...My name

Hase leapt off the railing, just to slip on blood. The delivery boy’s blood. It was a large flight of stairs to fall down, and the wall broke his fall, his skull, most of his ribs, and a leg.

He managed to spin around, still slipping, and smacking into the wall.

"The will is contestable without you!" Dante screamed, charging down the stairs.

Hase winced, trying to judge timing right, and held out his sword, straight out in front of him.

Something hit it immediately, hard enough to force his hand into his chest, almost making him perform on the heimlich on himself.

Hase opened one eye, then the other to focus. Right in front of him was Dante, coughing up frothy blood, sword raised high above his head. The weapon slid from his hands as they slowly loosened into limpness and toppled to the floor, clattering loudly and sprinkling blood on the walls as it landed in the puddle.

Sighing, he made the mistake of looking down. Straight through Dante’s stomach, maybe appendix, was his sword, his hands still around the hilt, the other end jutting out triumphantly from Dante’s back.

Hase wondered how he ever kept himself from vomiting and always would.

* * * * *

‘Erik lowered his blade, Raoul messily slid off, his hand barely had enough grip on his sword to pull it out of Erik’s shoulder as he fell.

Erik sighed, exhausted and bloody, some of it not his.

I thought he would collapse then and there.

I ran across the bridge, careful to grab the remaining rope as I went, yelling his name.

He slumped forward and tripped on a wet board. He nearly lost his sword when he tripped. I half caught him, half hugged him, absolutely elated.

Careful with the sword, he wrapped his arms around me as best he could and held me as tight as was comfortable.

I pressed my face to his neck. I didn’t know it was the last time I’d smell his hair, his flesh, his sweat from fear, the cold that hung on his clothes that left and took it’s scent away only after I had held him for hours. I drew a finger through his silky, but tangled hair before putting it on his back again.

Through his parted hair, I saw Raoul, bloody, disheveled, and rabid. He reached to his chest and the hair fell back into place.

Erik noticed I was afraid from the way I had tensed, and turned his head.

He pulled me closed and held me tightly, I never wanted him to let go. I never expected him to let go.

"Thank you, for saying my name." He shoved me away. He shoved me, almost threw me backwards, tossing his sword to the shore in the same motion. I stumbled backwards, continually catching myself on the rope.

I made it to just before the end of the bridge at the shore when I regained my balance, and Raoul had regained his focus.

Raoul said nothing, just focus as best he could and fired the pistol he had taken out of his breast pocket.

Erik was silent. No noise came when he wast. t. He was thrown back from the shot, his back curved elegantly like the opera cat’s, his hair was tossed, creating a halo about him before he fell to the bridge, an arm catching on the rope, a foot on a plank. As he fell, his hair flutter downward like a flock of ravens, blood burst from his chest like a morbid rose. I slowly, but in no way carefully, walked to him.

I took his hand.

He was gone.

The hand was still warm.

"Christine," I heard. It was Raoul, but I didn’t notice who said it. I didn’t care.

I remember staying by Erik until I realized he was cold. Then I walked inside his house, gathered up all his things I could carry, put the candle out, closed the lid over the keys of the organ, and followed Raoul outside.

Forever outside.

I didn’t say a word after that.

* * * * *

Hase tried to shake Dante off the sword, frantic to get the blood out of his face, out of his sight.

He settle with tossing the sword to the ground, skewered Dante and all.

Careful not to touch anymore violence, he stepped daintily over Dante, placing one business shoe whose shine had been replaced with sticky brown blood after another.

He heard Dante cough behind him.

He didn’t care.

One shoe, other shoe, one shoe… one step, another step, another step, another step farther away.

Hase was shaking now, his sweaty hand holding the railing to tight, he didn’t notice he brother run by.

Dante didn’t either. He couldn’t hear the fast footsteps or the slow footsteps on the stairs over his pain and heartbeat and headache and breathing.

He looked up, seeing only Hase.

He hissed, then spoke, "My side… was never known for playing fair." He reached in his coat and brushed it away, off of a holster, which was very painful to lie on and not be able to roll away. He fumbled to gun out and managed to put a finger on the trigger.

The gun went off and old porcelain crashed.

Hase tried to grab the railing and failed. His face hit the lonely concrete stairs.

Sidhe looked down at the smashed chamber pot and Dante’s bleeding head, large bits of pottery embedded in skull, hair, and blood.

Hase drearily rolled over on a broken rib. He put his hand to the wound. He had only been grazed, but he was still bleeding, and things that weren’t there twinkled in front of his eyes. "He ruined my palm pilot," he mumbled, taking his hand from the wound and poking at a hold in his bloody pocket.

"Are you alright?" Sidhe asked, rushing to his brother.

"Do you have a cell phone?"

"Yes."

"Then call an ambulance, you blurry idiot!"

* * * * *

‘I found this Diary.

It used to belong to Momma.

She always told me to keep a diary, or the special things in your life will be gone and no way for them to be seen again.

I never knew.

Papa used say Momma was mute. She never said a word, just nodded, even at the wedding.

I always wondered why she was so happy over my long black hair.

I can’t see it, though. My Papa doing such things. He loves me. He loves Mama.

He always will.

And here I end this diary, with too many blank pages, but with a resolution.’