The world is full of strangers. Though you might know a face, you won't know their life.
Why had he written these words? Words were pointless, forgotten through wearing on its time. Some words stuck in minds, becoming warped views of what the original story might have been. They were all useless in the long run.
He tapped a fingernail on the china plate.
Why am I sitting here? I could be out with everyone else, not here, alone in my thoughts.
He continued to tap on the china. Rhythmic, easily lost within the hum of his mind. He took a sip of his tea and looked to the door at a knock.
“There’s someone out there.” He set the cup down. “You can come in.”
He’d been expecting him.
He heard someone shift behind the door. It was accompanied by another knock.
His voice hitched with impatience. He stared at his written words and repeated, “I said you can come in.”
The figure pushed open the door.
He immediately stood to his feet and pushed back the chair. He tried to force back an overwhelming feeling of guilt, stumbling backward.
I know… I know him… but he's…
The newcomer shut the door and crossed their arms. “You know me,” they said. “You recognize me — I can see it.”
“You’re supposed to be dead.” He stared at the floor. His hands twitched as his heart went into his throat. “You’re supposed to be-”
“Dead, I know.” The newcomer cut him off. “May I come in?”
“Seeing as you’re already in, I don’t see why not.” He sat back in the chair he had pushed back. A rising wave of dizziness nearly floored him, but he managed to force that down with a cold glare at the intruder.
The intruder hardly flinched and strode over to him. They smiled the moment fear overtook him. He knew what they wanted. He knew what they knew about him, what secrets he'd kept so long from his people.
He flinched when the character took a seat across the table from him. He knew what chair they had taken a seat in, and felt the rage boiling in his throat.
He opened his mouth to speak but the newcomer pressed a finger to his lips. “I have to ask you a question, dear President.”
He swallowed, but not even he spoke when the intruder set his hand down.
“You have — had — a brother, didn’t you?” They rested his chin in one hand. There was amusement in their eyes. “I know you loved him so. ”
“Yes,” The man felt his breath cat in his throat. “But you should know… you’re him.”
Eero got up from the chair and knocked it backward. The man flinched. He opened his mouth to protest but decided against it and grimaced.
“Oh, I am?” The chuckle that then came from his brother's mouth made the rage begin to boil in the man's throat. “I’m your brother? Your brother, who’s been,” they swung around the table, behind the man's chair. They trailed their fingers up the back of the man's neck, which felt to the man like the sensation of a large spider. “Dead for many years…”
Eero then hesitated. “Do you believe in ghosts, Arlett?”
“Well then.” He forced down panic and shook his head. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Then who am I?” His brother ran his hands through the President's hair. “If I’m…”
They cleared their throat, testing out their voice. “Not your brother?”
“My…” The President mentally shuddered. Horror overtook his body, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He knew that voice. “Dear God. Rilon.”
Rilon knew. He knew what act the President had been keeping up. He remembered everything. He knew his son would come to make his father face the consequences, the consequences of actions the President had not and would never regret.
“You should expect these things to creep up on you eventually, Lear. Oh, dear father…” He stood before the President now, sneering.
He lowered himself slightly to meet Lear's gaze. “Did you assume that you can run from such things forever?”
“ I-” Lear couldn't bear to respond, not properly, at least. “N-”
Rilon seized Lear by the lapels of his jacket. He pulled the older man up from the chair to stare him straight in the eye. Lear looked down, wanting to run, but panic rose in his throat when he realized he was dangling several inches above the floor.
“Did you expect your son to fight back, dear father?” He mocked. This was unlike Rilon — his son never was this brash. A confrontation like this would leave the poor young man frazzled. Lear doubted he would instigate such a thing in the first place.
“You know what you did, Lear,” Rilon shifted one of his hands to grasp tightly on Lear's collar. Spots appeared along the edge of his vision. “You know how much pain I'm in because of you.”
Lear snarled. The man's arm was just within reach, he just needed to…
Lear kicked out his legs, jabbing Rilon's stomach. The younger man gave an abrupt gasp and dropped Lear; they both fell to the floor with loud thuds.
