I. Virgil

"There are a number of disturbing creatures in this world you should never toy with. A turn of phrase, an unintended loophole, a momentary glance in the wrong direction...it takes nothing at all for them to make you their plaything. Should you encounter such a monster, do not speak. Look only ahead and walk as slowly as you can. The more you give away what you have noticed, the more you look like prey to hunt." A blond man said to a little girl. He sat across from her by a large window. Frost hid away the stormy landscape outside. "Quit trying to scare her." Another man, taller and with dark hair, placed a tray between the pair. He poured a cup of tea for each. "Don't listen to him. There's nothing out there we can't protect you from." The little girl played with her long, golden locks, twirling them around her finger. "Nothing?" "Nothing at all." The dark haired man patted her on the head. "Comforting lies age to poison. You do her no good pretending you are like a god, Virgil." The blond man sipped his tea. The dark haired man, Virgil, wiped a circle clear in the middle of the window. "Travellers on the road. Looks like they're headed our way." "Probably looking for shelter from the storm." The blond man put his cup down. He smiled at the little girl. "What do you think? Should we kill them or only rob them?" She rubbed her stomach. "I'm so hungry...And my coat's already gotten torn. I want a new one." Virgil picked up the girl. He smiled at her and rubbed her face against his. "As you wish, my dear little princess." The little girl looked at the blond man. "Thomas, will you cook tonight?" The blond man nodded. He stood up, then grabbed his Bowie knife. "Let's greet our guests." That night, Thomas cooked a big pot of stew. He salted the rest for later. The little blonde girl, so small she could barely look over the table, tugged at Thomas's shirt. He laughed at her impatience. "Is it ready? Is it ready?" The little girl asked. "Almost." Thomas blew on a spoonful of the stew. He gave it to the little girl. "What do you think?" The girl licked it clean. "It's just right." The two men each ate a bowl of stew. The little girl ate seven and cried for more. Thomas had to prepare more stew from the meat that was left. After eating every scrap of meat in the house, the little girl fell asleep. Virgil carried her to bed and kissed her forehead. "Goodnight, little princess." Virgil whispered. Thomas cleaned up the dishes. "She's eating so much. I don't know how we'll keep up with her. She used to only eat an arm's worth at a time." "She's been growing a lot lately." Virgil sat beside the window. "She'll need a new dress soon. It's a good thing we have plenty of fabric to work from. Such a shame all her dresses have to be brown though." Thomas shrugged. "Can't help it. Better to let the whole thing be soaked through and stain than have her clothes covered in spots." Virgil looked over the soiled clothes from their guests. He had taken them off their bodies right away. It made carving up the meat easier. The remnants of what they didn't eat sat in one of many piles stacked high to the ceiling of bear skins. They all turned into bears after death. Virgil used to worry they would take a life that didn't, but they had yet to kill a human who didn't turn into a bear. As they always transformed, he didn't think on it anymore. "What should we do when the war ends? I don't think it'd be good to have her live in such a cold place." Virgil said. "We could head back south. I doubt the war will last long. The Confederacy will fall within a few years, mark my words. They don't have the resources to continue this foolish path of theirs for long." Thomas put the dishes away. "If the Union takes Atlanta, they won't last much longer after that. We can go back when they inevitably need to rebuild everything." "I don't really want to go back to Georgia." Virgil stared out at the dark night through the window. "I can't go back there." Thomas sat down across from Virgil. "They may come looking for us. You are Toby Blackwell's son, even if you aren't the eldest. And you're the brother of the woman we've currently disguised as the Goddess. We may not be able to run for long." "What about you? Surely, you don't want to go back to them, back to that lab." Virgil shuddered thinking about his family home. "This whole world is rotten. It doesn't matter if I'm trapped working in that lab or trapped out here. I will always be a bird with clipped wings in a cage made of bone." Thomas sighed. "But if you hate it so, we can run somewhere else. When the winter ends, how about we go to the far west, to California?" "California...that's a long journey, but I doubt they would follow us that far." Virgil's eyes lit up. "Yes, let's go there in the spring. All the way to the coast. I'm sure she'll love the sea." Thomas got up from his chair. He sat in Virgil's lap. He whispered. "That's better. Now, how about we have a little fun before turning in? Your father can't catch us here." Lost in their own passion, the two men did not notice the large eye observing them through the keyhole of the bedroom door. When they turned in for the night, there was no one watching. The next morning, Virgil found the little girl sewing herself a new dress. The seams of the dress she was wearing had split open on the sides. From as far as Virgil could tell, she appeared to have grown half a foot over night. He told himself not to worry over it. She had been growing rapidly since they found her in the cabin between those two bear skins she once called Mother and Father. On that first