and tried to turn it with a little force, the deadly door opened with a little cut on my index finger and blood oozing out screaming a goodbye. The terror chills piercing through my flesh were burning me and have enhanced my senses to their extreme. I knew this would be my last day but I wanted to fight, I knew no one will mourn my death may be Sylvie if she ever knew, but I was a fighter and before getting pounded under some commuter’s shoe I wanted to fight, for my every breath before the Om over my head vanishes into void, before I becomes nothing I will fight and complacencing myself I moved ahead.
I entered the room, a girl with long hairs scattered all around her face was sitting in the corner facing the wall and crying like she was lost.
“Hello mam! Who are you? Are you fine??” I asked stammering.
There was no movement, I waited for a while then when I almost turned she grabbed me hard with her right hand in less than one tenth of a second. She was holding something like a skull in her left hand, her face was different, a upside down face, a chin in place of forehead, complete black eyes without any pupil, nothing just a black hole, lips syncing like a devil, rugged clothes or she was an avatar of devil. She screamed staring at me “You Are the One….You Are the One” and threw that eerie skull on my chest and not to my surprise the skull dissolved in me and the martyr eloped like she was never there.
I took a few steps back, have almost slipped but grabbed the cupboard and accidently opened it accidently. There was a book and a beautiful crystal in it. My eyes got stucked on the book cover which had my picture pale, thin, bleeding and a lot of skulls shelved in my body and below it was written – “INCARNATION OF SKULLS-THE POWER BEHOLD”.I could not believe if it was even possible, but I think by now I should be used to believe the impossible. I started examining the crystal it was beautiful, antique and eerie like every other thing in Knapp Ville and somehow it just slipped out of my hand as if it wanted to be free knocking the floor in a beautiful tone and it opened. All I can see was a lot of foggy mist covering the room and I felt like I should be ready for one more shock. Though I was putting my courageous mask feared of nothing but deep down underneath all this I was falling, terrorized by this sudden attack of horror, my heart was roaring like a jet propeller praying for all this to fade and elope like a dream but sometimes reality is more fascinating and flimsy than our weirdest imagination. I laughed at myself how much a single day has changed me, I would have never thought about life so hard, how these sudden acquaintances with horror have broadened my mind and deepened my thinking and surely there was much more to come.
(4)
As the fog disappeared the most deadly beast par my most avid or bizzarest imagination was standing right in front of me, staring at me piercing his bloody perilous eyes unto me to drain every single drop of life flowing inside of me. He grabbed my neck took me to the corner of the room and pounded me on the ground like I was nothing but a wrinkled sheet that could be blown like a feather. He started searching the room fiercely, looking for something burning in anger and I taking advantage of his occupancy and ignorance fastened over the knife in my hand and stabbed him in his back as hard as I could. I was trembling with the sight of blood all over my face, on my hairs, everywhere on me but somehow I gathered myself and ran out of the room as fast as I could locking it behind me. I took a deep breath, I knew I might have hurt that monster but surely have not killed him and in a little while he will break this mere wooden door and come for me.Tears started flooding from my eyes, I wanted to stop all this and return to my normal life but I could not be helped no one could take me out of this menace, as I was the one who wanted this adventure, it was my decision, I took that turn, else I would have been at my home, but might be all this was written, that book already knew that I would be coming someday but those skull, I knew nothing about them or the martyr’s message. I pounded hard but I wa
s unable to solve the mystery of those skulls but I knew they were somewhere in Knapp Ville.
The monster started slamming the door fiercely and shouting in his precarious voice” SPUNE – MI UNDE CRANII SUNT SI EU NU TEAR PRODUCE NICI UN RAU. PROMIT!! GIVE ME SKULL”
Oh my good lord! This monster was behind the skull and I really did not know where those skulls were and if I will not give him the skull he will come for me! The door was about to break I started running but I did not knew where should I go. I went to the kitchen to grab another knife and moved toward the stairs and the beast has broken the door and was coming for me I slided back saying “I really don’t know where the skulls are. Please! Please leave me!” I was laughing on ma helplessness that I have pray to a devil for life.
Someone holded me from my back, I looked back shaking intensely lying in the arms of my death but for my relief for the first time in this whole day it was Enif, my beautiful sweet and serene lover Enif. Consumed by the fear of the approaching death I embraced him tightly and started crying. He looked into my eyes kissed on my cheek and murmured in my ear “Do not worry lover! I am here.” Enif jumped upon the monster across the hall grabbed his neck and pounded him to the floor breaking the marble underneath and licking the blood spilled all around he said “so Silas you are back!!”
Silas laughed and said “no matter how much you try, I cannot stay away from you brother”
(5)
Enif and Silas were brothers!! My divine lover was brother of a devil. He knew about all this!! I think this day has too many surprises or shocks stored for me, much much more than I could handle.
“Without wasting any moment lets directly come to the point brother. Where are the skulls Enif? Give them to me and you can continue with your meat loaf or we can both enjoy her” Silas said pointing towards me.
“Stay away from her she has nothing to do with it” Enif snarled angrily.
“Ohh!! So my little brother is in love! Not bad” Silas laughed edging his eyes.
“You know pretty well that nobody has ever seen the skulls in ages and if somehow I had then don’t you think I would not be here anymore” Enif said wickedly.
“It’s here brother! All of them! Can’t you feel their ultimate power, the strength flowing through us? Silas replied.
They started speaking some other language may be Greek or Romanian of which I could not understand a single word. I was waiting for them clueless, to decide my fate.
