Trying To Heal

Chapter One

SONG: Nick Wilson - All The Same

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Derek Matthews

Aristotle once said, "'It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light'."

Uncle Thomas was opposite me, reading a book that was published last week. We were in the library. I was nine. He peered over his glasses and pinned me to my seat.

"What does that mean?" I asked in German.

"Without darkness, there is no light. Without light, there is no darkness. Without God, there is no devil. Without the devil, there is no God. Without good, there is no evil. Without evil, there is no good."

My brain is fuzzed in connections. "It must be balanced. But it can be hard to focus on the light." My fingers fidget with the page. "Dad, for example."

"Your Father seeks others for compensation. That is why he is failing."

I was rather infuriated at Tom's dismissiveness. "Failing?"

Uncle Thomas shrugged. "Simple knowledge."

"Tell me."

"Find out for yourself."

I bristled. "I want you to tell me!"

"Your Mother would have wanted you to find out for yourself."

"Mother is dead —"

"Careful of what you say, boy. What goes around, comes back to you."

My chest rummaged. "I like reading books, Uncle. But I do not understand why I have to read all of them." I fixated on the piles of stories he wanted me to read. Some are in different languages.

"You are exceptionally lucky to have this beauty—" He waved at the Tate Manor's library "—all for yourself. There are people out there who are dying to be in your position. Shut up and read."

Situations like this are why I am grateful Aunt Marlene is the parent of the house. If Uncle Thomas took care of me for twenty-four hours per day ... While he knows that humans are humans, while he expects humans to embody their true nature, most of the time he expects endless obedience. I wonder if he attained that during his survival.

I opened my mouth to retort. His harsh glare silenced it. I face the page, starting to read again.

To the time I rejuvenated, resurrected, and metamorphosed in Saint Maximilian Kolbe, it was straightforward to breathe. I was surrounded by expert nurses, doctors, trainers, and educators. That, alongside the knowledge I accumulated in my childhood and teenage years, unveiled how everything is frankly interconnected.

A trillion light years is how long it took for me to breathe again. To focus on that fucking light, when my world tumbled into oblivion.

An incarnated nightmare, my hearing subdued the shrieks of Naila Akintola, the ripples of a cave, the wafting sirens. A girl we so loved, limp in the trembling arms of my brother, Lord Luke Rhodes Luther Matthews, smeared in her hopeless blood. A car is scattered on a sidewalk and irregularly parked, its' light shining onto her like a spotlight. A man is in front of it, his face in horror.

Time slowed into a cease. A trillion years to inspire and expire — so excruciatingly long that I believed the life of humanity died and shifted into limbo, of nothingness.

Or at least, that is how I feel. Because she is not breathing.

She is not breathing.

Her arms are spread across the ground. Luke holds her, his head hanging low; her own lolled to the ground. He places a caring kiss on her forehead, trickled of blood from her temple, and cautiously cradles her face into his chest, as delicate as a newborn baby.