day, four weeks ago, she was so small he initially mistook her for an infant. Her long hair, her ability to walk, and her clear spoken words told him she must've been older than that. Something somewhere in the back of his mind told him his little girl wasn't quite right, but his heart didn't care. As soon as he found her alone in the cabin, he scooped her up and decided from that day forward he would be her new father. Thomas woke not long after Virgil. He prepared them breakfast, but the blonde girl was not interested in the meatless dish he cooked. She did want something else of his. Ever since arriving, Thomas's hair grew more than a foot each night. After breakfast, the girl would cut his hair and keep it. She claimed she was using it for thread, but neither had seen her sew anything with the strands. The girl came up to Thomas after breakfast and chopped his hair short again. The golden locks were captured in a bag made of bear fur. Once she had collected the hair, she went back to sewing her new dress. Thomas went out with his gun and his knife to hunt. When she couldn't get bear meat, most animals would keep her hunger at bay. However, after bear, she preferred deer the most. She wanted does and fawns more than bucks. At first, Thomas didn't believe she could tell the difference. He tried lying to her about what she was eating, but she always knew. She could tell it wasn't quite right. One night, he had mixed a small amount of buck meat in with doe meat. She screamed at him for being a liar. Virgil had to calm her. Despite her strange preferences and absurd fits, she ate any and all meat he put before her in the end. Feeding her was becoming a difficult task. She wanted more each day. Rather than hope for a deer, he went bear hunting instead. There was a small village nearby. Surely, he thought, that would be more than enough meat. The storm from last night had stopped at dawn, but was picking up again. Thomas hoped he would be able to make it home before nightfall. He left in their wagon. He would need it to carry back the carcasses. Virgil stayed behind to watch the girl. He sat in his chair reading while she sewed. Around noon, he heard someone outside. He got up to see if it was Thomas. It wasn't, but he recognized the man right away. Virgil got up to answer the door. He turned to the little girl. "Little one, please go to the bedroom for now." "Do we have a new guest to make for dinner?" The girl jumped up excitedly. Virgil shook his head. "No, not this one. This guest is my brother. We can't eat him." The girl slouched. She sighed and went to the bedroom. Once she was in the bedroom, Virgil went to the front door. He opened it. "Jen?! What are you doing here?" Virgil held the door open. His older brother, Jensen, stood before him. His blond hair was partly covered in snow. Stray sunlight breaking through the storm bounced off the lenses of his glasses, a faint iridescence shimmering across them. His sky blue eyes, as intense as the last time Virgil saw them, looked straight through him. He smiled widely, like a wolf ready to kill. Virgil desperately wished to have an excuse to slam the door shut. Jensen pushed Virgil aside and made his way in. "What? Are you just going to stand there and let me freeze to death?" "I didn't think you were capable of that." Virgil closed the door. He kept a close watch on his brother. "You stole my dear assistant from me to bring him all the way to some rotting shack. Tragic." Jensen lightly hit Virgil's arm. "I should hope you're at least working harder to please him in bed. If not, I can't see him staying here long before running back to my lab. Where is Thomas?" "He's out hunting." Virgil locked the door. He looked at his brother's gloved hands, then at his glasses. "You didn't bring anything unsavory with you, did you?" "No, why?" "You don't need to wear your gloves here." Virgil said. Jensen pulled his gloves down tighter against his skin. "I'll decide that for myself. You don't even wear your glasses anymore. What would you know about safety?" "Do as you wish." Virgil turned away from him. "What have you come here for?" "I wanted to see Thomas." Jensen grinned. "Oh, and I have some supplies for you outside. You can bring all that in, if you want it." Virgil rolled his eyes. He went outside to see what Jensen had brought them. Box by box, Virgil brought the supplies from the wagon inside the house. "How did you know we were here?" "Thomas told me before you left." Jensen examined various items around the cabin. "Just because he's seeing you now doesn't mean he hates me, my dear little thief of a brother." "How's Jennifer?" Virgil asked coldly. "As pathetic and loving as ever." Jensen shook his head. He laughed. "My dear Jennifer, such a dutiful, pitiful wife. Though I suppose I am quite pitiful too, as I cannot make her a mother. Oh, what wondrous gifts Father's many experiments have granted me. Infertility, unhealing wounds, burn scars, and so many other joyous things. What's this mess? Remnants of some experiment?" Virgil looked over at the stacks of bear skins. "Uh, that was from hunting. We needed food." "Food?" Jensen gave his brother a look of bewilderment. He laughed loudly. "Is that what you've been having my Thomas hunt? By the Goddess's light, was all this really worth leaving home for? We have a lab nearby, you know, if you wanted to avoid all this war business." "I didn't leave because of the war. I left to get away from Father and Eric." Virgil looked away. "Eric? Heh, I can see that. I've had enough of him myself. Father giving him that Doctor title has gone