Jake was sitting on the floor, his arms still outstretched for the lover who was no longer there.

He’d begged, screamed, cried, but nothing stopped those people from taking her body away from him; he didn’t even know who they were, but something inside him – maybe that piece of consciousness that had tucked away while he was cursed – knew that she’d arrived with them. Perhaps she’d taken refuge with them for however long they’d been apart.

But that didn’t matter now. He rubbed his bloody hands on his shirt in attempt to cleanse them, yet something about that small movement made him feel like he was wiping it away: the regret, the pain, the mourning, the murder he’d just committed. He clutched at the fabric in his hands, the grainy material prickling uncomfortably on his fingertips.

Today, he committed the worst crime. He’d killed someone – and by someone, he wasn’t referring to the memory of Robert’s body on the floor that had laid grey and lifeless, penetrated with stab wounds: a body those people left behind. No. Instead, he thought of Kaitlin’s bright emerald eyes, her forever loving smile, and kindest heart. The one person he loved more than anyone else.

She’d trusted him, and he’d broken that trust. Nothing could repair it. There were no second chances, no turning back time, no wishing upon a star that she would magically return to his side and embrace him with that warm hug of hers. Nothing could compare to the pain he was experiencing now.

He crawled across the floor and yanked the dagger out from Robert’s thigh, the blood thick and red on the blade. There was nothing that could stop him if he brought that blade to his heart and ended it now. And so, before he could think better of it, he pressed the tip into his chest and grunted as he felt the first drop spill from his skin.

It was so quiet; he could hear a pin – or perhaps blood – drop. His violent shivers intensified, yet he didn’t care about the fact that he was now completely alone in this warehouse. It was that, for some reason, he didn’t feel alone. Kaitlin’s screams still reverberated through his body, ringing in her ears and clutching at his soul like a million prickly fingers.

I love you. Those where her last words, and he couldn’t remove the helplessness, the acceptance, and the betrayal that they hid.

He pressed the blade deeper into his chest and twisted it sharply. The pain didn’t feel bad. Instead, as he began to slip and out of consciousness, it felt comforting. The unescapable stinging of the metal on his chest distracted from the emotional pain that he knew would never go away.

Then he realised something. Aaron – his father -  had done the same thing as him.

Committed a murder.

But now the only sting he could feel was that of his tears, prickling in his eyes and spilling in heaps down his blood-stained cheeks.

Dahlia. That was her name… his mother. They’d fought. Aaron hadn’t eaten for a few weeks and got angry. His parents never fought. They had a love many people would deem only for the stories. Something within her snapped, and so she slit her finger to deal with the pain in her heart: a mistake that cost her life. Aaron had lashed out, sucked her clean on blood until she was a corpse on the floor, her eyes glassy and skin dry, but her mouth still twisted into agonizing pain.

Whenever Jake thought of that moment, it didn’t feel like just a memory. He was just a child, yet the image of it had stayed drilled in his mind, even after all these years. It was as if the scene was replaying over and over in his mind. The screams of his mother in those final moments – pleading mercy, encapsulating agony – where no different from the screams of Kay in her final moments.

Jake dropped the blade and fell onto the floor besides it. When he was a child, he had left home for a while. There was a time when he thought he would never ever, ever forgive his father for the crime he’d committed.

It wasn’t even the fact that Aaron had committed murder – he’d done it plenty of times – but the fact that he’d betrayed the one person who had grown to trust him, love him, depend on him. That was the crime that Jake had hated him for. The crime in his heart.

But now he’d done the same thing, and it didn’t matter that he’d been under a mind-controlling, consciousness stealing curse. None of that mattered anymore.

He tilted his head to his left, where he could see the pool of blood left by Kaitlin. He crawled towards it, as if hoping it would ease the longing he felt, but all it did was make him feel emptier. The silhouette of her figure was obvious in the centre of the thick red ooze, and he could still feel the strings of the presence she’d left behind.

