The Boy and the Beast

8| Jacqueline

"Alistair, are you coming?" Her delicate voice chimes from down the hall. I skip along the millions of faceless portraits, all framed up in a simple brown frame.

It's exactly the same picture plastered all over the wall like wallpaper—of me.

I gulp, hugging my torso tighter. This is quite scary now that I think of it. Why would she want as many pictures as she does about me? I'm not even closely related to her—she is a relative, closer to my father than to me, but that didn't make her think any more of what she did.

I scramble up the hallway, following the raven haired woman behind a scarlet door. She giggles, reeling me closer with her finger. Wrapped up in her claws is a red glittering packet as small as her palm, crinkling and sputtering to the sounds on her bones moving. The wrapper is attracting me like a moth to a flame—it's dangerous for me.

I follow her, my steps wearily carrying me towards my station. I know I'm not supposed to take her offerings, taking her candy is like taking cocaine from a stranger on the street, but I can't help myself. Nostalgia got the better of me—not that all memories including her are healthy memories. She holds no special memory, other than those to stimulate nightmares.

"I have a treat for you," she chirps, holding her hand out to me. The scarlet wrapper sticks out the bottom of her fist. I hesitate, drumming my fingers against my palm. "Oh, c'mon," she encourages, elongating her arm at me.

I give in to her glittering emerald eyes, accepting the offer. It's candy—just like she used to give me as a kid. "You can come in if you're done eating your sweeties, sweetie."

"But I—"

She closes the crimson door in my face, shattering my knuckles into the wood. I hiss at the pain, the skittles scattering across the linoleum floor. I heave a sigh, not even bothering to pick up the candy. I don't want candy, especially not from her fingers. Everything she touches turns into acid—including myself.

I push open the crimson door, the hinges scraping together, wailing like a gyrating seagull.

I don't remember the house, it's all a vague blurb at the back of my head, I never thought about recalling what happened. I worked so hard on smashing the memory into shards scattered across my brain, that only the touch or sweet taste of candy could trigger nightmares for only a few years, but I got hit with a strange sense of nostalgia—the opposite of nostalgia.

The bad kind where you wish you never even took the candy in the first place.

Skinny fingers wrapped around my wrist, jerking me into the pitch black room. I couldn't see one inch in front of my nose, perturbing me strongly. I whine softly in agitation, wrapping my arms around my torso.

I gulp, feeling a pang of heat crawl up my spine.

No.

This won't happen again. I won't let her do this again.

"Jaqueline," I whisper, before gulping down another batch of bile. "I won't do this. I'm not little anymore."

"I like my boys big," she whispers, her moist breath fanning over my cheek. Her elongated matte nails brush over the nape of my neck before she leads me to a bed.