to his head. Same with Snow. Now that she gets to pretend to be the Goddess for the families, she thinks she can tell me what to do. I didn't respect them when they were just our older siblings. I certainly won't respect them because they have titles now. They're still the same fools they always were." Jensen poked the bear skins. "But that's no reason to leave home. You could move to one of the distant labs. That's what I've done. I'm researching around here now. I've heard some interesting reports of strange activity in this area. You two should come join me. I promise I won't order you around too much. Oh, and give me back my lover." "No." Virgil glared at him. Jensen looked over at the bedroom door. "You're hiding something from me." "Leave her be." Virgil got between Jensen and the door. "She doesn't need to be exposed to any of our family's wickedness." "Wicked am I?" Jensen glanced back at the stacks of bear skins, then to his brother. He pushed his brother aside and opened the door. The blonde girl stood on the other side. She was wearing her newly finished dress. Her hair was fuller than earlier that morning. "Why are you being mean to Virgil?" "What's this?" Jensen pointed to the girl. "We've taken her in. She's an orphan." Virgil said. He started to close the door. "Stay in here a bit longer. I need to speak with my brother alone. Why don't you work on making another dress?" The girl nodded. She sat down on the floor beside scraps of fabric. Virgil shut the door. Jensen leaned against the wall. "Where did you pick that up?" "We found her inside this cabin. She was all alone, between the two bear skins and all the blood." Virgil said. "Bear skins?" Jensen asked. "Yes, she said they used to be her parents. They were hurting her. She managed to poison them. When they died, they turned into bear skins. She told us back before her family came here, there was a legend in their village about evil bears eating people and wearing human skins to take the place of their victims while they sought out more. When the evil bears are killed, the human illusion vanishes and they turn back into bears." Virgil gestured at the stacks of bear skins. "That's what these are. Those bears are everywhere around here. We've been killing them and eating them. Once we kill them, they all turn back into bears again." "Bears, huh?" Jensen crossed his arms. He stared at the piles. "Say, Gil, do you happen to have your glasses at all anymore?" "No, why?" Virgil asked. "Would you like to borrow mine?" Jensen took his glasses off. He tried to put them on Virgil. Through the lenses, Virgil briefly saw something strange, but he wasn't interested in whatever game Jensen was playing with him. He pushed the glasses away. "I don't want anything to do with that life anymore. I threw away my glasses when I left." "You threw them away?! Are you mad?! Do you have any idea how difficult those are to make? You think we have an endless supply of unicorn horns on hand to make more?" Jensen slapped Virgil across the face. "What the hell is wrong with you? Run away if you want, but don't destroy our supplies." Virgil put his hand to his face. He slapped Jensen back. "You don't own me. This is my home now. You are a guest. Do not touch me again." "Father doesn't know of this place yet. Touch me again and he will be here at dawn to drag you back." Jensen pushed Virgil against the wall. He forced him into a kiss. Virgil fought back. He got free of his brother's grip. "Stop that!" Jensen wiped the saliva off his mouth. "Why? You used to enjoy it so when we were children." "I was too innocent then to understand what Mother and Father were making us do." Virgil covered his face. "Leave me alone. I'm not going back to that. I'm not a toy for the family to play with." "Oh, quit whining. You were barely tormented. You enjoyed it then. Father never had them experiment on you, Eric, or Snow. That was always my job. What do you have to complain about?" Jensen pulled up his shirt. On the left side of his abdomen, a gaping, black wound expanded and contracted in a heartbeat-like rhythm. The hole went deep into the body, exposing part of the intestines. Virgil remembered well the night Jensen received that wound. Jensen was ten then. It was the same night Jensen became infertile from an injury. Their grandfather had captured a beast they didn't have a name for yet in their records. Jensen had always been good at making deals and bonds with strange beings since as soon as he could talk. The family offered him up to the beast to see what it would do to him. This beast wasn't interested in communicating with Jensen like the others. It ripped his clothes off, then dug into his skin. Its body twisted around itself until the being's form became that of a spear. Then, it tried to burrow inside of Jensen. Their grandfather brought out his fairy slave to kill the beast after that. The fairy was able to heal some of Jensen's body. His left arm had been so badly injured it was barely attached when the fairy began to heal him. Underneath his clothes, Virgil knew very well what scars were there. The arm was fully reattached, but a massive scar covered his upper arm and the left side of his chest. One of the other major injuries he received during that encounter was to somewhere more sensitive. One of the testicles had been sliced open. The wound healed, but left Jensen infertile. The biggest wound, the one caused by the beast burrowing into his body, could not be fully healed. The fairy slave that had now been passed down to their eldest brother, Eric, needed to perform a healing spell on it