Ander - Part 3: Subchapter 26
26
Nothing happened for a long, long time. There was no noise save for the crackling of the fire and the sound of breathing.
Ander was afraid to move, or even to open his eyes. He was afraid that, if he tried, he would find that he was incapable of doing so.
Because he was dead.
This blood all over his neck and chest... was that his? This frantic breathing... did it belong to Garten?
Or was it the other way around?
He could hear laughter somewhere... Was it the voice that had spoken inside of him just now? Was it...
No, this laughter was real. It was coming from outside. But if he could hear, and if he could feel the blood pouring out all over him and the weight pressing down on his body, if he could smell the burnt fur in his nose...
Ander opened his eyes and came face to face with Garten, lying on top of him, his mouth still clamped around his neck, tight enough for Ander to count the individual teeth by sense of touch alone. He could even tell where the gap in his bite was.
Both eyes were open and staring, but...
The dagger was buried in the centre of his forehead, and now Ander's fist was wedged between the handle and Garten's eternal stare. The blood was leaking out of him like a punctured water skin, drenching him in a hot, sticky red mess...
And there were little bits of white coming out of -
Ander screamed. He screamed and screamed until it felt like he would tear his vocal cords apart, and he wasn't the only one.
Some of the Wolves at the front who had seen the carnage were trying to get away, while those at the back were fighting furiously to get a look for themselves. The others just stared in awestruck silence.
Except for Wardo. He was the one laughing. Just laughing and laughing, tears streaming form his eyes. He could barely breathe.
Ander couldn't take it anymore. Those little bits of white stuff were sticking to his fur in mushy clumps, and he just... he just...
Not so different... after all...
"Noooo!!" Ander wrenched Garten's body away and it rolled onto the ground in a limp heap and he stared straight up at the starry sky with his hand still firmly pinned to the dead piece of meat lying at his side. He couldn't breathe. No matter how fast he sucked in air, if felt like he was drowning, drowning in night.
Isn't it ironic, Ander? the voice came drifting back. You claim to hate violence so much, and yet you've killed more Wolves than any other.
Shut up.
Hell, you've even killed more Wolves than me...
Shut up! You're dead! You're dead!
Of course I am. I'm dead because you killed me, dear brother.
"No! No, no... no no no... no, no... No! No..." Ander got up to his knees and tried to pull his hand out of Garten's face, muttering that same word over and over, but the head came up with it, surprisingly heavy. He had no choice but to put his free hand over Garten's face and push it down in order to free himself.
The serrated dagger ripped out of Garten's skull in a rapid series of bone chilling clicks and his head slammed back to the ground with a horribly chunky thud.
Ander got back to his feet, staring down at the blade sticking out from between his fingers. It was completely red and dripping. He couldn't see even a speck of metal through all the blood.
"I didn't want this..." he said. He slowly, ever so slowly opened his fingers, feeling his muscles move and shift against the blade, but there was hardly any pain at all. He felt completely numb inside. He felt...
Dead.
"I don't belong here... I never belonged here..." he said, staring up at the moon. "All I ever wanted was to be happy, that's all. I just wanted to find a place where I could be myself, a place where I wouldn't have to pretend to be someone else. I wanted to live in a world where my friends and family would love me for who I am, and I could do the same for them. I've spent my whole life trying to find that happiness, just like the rest of you. That's why we're all alive, isn't it? It's so that we can find the things that make us happy..." Ander didn't know whether anyone was listening to his little speech, because he couldn't bring himself to look any of them in the eye after what he had just done. He was terrified of seeing the same look he had seen on Hezzi's face on that black, stormy night, repeated a hundred times over and a hundred times again. But he couldn't stop. He had to say this. It had to come out. "I tried so hard, but I failed. It was because I was looking in the wrong place. I had to go against my family, my tribe, everything I knew. Only then did I find my happiness on the other side of the mountain. But then..." The moon had become blurry, and its pale blue halo kept throwing off shafts of light that would shrink and stretch randomly. It was doing this because Ander was looking at it through a layer of tears that had not yet spilled. "I had to leave everything behind... so soon after I had found it... All because of you!"
There were some gasps, some hurried shuffling of feet across the sand.
"You just couldn't leave me alone... You had to come after me..." Ander could feel Garten's blood dry against his chest in the warm breeze blowing off the fire, he could feel it harden and crackle inside his fur. "First it was Banno. I can still hear him sometimes, whispering in my ear, telling me that I'm -
Not so different... after all..."
Did he say that aloud just now? Did it even matter?
"I didn't want to kill him. He forced me to, just like Garten did just now. I've told you so many times, but none of you believed me. I..." Ander suddenly remembered half the reason he came back here in the first place, and it made him laugh. It hurt so bad, but he couldn't stop himself. It just bubbled out of him, this insane laughter in the night. He probably looked like a lunatic, standing there drenched in blood, laughing at the moon, but he didn't care. It already felt like he was going crazy, so what difference did it make? "You know... I didn't come back here just for the Foxes of Grovenglen. I came back for you! Yes, all of you!!" Ander spun around in a slow circle, pointing the dagger at all the frightened faces whirling by. "You, who want to beat me! You, who want to cut me! You, who want to tear me apart! You all want to kill me even as I try to save your lives! Maybe you could destroy their village. Maybe you could slaughter every single Fox alive. I honestly don't know. But those Foxes are not nearly as weak as you believe them to be! It would have been a bloodbath! Countless deaths on both sides! I didn't want that... I didn't want anyone to die..."
Ander stopped. "Even after everything, I still thought of you all as my family, but I'm just... so tired of all this. I am so, so tired of being miserable. I'm so tired of being hated... I'm tired... I'm..."
What are you really tired of, Ander? Tell them the truth. Let it out. Just let it pour out of you. You've held it in long enough...
"I'm tired..." Ander said, staring at the moon.
It was becoming solid again.
"I'm tired... of not being able to hate back!!"
Ander grabbed the handle and started to pull the dagger from his flesh, agonizingly slow, the pain of its serrated edge reminding him that he was still alive.
"But tonight is different... If I can make it through tonight... I'll be able to go back, back to the only place I've ever been happy... But if any of you try to stop me, I swear I'll show you how right Banno was... I'll show you how I'm not so different after all..." Ander ripped the dagger from his hand and the blood streamed from its tip in a crimson arc, splattering onto the ground in a long, curved line. He held it up to his face and looked at the reflection of his own eyes, staring back at him from within the depths of that red hell.
They were the eyes of the Cora.
"I will kill every last one of you..."
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