When Lear came to his senses and knees. His breathing was heavy; blood was dripping from his nose. He smiled, tasting the blood in his mouth. He had bitten his tongue.
He couldn't register the pain. Everything was rushing through his veins. He loved this. It felt good.
No.
It didn't feel good.
It felt great.
Lear immediately got to his feet, he rushed toward Rilon with full force. There was nothing in his brain except for getting rid of his intruder.
He threw his hands out, crashing into Rilon. The younger man fell back upon the bed stand, and from there came a loud crack. The man spit and his eyes lit with hellfire.
Lear nearly laughed. “Know your place, Rilon.”
He knelt upon the fallen man and reached out his hands. He was satisfied when the man didn't fight the grip. Rilon probably couldn't; he was likely more focused on fighting than breathing.
Dumbass. Lear sneered.
Lear was so close to killing again. The bloodlust flew through his veins. He just needed to keep his grip and his son would be dead. The young man knew too much. He needed to go.
“Please,” The man relaxed, although he still spat through gritted teeth. He didn't care for breathing. “You wouldn't kill your son, would you?”
Lear only sniffed and his grip tightened. “I've killed before,” he snarled. “And I'll do it again.”
“Oh, I see. . .” Rilon laughed. He managed to briefly fight out of Lear's grip. “You killed both your father and your brother... You think that makes you... so formidable, don't you?”
Lear swallowed uneasily.
“You see...” Rilon completely broke free of Lear's grip. “I have too.”
Rilon twisted, sneering, and something cut through the air.
The shock registered before the pain. He shut his eyes tightly. Instinctively, he jerked, twisting to grab the weapon and dislodge it.
The world spun — Lear fell onto his back before he could grab the weapon and felt it sink deeper into his back.
He couldn't move… he couldn't breathe. The world was a red, blood-spattered mess.
This is what his wife had felt like, hadn't she? What pain had caused her to flee from that? What did she have then that Lear did not now? Was that regret?
“Your only fault was trying to redeem yourself, Lear.” The voice was muffled — likely a hallucination, a figment. People always heard voices when they died. Voices of people they knew and voices of strangers, strangers that they had abandoned to the whirlwinds of time inside the mind.
He laughed silently to himself and closed his eyes. “Ri... Rilon…”
He tried to shake his head and open his eyes. All he could focus on was empty space, at the huddled black blue that was definitely his son.
An audible gasp came from the man — a dark contrast to what he had been moments before. He was pitiful. He was so pitiful. It was easy to imagine his cowering form as the child he had once been. Lear had been lucky that his son had forgotten all of that. It had given Lear a chance to start all of that over again.
“I'm here,” Rilon quickly crawled over to Lear. His figure became clearer as he hoisted Lear into his lap. His words were that of reassurance, though Lear knew they were faked, faked as though a stranger had been speaking them.
“I’m here.” The voice grew shakier. “I’m here, Lear.”
“You wouldn’t…” Lear bit his tongue against the rapidly numbing pain. “You… killed…”
You killed... Me… I hope you're glad... You got what you wanted, Rilon.
He never regretted what he had done. What he had done was to make himself happy, and he didn't care what others had thought then. Nobody ever found out, and nobody ever would. Rilon had paid that price. He knew that it would hang over his head for good. He knew how much it would break him. He knew that, no matter how much he tried, Lear would be stuck there, taunting him, a constant alarm that nobody could shut off.
“I didn’t. I would never kill you...”
Lear kept his son's words in his dying mind. They were so... familiar. So full of regret. He shoved it away. He didn't like dying here, when he was so vulnerable, he didn't like being in his son's arms no matter how much the young man was trying to ease his suffering. He didn't like how he was going out. Forgotten as his brother had been, forgotten in this empty place — a stranger, dying and buried along with his name like everyone else.
Stranger, He laughed. The world is full of strangers… he smiled and closed his eyes. And you were one of them.
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