once a month to stop it from opening wider. While the magic kept it from killing him, Jensen was always in a state of pain from it. When he was intimate with other people, he never fully undressed to hide the wound. "I am sorry. I know you are bound to them, but you would run too if you could. You should steal that fairy of Eric's and run. The fairy is the only one who can stop it from spreading. The fairy is the only one you really need." Virgil said. He took hold of his brother's hand. "Listen to me, Jen. I don't hold ill will against you. If only you left them for a while, I promise you you'd see how strange everything they did to us was...even the things that didn't hurt your body. They twisted our minds. You and I both know there is no goddess." "I've never believed in the Goddess. Whether she existed or not wouldn't change things." Jensen laughed. "I don't care that they're twisted. I don't care this body hurts. I am more powerful than most on this earth for all that's been done to me. I'd rather be powerful and bound than weak and free." "It is your choice. If you will not leave them, please don't drag us back there. I would much rather be weak and free than be under their control no matter what it gave me." Virgil lowered his head. "Thank you for the food. Please, please don't tell Father or Eric we're here." "I suppose I'll keep it a secret for now. It's not like I care about pleasing them." Jensen looked away. He stared at the eye watching him through the bedroom keyhole. "When will Thomas be back?" "I don't know. He should return before sunset." Virgil said. As soon as he said those words, the front door opened. Thomas, covered from head to toe in blood, walked through. He tossed his knife and gun to the floor. "I'm home...Jen?!" Jensen rushed over to Thomas. He wrapped his arms around Thomas. "Thomas. It's been agonizing without you. Won't you come back?" Thomas shifted his gaze back and forth between Jensen and Virgil. "Jen, you know we already talked about this. I love you, but our relationship has ended. Virgil and I are together now and we're not returning back to the twenty families or the lab." Jensen whispered in Thomas's ear. "Please...please, I beg you...Come back to me." Virgil crossed his arms. "Jen, please stop it. I am really grateful for the supplies you brought us and keeping our secret, but Thomas is mine now. Please, respect that." "Respect? You started seeing him in secret before our relationship ended. You are the disrespectful one." Jensen narrowed his eyes at Virgil. He then turned his attention back to Thomas. "But I will forgive you. Come back to me. Ten years, I held you in my arms. With all the bonds and bodily experiments, perhaps through me, we could find a way to make it for eternity." Thomas gently pushed Jensen away. "I am sorry. My feelings have changed. I am sorry I hurt you. You deserve to be with someone who would never think of doing what I've done." Jensen sighed. "I don't understand it, but I suppose I can't change your mind. I do forgive you anyway. I'll keep your location a secret, for your sake." "Thank you, Jen." Thomas slightly bowed to him. "I truly am sorry for my behavior." Jensen looked back at Virgil. Virgil lowered his head. "I am also sorry. My actions were shameful." Jensen was quiet for a moment. He gave a small smile. "If I was that angry with you, I wouldn't have brought you food. I know you don't want to, but I'll say it again. You're welcome to come with me to the lab nearby. Much as you may hate everyone there, it is safer than being out here." "I'm sorry. I cannot." Virgil shook his head. "Do as you wish." Jensen turned to Thomas. "Gil's swore off everything, but what about you, Thomas? You don't have to come back, but aren't you a little curious about our most recent discoveries? You were always my best researcher." "I...well..." Thomas looked over at Virgil. Virgil walked to the kitchen table. "If you wish to talk about that, do it where I can't hear. You can speak about that in the bedroom. Send our little one to me. I'll start on lunch." "Are you sure?" Thomas asked. "I know you want to know. I won't forbid you from that. Just leave me out of the discussion." Virgil said. "As you wish." Thomas said. He sent the little girl to Virgil, then brought Jensen into the bedroom. He locked the door to keep the girl from interrupting them and hearing anything that might be dangerous for her to know about. "So, what's been going on since we left?" Thomas asked. Jensen pulled Thomas into a kiss. Thomas did not resist at first. At the second kiss, he pushed Jensen away. "Stop. We can't." Jensen ran his hand down Thomas's chest. "Why are you really here? You can't convince me you love that idiot. He told me he threw away his glasses. Where are yours?" "I tossed mine with his." Thomas said. "You fool." Jensen sighed deeply. "What's come over the both of you? Have you gone mad?" "Maybe." Thomas put his hands behind his back and leaned against the door. "I'm not going back. We're going to California when spring comes. I'll send you letters." "I'll have to find a way to get supplies to you. Oh, speaking of that...I think I deserve compensation for what I've brought today. It was very difficult to sneak out all those boxes." Jensen grinned widely. "Compensation? We don't have any money. I don't know what we could give you." Jensen started to unbutton his pants. "I don't want anything from him. You can pay me by yourself." "Jen...I...I can't. It would be wrong." Thomas looked away. "Especially after what I've already done." "He doesn't need to know." Jensen whispered in Thomas's ear. "Virgil told me you've been having trouble with food. Don't you want to make sure your new beloved doesn't starve before you can make your grand journey in the spring? It's much colder here than back home. Don't you want to protect Virgil?" 