The Darkest Eternities

VII.Home Sweet Home

Cara

"...I will take you. We wouldn't want you to get lost...again."

"I won't get lost, Ivan."

"I'll take you and that's that." His voice was deeply and rougher than usual. I almost squealed at the sound. It told me to do as he said, nothing more, nothing less.

"Fine....thank you."

"It's my pleasure. Let me just get something." He made off upstairs.

I was left to admire the place in the meantime, not straying far from the dining room. I took myself on a little tour sure that Ivan would not mind me looking around. Unless he was hiding something but what were the chances of that?

It was taking him longer than I expected so I went further and further into the house.

The walls were tall and decorated with all kinds of paintings. Most of them were historical paintings like from famous battles all around the world. They could have been as old as the battles themselves. They were in good condition, probably due to being well maintained.

One caught my eye. It took the centre position between all the other paintings and was larger in size. I ran my fingers over the canvas of the age-old painting as I studied it.

This one's interesting.

The painting was of a battle, just like the others, but this battle was not an ordinary one. It was easy to distinguish the two sides of the war.

What was different was that only one side of the bloody war was human the other was was not. Humans fought wolves in a bloody battle.

The painter must have been very imaginative to imagine such a war. A war between man and animal.

The soldiers were on a cold mountainous terrain, the ground soaked in blood of the soldiers and the harsh rain. It was raining cats and dogs, lightning flashing in the distance.

I could hear the raging of thunder and the warrior's battlecries. It was loud and harsh in my eyes.

A feeling of grief pressed on my chest like a heavy weight.

" You feel it, don't you?" Someone spoke from behind me. The voice was unfamiliar. It wasn't Ivan. " The death."

I turned around immediately.

My eyes were met with striking green orbs. The man standing in front of me was tall and lean with a muscle showing through his casual clothing. His sandy hair hung on his forehead slightly covering his eyes.  He  was holding a large grey zip up hoodie. A small smile tugged at his pink lips as he caught me staring.

"I am Jasper. Jasper Hale...You must be Cara," he had a light Irish accent.

"Yeah...I am."

"I see you've taken interest in this painting."

"Yeah, I have."

He moved closer to the painting on the wall but maintained the distance between us. " Well...as you can see, it's old. Really old. It's been in Ivan's..family for a while...painted in the sixteenth century. What is unique about it is that artists in that time didn't really do such works. "

"It's..." I couldn't find the word for it.

"Scary?"

"Well I wouldn't say that ...but it is in the area. It looks very...real."

"They say that the artist was a man of witchcraft and that he put spells on his works so that those that gaze upon his works would feel every bit of it from the thunder to the death ," He said, his voice serious, "...but that's just horsecrap. That is, unless you believe in the supernatural ."