After the Civil War, the life in Vittil Ghar has changed beyong recognition. With the reign of the new government, Cassandra, William and Jethro's parentless lives became an ongoing struggle for survival. Their routine of Countings and travelling to...
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He ran until his feet hurt and his lungs were burning from the icy-cold spring air. The soaked ground underneath his feet felt slippery, squelching with his every step. He wasn't bothered by the raindrops stinging on his cheeks and tangling his hair. He kept on running towards the forest.
The smell of wet wood and moss hanging in the air, the peaceful atmosphere only disturbed by a birdsong. The forest always helped, put William's mind at ease. Not now. He walked on the soft clay, and his feelings remained unchanged. He stopped running when he reached a little meadow, approximately two kilometres from the outskirts of Vittil Ghar. He hadn't even given his body a chance to catch a breath before he let out a sharp scream. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, a little vein throbbing in his left temple, his ears ringing. His voice had scared off a flock of birds and they flew high up to the sky. He was screaming as if it were the last time in his life when he could use his voice and be heard. As if he were to die. He felt like he was.
When he calmed down a bit, William's throat was sore and he had given himself a headache. So much for the effectivity of therapeutic screaming. He sat down on a rock overgrown with moss and his trousers became instantly wet on the buttocks. William didn't get up. He put his face in his hands, closed his eyes and, taking deep breaths, tried to absorb the soothing silence that the forest offered. Maybe that was what always made him calm. The silence. The feeling that all of his worries were small and insignificant in this quiet, peaceful place.
These outbursts of overwhelming emotions started spiralling out of control. They were appearing seemingly out of nowhere, at any given time and place. They would come and go as they pleased, gnawing on him like a dog on a bone, and leaving him feeling like an old, used rag.
"Just breathe, Bill, breathe," Cassandra would always say. But how was he expected to breathe when it felt like the world was ending? He felt as though something was tearing him apart from the inside out, every cell in his body trembling. And he was sure, that must be it. The last fall of William Travers. Everytime. And yet, somehow, it never was.
He didn't want to go home. He would have had to face the concerned look in his twin sister's black eyes and the encouraging words leaving his best friend's lips. "Your brain is lying to you, okay? You're not dying. You're gonna be fine." It didn't matter how many times Jethro would pat his back and say that, William knew it was never going to be fine ever again.
Sometimes he couldn't bear how much Cassandra and Jethro cared about him. The weight of their love was a heavy ache in his chest. He didn't deserve so much affection for all the hell he'd been putting them through. And yet, there it was. Whatever it was he would do, they would always be there, saying exactly the right things to make him feel better. Cassandra would bring him a steaming cup of tea and let him lay in her lap and make up funny little stories to keep his mind off whatever it was he was feeling. Jethro would sit on the porch with him late at night, with or without words, and when William fell asleep on one of the benches, Jethro would bring him a blanket or three to make sure he was warm.
Very often, though, this just made him feel a lot worse, guilty for hurting them. Sometimes he wished they would just shout at him and send him to hell.
He didn't want to go home but it was getting dark and not even he was foolish enough to be alone in the middle of the forest with just his bare hands as the night fell. He spent a few minutes thinking about where he could spend the night instead. A place popped up in his head. Everetts' huge, mansion-like house, with enough rooms for their ten children and a few guests. The Everetts would most definitely let him stay with them without asking unnecessary questions, they almost considered William a part of the family after all the years they had been friends.
He stood up and as the wind blew through the wet cloth that was sticking to his skin, goosebumps ran down his arms and back. He started walking, very slowly now, taking deep breaths and trying not to pay attention to the sharp headache, in the direction of his hometown.
In half an hour, he found himself standing in front of Everetts' house. Three windows were still showing signs of life. One of the lit windows, he knew, was in the youngest baby's room. The house, with its huge door and a comfortably furnitured porch, seemed so alien in this part of the city, and yet so very welcoming, even in the dead of the night. William took a breath and a step towards it.
He ended up in a brothel, though. Another thing he would feel guilty about in the morning.
