#stakeland

#StakeLand

#DanielleHarris

#horror #scifi #sciencefiction

“I told Belle about you,” Martin said sleepily. His long, lanky body -the boy hadn’t been eating enough, he’s too damn thin- is curled up in a chair beside Mister’s hospital bed. “You were her favorite story. Her superhero.” 

Mister wants to tell the boy to shut up, to let it go, that they don’t to history because it just makes things harder. He wants to scold Martin for filling his daughter’s head with such stupid shit. Heroes aren’t real -not now, not in the Stake Lands. And, if they ever were real to begin with, Mister certainly wasn’t one of them. He was too old, too mean, too weak, and failed too many times to be one. 

But he couldn’t. 

He couldn’t because Mister was too busy wonder if little Belle had looked like Martin. Did she have his messy curls? Did she have his warm smile? Did she have his big, dark eyes? 

Martin’s eyes are different now. Empty mostly, with the occasional spark of protective fondness, amusement, or rage. There was no more fear anymore, no more of the quiet sadness or warmth that Mister remembered. Remembered and loved and hated because he’d needed to kill it to keep the boy safe. 

Keep him safe unlike Rose.

“Hearing about you made her happy,” Martin continued, big dark eyes barely open. “It made me happy to talk about you too. I missed you. Why did you leave me behind?”

Mister wondered if the stab in his heart was like what vamps felt when he killed them. 

‘I hated doing it,’ he wanted to say. ‘But keeping you around would have just been for my benefit alone. You still had a chance to be happy; I would have poisoned you.’

“It was for the best,” Mister eventually said. “Now, go get some sleep. Remember what I told you -get rest when you can. You need to stay in-”

“Top form. Yeah, I remember. I remember everything you taught me.”