Even in her dying moments, she wasn’t angry at him. Behind the betrayal in her words, he heard a hint of forgiveness, of adoration, of love. Jake could feel that final breath, that final heartbeat, that final string of life.

Then he caught a glimpse of something on the floor, a little further away again. A glint of silvery metal. He moved towards it, and after a few moments realised what it was. There were two more bodies.

Yasmin and Luca.

“No!” The scream was animalistic; the sound of a boy lost to the hate of heartbreak. He’d known about Yasmin – Kay’s best friend – but he wasn’t prepared for this.

Luca, his childhood friend and the one who always came second to Kaitlin, was laying on the floor beside her. Yet, in this moment, his face wasn’t twisted into the same ugly agony Yasmin’s was.

Whilst Yasmin had the expression of someone who’d just been murdered, Luca had the expression of someone who’d merely been lost to a whisper. As if he’d lived a long, full life, and was simply dying in a restful sleep. His eyelids were closed softly over his eyes, and the corner of his mouth was lifted up into a gentle smile.

Jake’s eyes travelled down to the glint that had brought him here: a dagger, laying neatly in Luca’s palm. His eyes traced the trail of blood that was still dripping down his arm, stretching to a deep hole in his chest.

Suicide.

Luc had killed himself. And from the looks of things, he’d killed himself to be with Yas. Jake screamed again, but this time, he tilted his head back and screamed at the stars. Or the warehouse ceiling, for that matter.

It was nighttime now: he didn’t know what time the fight had started, or how long he’d been grieving for. All he knew was that life was pointless now. Maybe he should just do what Luca had done. He’d been about to kill himself just before but got distracted by the agonising pain of his distant past. But the recent past was much more painful.

This time, he took the dagger from Luca’s palm and lined it up with the column of his throat, pressing the blade into his skin: not hard enough to cut, but just hard enough for him to feel the cool mental pressed against his skin. Enough for it to slightly restrict his breathing, and give him a taster of what death might feel like. He could feel the warm ooze of someone else’s blood drip down his neck, and something about it was soothing.

This dagger already held the blood of Luca and Yasmine. Soon, it would hold his as well.

He could do it now. All it took was one movement from his hand. One flick of his wrist.

But every time he convinced himself that now was the time, and invisible force held him back. Was it the back of his mind, his consciousness warning him that this was dangerous and he was risking his life? Was it the part of him that wished to be hopeful? The part that said there was something worth living for. Or was it something else? Something deeper that he couldn’t see.

Then he heard it. A whisper.

Jacob… my friend… the voice was that of a young male, and oddly familiar. Not now… leave… fulfill your purpose…

Then the voice trailed off into the distance. Jake’s eyes bulged. That couldn’t be true. Not at all. I’m hallucinating. He told himself. Get yourself together or you’re going to go crazy. Luca’s body – dead – was here, laying in front of him.

Despite Jake’s sureness that he was going to die, that idea if he didn’t kill himself now his growing hysteria would, something caused him to pull the dagger away from his skin and drop it on the floor beside him.

Something inside him gave him the strength to stand on his weak legs and brought some rational thought into his mind. He had an idea: the first smart idea he’d had since he’d gotten cursed an unknown number of nights ago.

Go home. That’s what he told himself. Find father. Tell him everything. He’d understand.

And so that’s what Jacob got up to do, his mind now distracted on that one thought that got stronger and stronger by the minute. Go home. Find father. Tell him everything. He’d understand.

But as he looked back towards the bodies of Yasmine and Luca, he realised he couldn’t just leave them behind. He was going to have to find something to do with the bodies, and only once he’d given Yas and Luc the proper goodbye, would he finally go home.

But little did Jacob know, the house had been unoccupied for weeks. Aaron – his father – was with the Circle of Secrets – an organization that only its own members knew about - slowly recovering from his own curse that he’d painfully endured for a number of weeks.