'This is why I had to leave you. You've become crueler than all of us.' Thomas thought. He finally looked Jensen in the eyes. "What do you want me to do?" "On your knees." 'Forgive me, Virgil.' Thomas did as Jensen demanded. "Please, please never tell him." "This will be our secret." Jensen caressed Thomas's face. He saw behind him that large eye in the keyhole, quietly watching them. "I won't tell a soul." Thomas did not notice the eye. He closed his eyes and only thought of Virgil. After their quiet betrayal, Jensen gifted Thomas a small bag. "What's this?" Thomas asked. "Open it." Thomas peeked inside the bag. There was a pair of glasses and gloves identical to the ones Jensen wore. Thomas quickly closed the bag shut. "I told you I won't be needing these anymore. Take them back." "You got rid of them because Virgil wanted to throw everything away. I know you wouldn't've done that on your own. Keep them. You don't have to wear them all the time, but it's foolish to get rid of something you might find useful in an emergency." Jensen kissed Thomas on the cheek. He whispered. "Do not forget. I will always love you." Thomas stood frozen. He could say nothing. When they left the room, they found Virgil cooking lunch. The little girl stared at Thomas, grinning from ear to ear. She stuffed her face with deer jerky. Jensen stayed for the meal, then left shortly after. Virgil and Thomas were both relieved to see him go. As day turned quickly to night, as it always did in winter, there was no time to go out again after Jensen left. Virgil continued sifting through the supplies Jensen brought them. Thomas tended to the little girl. He heated up enough water for a bath. Virgil declined to join them, though he was usually the one who washed the girl. He enjoyed cataloging information so much he would forget about other duties at times. Thomas laughed under his breath. Virgil had always been like that, even when they were young children. It made him very useful in the laboratory from an early age. Much as he hated what the families had done to them all, Thomas couldn't deny Virgil was a great scientist. Far better, he thought, than Virgil's older siblings were. He wondered if he could convince Virgil to return to scientific study in some other, more gentle way once they reached California. 'Perhaps I could turn you into a botanist.' The little girl wasn't happy with having Thomas wash her. She screamed loudly. "Don't touch my hair! Virgil knows not to touch my hair!" "I was only trying to wash it for you." Thomas pulled his hands away from her hair. From the other room, Virgil called out to Thomas. "She doesn't like that! Be gentle." "I am gentle!" Thomas called back. The little girl splashed water at him angrily. "Stop that!" "You're a bad man, Thomas." The little girl hissed at him. "Very bad. A bad bear." "I am not one of those bears. You are the one being bad." Thomas reached over the side of the tub for a towel. "You can bathe by yourself." The little girl yanked Thomas's hair. "Thomas is a very bad bear. Thomas betrays Virgil." Thomas looked back at the girl. "What are you talking about?" She put her hand over his mouth. "Thomas's mouth is very bad. Thomas lets other people touch him where only Virgil is supposed to." Thomas lowered his voice. "What did you see?" "Jensen is a bad bear too. I want to eat him. You let him go. He looks so tasty." The girl whined. Thomas reached over the side of the tub again. He opened the small bag Jensen gave him and put on the glasses. He looked back over at the little girl. "My god..." Thomas got out of the water as it began to heat up. He put on the gloves first, then his pants as he hurried out of the room. "Virgil, we need to leave now!" Thomas grabbed Virgil's hand. Virgil pulled away, eyes wide. "What are you wearing? Did Jensen give you those?" "Nevermind that. We need to get out of the house now." Thomas pulled his arm. "I'll explain later. Trust me." "No. Why are you wearing those? We were leaving everything behind. Everything." Virgil raised his voice. The little girl, disheveled and wet, came into the room crying. Her dress, somehow, had become white as snow, save for the fresh red stains here and there on the lower half. "Virgil, Thomas is mean. He hurt me." That the girl owned now white dresses did not stop the fear and rage from building up inside Virgil. He yelled at Thomas. "What the hell have you done?!" "I have done nothing to that monster!" Thomas yelled back. "Monster?! That's our daughter. What did you do?!" Virgil stood up. He pushed Thomas. "Did my brother put you up to this?" "Virgil, that is not a girl. That is not a human. Here! Look for yourself!" Thomas took off the glasses and held them out to Virgil. Virgil slapped them away. "I will not put those wretched things on my body ever again!" The little girl threw herself on the ground. She cried. "Virgil, it hurts. It hurts so much!" Without the glasses, Thomas could see again what Virgil saw. She looked directly in his eyes and smiled. Thomas didn't see the girl anymore, nor the beast's real form. He saw Virgil sitting there. Virgil looked at him with despair. "You love him more, don't you? You love him more." Thomas forgot the world around him. His eyes would only let him stare at the illusion before him. "Go on. You can go back to him. You've loved him longer than me. No, you