“B-but Brother, I-“

”Shut the hell up! I’m not the brother of any murderer!” the eighteen year old shouted as he picked the five year old up and threw him into the wall. The five year old hit the wall and then the ground and hid his face in his arms as he cried. “Oh, will you stop crying already?” Pierre asked the younger boy as he kicked his side.

“I d-didn’t m-mean to drop it,” Gustave sobbed. “I-it was t-too heavy! I c-couldn’t h-hold it!”

“I’m sure if you hadn’t killed Mother, she would have helped you carry it,” Severin, Pierre’s twin, sneered.

At this, the five year old boy cried harder. The day that his mother and he took their final walk together flashed in his head yet again. He didn’t listen to her and stepped onto the old, nearly rotten bridge. She ran to get him off of it and ended up breaking through it. He remembered both of them traveling down the river and eventually, down a large waterfall. She had been holding him above the water the whole time, causing herself to hit her head off of rocks, logs, and other items in the water. She eventually was able to drag her and her son out of the calm pond at the bottom of the waterfall.

Gustave and his mother laid there for hours, waiting for help to arrive. His mother had been bleeding from various cuts on her head, arms, back, and shoulders. He was untouched, as she had held him above her so he could breathe and not be injured as badly. Eventually, he had passed out and was awoken at nightfall by the barking of hunting dogs that had been sent out to search for them. He was saved, but for his mother, it had been too late.

“Will you stop crying already?!” Severin shouted. He picked Gustave up by the collar of his torn shirt and punched him in the nose, sending him a few feet away on the floor, and causing him to bleed out of both nostrils.

The five year old curled up into a ball and sobbed into his shirt sleeves, which were being stained with blood and tears. He could do nothing but lie there as his older brothers continued hitting and kicking him, begging them to stop and apologizing for dropping the vase they had told him to carry into the other room, and for killing his mother. And for being alive.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, they stopped. The small boy sat up and sniffled, wiping his nose and eyes with his sleeve. He looked around and saw his brother, Severin, the older of the twins and more violent of the twins, approaching him with a hot poker from the fire. He raised the glowing red stick above his head and brought it down onto the five year old’s pale skin...

Gustave sat up in bed, sweating and gasping for breath. He looked down at his pale hands and saw them shaking. He bit his lip and hugged his knees. I don’t understand. It’s been two hundred and eighty two years. Why am I still having these nightmares? he thought. He looked at his clock and saw that it was only twelve thirty three. I haven’t been asleep for two hours and I already woke up from a nightmare.

He sighed and looked around his room. Blank walls. No pictures of himself and friends. On his dresser, only bill envelopes. No letters or postcards. He had no one but Korbin, his creator. The vampire in the wolf’s body had told him that he would be out all night for some reason. Again. He was almost always alone now that Korbin wasn’t in his own body anymore. He had lost all of his vampiric powers because of Gustave. But I guess I deserve to be left alone so often, he thought, It’s my fault that he had to give up his body, anyway. Just like it’s my fault Mother died...

Gustave felt tears well behind his eyes at the memories of his father and brothers beating him, lashing him, and verbally abusing him. He had once made the mistake of asking if they still loved him after what he had done. No one will ever love a murderer! Even now, over two hundred years later, he still winced at the painful truth. He laid on his side and curled up into a ball, pulling the thick, warm blanket over his cold body. He tried to fight back the tears but eventually released them as he realized that he would always be alone. No friends. No family. Not even Korbin to talk to him and comfort him as often. All because of him.

He eventually cried himself to sleep with the same words ringing out in his head, over and over again. No one will ever love a murderer like me...

Author's Note

In case some of you can't tell, his mother died saving him back when he was a five year old human boy. His father and brothers blamed him for it, and for fourteen years after that, he suffered horrible abuse because of it. Since it started at such a young age, the thought that it was all his fault and that no one would ever love him was embedded into his mind.

Even now, over two hundred years since all of that, he still blames himself and thinks that, and it was even worse since his creator, Korbin, used the last bit of his energy to transfer his soul into a wolf's body to save Gustave from a vampire hunter. So, he's kind of permanently traumatized from the same sort of thing happening twice.

I'm not really pleased with this one, though... It's not as well writen as I'd hoped it'd be....

Gustave, Pierre, and Severin Moreau and Korbin (c) Me

Fiction: 08/23/08 | Posted By: Die Before I Wake | 2 comments | Personal