Dear Ms Lady Demigod: Twelve Days To Doom

5 4 I Found A God

When I woke up the next morning, the blood on my body had frozen. So had the walls of my room. I got down, pressing my feet on an ice measuring temperatures less than -140 degrees. Barefeet, I walked out of my room. Only my room had frozen that bad, all other rooms of my brothers were just as they had always been. I slowly closed the door and peeped inside Beth's room. He was getting dressed, I closed the door and held my breath. 

How do I tell them what happened last night? I continue my routine. I walk seven miles to a distant lake, surrounded by a rocky river. I was the blood off me, the water turns red but soon dilutes back to blue. I try telling myself nothing is wrong. But it is. 
I go for my morning lessons. Mother seems occupied as usual, "Have you brought your red book, Nataniel?" She asks with a smile. 

I can't look at her smile. I see blood oozing out of her mouth, and I see blood on my face and my chest. I freeze with terror when suddenly Mrs Fitzgerald grabs me by my arm. Very tall and very thin, she reminded me of tree branches. Her skin was a disgusting shade of pink and she was always dressed in white like a decapitated bride. Her lips were white and her eyes were white, just like her hair. Her belly was huge and protruded out of her bony frame. She pulled me into another room, making me stand with my other brothers who had also forgotten their red books.

"Stand and listen!" She commanded. Wait, hasn't all this happened? 
"Casper," I looked at my brother. His eyes rolled down at my shrinking figure, they are cold and distant. I get scared and take a step back. I remember when he killed a polar bear. Monster.

He smiled at me. I looked away at my other brother, Julius. His eyes were cold too, too blue, too-I don't know the words. Monsterous. I looked at Edlus. Monsters. 
Where's Remmitte? I look down, I look at our shadows and I see Remmitte's shadows beside me. But he's not there when I look around. 

I scream and I run away. But I slip on the ice and fall, scraping my knees. I look up and I see all of them. All of them have blue eyes, huge black shadows shining in a blood-red sky, all of them are monsters. I look down and see blood all around me, this is the second time I had slipped on blood.
"Nataniel," I hear mom and I turn to look at her, "Impudent child! You dare come late for your prayers and then you don't listen to what I preach!" Her voice echos, but it also seems to soak in, trembling like clouds. I can't keep myself sane.

"Nate," I hear and turn again, I see Sherlem and the darkness fades away. Ten of my brothers were in the garden, Casper, Julius, Edlar, Beth, Joseph, Mistem, Tymal, Igaha, Ulyss and Sherlem. We were all clearing red autumn leaves from the snow and collecting chestnuts, "You have been out of it, is everything okay?" Sherlem asked.
"Remmitte, mom killed him, you have to see. She is a monster and so are we!" I yelled. 
"What are you talking about?"

"I'll take you there," I ran down and reached the dining room. The floor was clean, the blood stains for the curtains were gone, everything looked just the way it always had. All my ten brothers followed me, "Nataniel?"
"No!" I turned at them, "She must have cleared it up! It can't be! I saw him, I washed away his blood from my body this morning!"
"Calm down-"
"You are to believe me, Sherlem. Edlar, please, I never lie, you know me. She killed Remmitte-"

"Who is Remmitte?" Casper asked and all my struggle stopped at once. All of them were confused and seemed to ask the same question, which I couldn't answer. How could they forget? I looked at my mother's shadow and looked up at the church bells where she stood, her long white dress swirling in the snowy wind, she stood beside Mrs Fritzgerald.

Everyone seems to have forgotten you like molten ice, you run away from memories. But you melt too fast, too young. Yet I know you were real, I know you were there. You are there, inside me, I know.

I have faith.

My days have been fast going, monotonous and full of solitude. The artic breeze keeps me alive, my blood warms to your sensation. Something inside me has died as I carry a dead man's blood inside my cursed body. I am a wretch, miserable creature, left among other miserable creatures who unaware children contend. My mother is a monster who gives birth to other miserable creatures every six months, and Mrs Fritzgerald was always pregnant but never delivered. 

I never dared ask my mother why she suffered so. But I was inclined to know, and know I must. Of my own origins and these three thousand brothers of mine, which increased every six months. Time falls on my eyelids like cold grains of sand, my feet glide through shards of ice on this icy landscape that never seems to end, I could travel miles and still come back to ice. 

She doesn't age.
But we do. All my older brothers start bearing white hair and soon lay on their death bed. For the first time, I see graveyards of ice, preserving their fragile bodies.
"This must stop. I must be out of this eternal ice hell and see a world full of flowers and warmth"
I say as mother pours herself some wine and drinks it as she looks at me. Her figure before me now appears small yet voluptuous. Her silky black hair reaches her feet, her white nails gently grab the spine of the wine glass, her blue eyes gaze at me with almost unnatural desire. 

Five years. 
And I still can't forgive her. She was a monster. A life-giver and a life consumer. She was my God. But only mine. She brought her thin arms forward towards me, "Drink," 
I would refrain but before her stubborn heart, I sensed the upcoming failure. So I submitted and took the glass from her, "Nataniel, how long have you been alive on this Earth?" She asked me.
"I believe fifteen years,"

"I've seen younger ones die," She shook her head, "Very well," And she left. What was I supposed to feel? Or was I supposed to feel? My mother wouldn't shed a tear if I were to disappear or die, she couldn't feel. So shouldn't I. Because,

Because we aren't demigods. 
We are monsters. 

What the hell even is a demigod? I did not know. But I was eager to find. Eager to learn. Determined to leave. And at dusk, I left. I walked on the ice bare feet for seven miles until I came to the lake I took a bath in. I was about to undress when I saw, I saw, I saw, I saw,

I saw someone, laying on the rocks. 
His skin wasn't white, but golden. His hair was like locks of gold, falling to his shoulders, and his yellow hands reached out for life in the unconscious sense of life. He was well-attrired in heavy clothes and had an almost absurd look framework of eyes, huge black eyes made of glass.

Oh mother, look what I have found.
I found a God.

-To be continued

Nataniel's mother
Dear Ms Lady Demigod