never loved me. That's alright. I'll set you free." The Virgil sitting on the floor held up Thomas's knife and stabbed himself in the heart. Thomas couldn't move. He knew what he was seeing wasn't real. The gloves provided his mind some protection to know that. He could faintly hear the real Virgil yelling at him. But his guilt at what he had done earlier in the day was so great, he didn't care that it was an illusion. His mind could only convince him he was watching some inevitable future unfolding before him. He took the gloves off and turned to the real Virgil. "Kill me." Virgil stopped yelling. "Thomas?" The little girl was now beside Virgil. She handed him Thomas's knife. "Virgil, that's not Thomas anymore. That's a bear. Thomas is gone." Virgil took the knife, hand shaking. "Prove to me you're really Thomas. Tell me what's happened." Thomas couldn't hear Virgil's words. "I am a monster. I've always been a monster. Kill me. Please, kill me." With tears in his eyes, Virgil stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. He lost count of how many times he stabbed Thomas. When he could not raise his hand again, he sat crying beside the body of a bear. Virgil couldn't bring himself to cut out the meat. The little girl ate straight out of the body, leaving only skin and bones behind. The little girl was especially pleased with this meal and the bear skin. She liked the texture of the soft fur so much she wanted to keep it on the bed. Virgil put the little girl to bed with the bear skin, then went to clean up the blood. He picked up the gloves and glasses. The sight of them filled him with pain. Since he was six years old, he had been made to wear those glasses and gloves at all times. He was forbidden from taking them off when he slept. He had to learn to sleep on his back at night and not move. When he was first getting used to them, his parents tied him to the bed at night to make sure he couldn't turn in his sleep. He hated it so much. Virgil used to wet the bed frequently during that adjustment period because no one would be awake to untie him. In the mornings, he would be whipped for wetting the bed. Until the day he ran away with Thomas, every moment of his life had been seen through those glasses. He was only allowed to remove them briefly when he washed. He couldn't understand why Thomas would want to keep those things around. Thomas seemed as he always was that morning. It wasn't until Jensen showed up that anything changed. 'What if that wasn't Jen?' Virgil wondered. Had a monster come into their house in the form of his brother? Was that how Thomas had turned so quickly into a monster? Virgil feared for him and the girl. He needed to move her out of this area as soon as possible. Spring was too far away to wait for. They would begin their journey to California in the morning, he decided. Virgil wanted to throw away the glasses and gloves. But he couldn't stop thinking about how they had been on Thomas's face. Much as he hated the sight of them, he couldn't bring himself to part with them. Virgil carried them back to the bedroom. He put them on the table beside the bed to worry about later. He tried to get some sleep, but his mind would't let him. His thoughts were filled with Thomas. He had been in love with Thomas since he was eight and Thomas was nine. It was a secret he kept deeply guarded. The families saw emotions, especially love, as a weakness. Relationships were to only be bridges to marriage. Marriage was for producing children and continuing the connection of the families who worshipped the goddess. Sex that was not for reproduction was evil, but sometimes a necessity to gain something else. Many of the families offered the children up to play sexual games with each other, including amongst siblings, for the viewing entertainment of local adults. This show was used as blackmail to extract things out of the people who attended: land and companies, supplies of all types, contracts that were barely above slavery, and as much money as they could get. Thomas was made to participate in these games the same as he was. When he was young, he often enjoyed the games. He didn't understand what he was doing beyond his body felt good and he sometimes got to touch Thomas. The older he got, the more memories of those nights made him sick. He felt sick he was made to do that, that Thomas was made to do that, and that for a time, he didn't mind. Thomas was already in love with Jensen then, as was Jensen's eventual wife, Jennifer. Jensen loved them both equally. As he was already betrothed to Jennifer before his fifth birthday, he could be more openly affectionate with Jennifer. Thomas was a secret he kept from everyone except Virgil and Jennifer. Virgil was always jealous of Jensen. When he was younger, he thought Jensen was selfish. He already had Jennifer. Why did he need Thomas too? As they got older, and more experiments were done on Jensen's body, he became stranger. Jennifer did as well. The stranger Jensen became, the more she clung to him. It was as if, he thought, she was attempting to smother out the wickedness building inside him with her undying love. Thomas began to pull away from Jensen. It was wicked of him, Virgil thought, but as his brother's mental state deteriorated, Virgil saw it as an opportunity to finally snatch Thomas away from him. While Thomas mourned the person he used to know, Virgil never stopped reminding him of the disturbed person he had become in the present. Thomas didn't want to abandon him entirely though. He held onto the hope he might somehow be able to help restore