Finally they ensconced, Silas moved toward the library and Enif turned towards me and said that he will be back in a while and followed his brother. Enif looked back and eyed something but impossible for me to understand anything, though I was still questioning myself should I trust Enif anymore but I did not have any other option.
I sat on the stairs thinking what was happening and why was I involved in all this. I regretted for being so daring to walk into my death. Would I have gone straight to my home, I might have been enjoying a cup of hot chocolate with Sylvie. But things were different now; I thought I should find the skull and give it to Silas and I might be everything goes back to normal.
Suddenly I remembered the book I have seen in the cupboard, I ran into the room and grabbed the crystal and the book from the floor.
I started reading the book “INCARNATIONOF SKULLS - THE POWER BEHOLD”.
I had a strong feeling that this book had all the answers I needed to know. I started going through the pages as faster as I could. And I was right the book told me everything I needed to know, I was awestruck, in a dilemma, what should I do? I had my answers not all but enough to understand why I was stuck here, why Silas was here and why Enif had left me here alone on my own.
I know what I have to do now. I grabbed the crystal coated it with Silas spilled blood rushed to Enif’s room and started searching for some pieces of mirrors and the herbs. It was taking more time than I thought. It occurred to me that I should try sliding this cupboard, and behind that cupboard was the box I needed holded by a dead body. I gripped the knife tightly to avoid any further mishappening and moved toward the box. I tried to pull the box with my free hand and the dead attacked me and I did the only thing I can I pushed the knife into his chest paralyzing him but I was late. I had lost my hand, he tore ma hand away from my body, blood dripping through my veins. I dropped the knife and pulled the box. I bounded Enif’s shirt around my arm. I was crying but surely not cause of this endless pain, it does not mattered anymore, I would never get my hand back. I holded the crystal filled with the essentials out of the box and walked toward the library.
Silas rotated his head 1800 and stared at me, smiling wickedly he said to Enif “your girl is here ... but without her hand.”
Enif hurried toward me but was stopped by Silas who eyed him and said “not now”. Enif signaled me to sit by the shelf five and I followed his instructions. Silas walked toward shelf five and started his search but his eyes fixed on me inspecting me from head to toe.
“What happened to your hand” he asked.
“Became the victim of your strength” I answered confidently.
“Well! Well! Well! Looks like your little girl is conspiring against us brother.”
All of a sudden Silas holded my wounded arm with all of his strength causing me further pain. But I was ready and properly arrayed for a little action after all this, I threw the crystal towards Enif screaming “catch it” holding myself.
Enif fast as light grabbed the crystal and pierced it through Silas chest but Silas was much faster. He grabbed Enif’s hand and was willing to kill him as soon as he can.
I pounded on the floor screaming with pain watching my love getting beaten badly by the monster lying like a useless waif. My every effort was objected and so was I. the crystal was lying there on floor useless, I grabbed it and looked at it all around, then looked at my handless arm the dead body in the cupboard has eaten and then towards two fighting demons abominately. Suddenly the rush of terror, the infinite pain, the hatred of being pregnable and the negligence gave the power to stand and confront and I stabbed the crystal in that sly Silas’s heart baffling him and he was gone with the fog. Enif was still staring at me in disbelief. Today I have watched the extreme side of me and understood the true meaning of Phileo and Storge. I laughed and fell to the floor closing my eyes.
(6)
I don’t know for how much time I have been in coma but when I woke up I found Enif had nursed my wound and was sitting beside my dwindled body after ensconcing me on the bed. He was looking into my eyes with deep remorse, like everything was his fault. He was abhorrencing himself for everything.
“Elyom you now know that I am a murky waif demon, who does not deserve to be loved, who seduces women, rapes them, feed on them and kill them. I did the same with you. Your attraction for me, the way you feel for me is a delusion. Nothing you believe is true, your love for me is not real; that is what incubus does, they hypnotize you making you hallucinate that you are in love. But do not believe in these delusions. I would have killed you, sucked life out of you, like I did with five hundred and sixteen other girls and had freed myself without any hesitation…”
“But you did not” I murmured.
“I am an INCUBUS. I am not good. I am a demon. Why don’t you understand?”
“You knew about the skull but still…”
“Yeah I knew that you are the incarnation of those skulls. You have the extreme power that demons like me die for, if I sacrificed you I can own all that power, that was what Silas wanted, but your love has incapacitated me as if I could never hurt you, as if you are the one. But fate! We could never be together only one of us could exist so...”
“So I would die and you will be free!” I decided to die for my love and found myself laughing. Somehow the idea of dying does not frighten me anymore. Even my life was not worth for anyone so if my death could benefit my angel than I would die for a thousand times.
“It is not going to be so easy lover you will suffer to your extreme
limits and I will never let you suffer, not anymore. I do not belong in your life. I have to go, I have to leave.”
He walked out of his room and came back after a while with a small mirror I was looking into just before when I met him for the first time. It would not have been even 24 hours but he had made me fell into his Agapao love.
I don’t know how I can stop him. I don’t want his thirsty soul to wander forever feeling guilty and damned. I wanted him to be happy and free, to live his life happily but happiness is just not showered it is conquered with utmost tries.
He handed me the mirror and said look into it and everything will be fine and whatever happens always remember I have always loved you and I always will. Whenever you will look into this you will find my love and he kissed me passionately with his rose red lips filling my mouth with the elixir of true love. I intertwined his hand into mine making and said “I Love You Enif” and he kissed my cheeks saying”Oh! Lover look into the mirror now” Though I was waspish but I obeyed him like a puppet dancing on his master’s order, like I was hypnotized, like I don’t have any free will and that was the last time I saw him.