Jensen's mind. A year ago, Virgil finally succeeded in seducing Thomas. They saw each other in secret for the remainder of the time they spent there. Shortly before they ran away, Thomas properly ended things with Jensen. The night they ran away, Virgil felt like he had finally gotten everything he always wanted. He was so happy to throw away his glasses and gloves, and see the world the way everyone else did. Much as his brother had changed, taking Thomas from him likely only hastened his steady decline. With both of them now gone from the laboratory, that would put more pressure on Jensen too. Since their older brother was now the head of the families, the responsibilities of running the lab were entirely Jensen's to manage. Jensen couldn't run away. He was bound to stay, because he needed the family's fairy slave to keep his unhealing wounds from killing him. Jennifer was similarly trapped. She would stay to protect Jensen. As Jensen grew stranger, his actions around Jennifer had become disturbing at times too. Whenever he did something wicked to her, she never cried. She begged for more to hide from him he had done anything wrong at all. Jennifer's mind was as lost as Jensen's. And now, Thomas was gone. He had accomplished nothing but making everything worse for everyone around him. Virgil lit a candle. He watched the light bounce off the glasses. Longing for Thomas, he took the glasses and put them on. Virgil looked over to the sleeping girl, but did not find her. In her place slept a bird. The bird was the same size as the girl. Its feathers, fluffy and short, were a tawny brown. The thick beak was a darker shade than the feathers. The beak was slightly open. Inside, Virgil could just barely see large, serrated teeth. Feathers along the wings were too small for flight, but the feathers were obvious to him not the bird's final set. This bird was not an adult. Atop its head was a wig made of human hair, Thomas's hair. Virgil's heart rang loudly in his ears. He could't breathe. Slowly, he tried to move off the bed. Then, his eyes saw something far more disturbing than the girl's transformation. He did not see a bear skin, but beneath a skin he lay. A naked skin, cleaned of its bones and innards, devoid of eyes, sagging and floppy in places once sharp and firm; a foreign being recognizable only through association and memory of what once filled it; at its sight, Virgil felt a deep, nauseating heaviness fill his stomach and claw out through his own skin. Dizzy from the incomprehensible view, he nearly fainted and forgot for a moment he needed to flee. His sloppy motions on the bed woke the bird. Giant, black eyeballs stared at him. "Virgil, where are you going?" Virgil could say nothing. His throat had tightened so much he could barely breathe. From his shoulders down to his fingers, his body shivered. "Virgil?" The voice of the girl came through the bird, but it did not move its beak. Virgil didn't know where the voice was coming from, or how the bird was making it. He remembered the gloves Thomas was wearing earlier. Eyes fixed on the bird, he reached back for the gloves. The bird's sweet, human-like voice changed to a guttural hiss. The beak opened widely as the chest puffed up. Virgil grabbed the gloves and jumped off the bed. He didn't get far. The saw-like teeth sunk into his shoulder, the pain causing him to drop the gloves. The strong grip of the bird's peak dragged him back onto the bed. On his back now, Virgil looked up at the bird. It sat upon his chest, saliva and blood dripping from its mouth onto him. Instinctively, he put up his hands to block the beast as it lunged at him. His arms were quickly taken off him. Virgil could do nothing but scream as the bird sliced him open at the stomach and devoured him. The agonizing pain soon became too much for his mind and body to handle. He looked away silently at the gloves on the floor. The flickering candlelight and the cold moon watching through the window were enough for him to see how much of his blood was pooled onto the floor beside the bed. The pieces of his right arm were scattered about. He knew they were once part of his body, but it didn't seem real. This moment didn't feel real. It could't be real. He wanted to believe that. In an instant, the agony was over. The bird ripped through his heart, and with that, his world went black. Outside the tiny, rotting cabin, a group of people waited. Each person in the crowd carried a torch. An old man made his way to the front of the crowd. He and another man broke down the door. A few of the people in the group entered the cabin while the rest waited outside. The small group that went in was stunned by what they saw. Piles and piles of human skins. Bones littered the corners and under the furniture. The youngest man in the small group turned to the old man. "How could it have killed this many people already?" "There were two humans working with it, just like the last time. Should you encounter it, do not look directly into the beast's eyes. If you do, do not believe what you see. Careful, now. Keep your fires lit." The small group made their way to the bedroom. There, they found the bird eating what little remained left inside of Virgil's body. The wig made of golden hair had fallen to the floor, died red with Virgil's blood. The beast looked up at the group. "Help me. Bad bears attacked me." The bird called out in its childlike voice. To three of the people, the bird had the appearance of a little girl. She looked not like the blonde girl Virgil and Thomas had seen, but one of their own. The eldest man reminded them. "Do not look in its eyes! There is no child here. This is a monster!" The youngest man put his flame to the floor. The eldest went around to the other side of the bed and did the same. The others, including the ones who saw the illusion, surrounded the bed and set everything around the bird on fire. They quickly retreated from the house. "Now! Everyone!" The eldest man shouted as he exited the cabin. Everyone in the large group put their torches to the house. They watched it burn to the ground. The bird continued its childish screaming as it burned down. Once the house had fallen and the flames were dying down, the group returned home and prayed that the beast would no longer torment them. By dawn, the flames had expired. A few hours after that, Jensen arrived with a wagon. He was momentarily shocked to see the state of the cabin, then sighed deeply. Jensen checked that his gloves were on tightly and put on a black cape made of the same material. From the back of the wagon, Jensen grabbed a metal disc and a large, empty sack. "Where are you, Beast?" Jensen uttered under his breath as he approached the fallen home. In the center of where the cabin once stood, a lump rose out of the ashes. A beak came into view, then the rest of its form. Virgil knelt before it, placing the disk between himself and the bird. He put his hands on the bird and moved it onto the disk. "There you are, little one." The bird, assuming its illusion was working, chirped. "I'm scared. I'm so scared. The bears tried to eat me." "Uh huh. Bears." Jensen reached in his shirt and pulled out a diamond attached to the end of a metal chain. "By the power within me, enclose and bind. With this disk, there is no flight." The diamond glowed. From the metal disk, smaller pieces of metal shot out around the bird, forming a bird cage. The bird shrieked. "Bad bears! Help! Help me! Bears are attacking me!" "Always bears. That must be something that you picked up from the first humans you tricked." Confident in his capture, Jensen lifted one side of his glasses so that one of his eyes could see what illusion the bird was creating. He saw a bald girl in a dress. Jensen took out a pad of paper and wrote notes down. "So, it's the eyes that give it power over people. It can't change bodies. It can only change what people think they see. Can't create hair in the illusion though. It needs hair on its body to do that part. That explains the wig it was wearing." Jensen picked up the cage. The bird burst into flames within the cage. The flames fled from Jensen's gloves. "That won't work either. These gloves shield me from most magic. Dragon hide, six thousand years old. The older the dragon, the more protection the skin possesses. He was a tasty beast. The turkey would be shamed to know how poorly its flavor is in comparison. Now let's see...are you a phoenix or..." The flames dissipated. The nearly featherless bird, still speaking like a child, cried out in hopes of deceiving any nearby humans. "Help me! Help me! I am being attacked!" "No ashes...I see, you are some type of firebird. Those savages don't seem to know how to kill you either. From the old world, are you? How did you get here?" Jensen carried the screaming bird back to the wagon. "Bears, attacking!" The bird screamed louder. "There are no bears. You had them killing humans and feeding them to you." Jensen said to the bird. From his pocket, Jensen took out a blindfold. He put it around the beast's eyes. "Bad bears get cooked!" The bird screeched in a child-like voice. "Only bears. Only bears. I only cooked bears. No humans." "Bad bears get cooked. You come up with some fun little phrases, you ugly, malformed fire starter." He grinned as he pushed down on the cage with the diamond. The cage tightened inward. "Tell me, what did my brother taste like? What of my beloved Thomas you devoured? Were they delicious? How were their screams?" "Only bears. They were bad bears. I didn't want to eat them. I had to. They turned into bears." The bird repeated, shaking its large head violently in hopes of throwing off the blindfold. Jensen secured the cage within another iron bird cage inside the wagon. He walked back to the rubble. He sifted through the the ash, bones, and what little had survived the fire. Eventually, he found what he was seeking, two skulls. He found Thomas's first. He knew right away it was Thomas's. Jensen had spent a lot of time in the company of corpses in various states of decay, from last breath to bare, clean white. From the various murders and experiments he had witnessed and performed, when he looked at skulls, he could see what features were likely once there. The same was true of the living. When he looked at people, his mind often undressed them down to their bones. There was no doubt in his mind he was holding Thomas's skull. "Oh, Thomas. Why did you leave me? To die in such a wretched place in so horrid of a way...My dear Thomas..." Jensen kissed the skull, then placed it in the bag. The second skull was Virgil's. He cradled it like an infant. "Little brother, I told you it was safer with the family. My selfish, gentle, little brother. I suppose Thomas is yours forever now. Don't linger as ghosts, or I will haunt you." As he placed the second skull into the bag, he spoke softly. "You're haunting me now. It's quiet." The heavy weight of the dragon hide cape pulled at his shoulders. Jensen looked out at the silent, snowy landscape and the small, black spot disrupting the pure white before the edge of the forest. "It's good. It's good you are not here. This world is rotten. And you were not." II. Gwynn