We waded through the shoulder high water in utter silenced, every breath bated as if it would be our last. All along the riverbank we could see the warped monstrosities that had once been our loved ones until a sudden rainstorm remade them - inside and out. Where once were kind hearts and simple wants have now become hateful shrieks and the desperate need to remake the world in their wretched image.
As we came to a fork in the river, the current grew stronger and swept Arnulf down the wrong way to the shallow streams and to his demise at the hands of his grandmother and niece. It happened too fast for us to fully comprehend, we all turned as one and pushed onwards into deeper water while abuse was hurled at us from all the faces we knew and had loved.
There was nothing left to love in them now, they were so barely recognisable as our kith and kin that we began to mutter among ourselves that surely killing them would be a mercy, allowing whatever scraps of a soul they still possessed to head into the afterlife.
Klothilde was the one to suggest luring them all into the mists in the pit of the valley, all we had to do was pretend to have gone over the waterfall and let them "follow us down". Whatever lived down there never let anyone come back up. We would have been safe.
Our plan was that we tie rope around ourselves and to a boulder further upstream so we could hide under the water with breathing reeds while the damned villagers chased our imaginary trail. Once they had all begun their descent down the sides of the waterfall we would head back to the village, saddle our horses and leave the country in silence.
What happened instead was that there wasn't enough rope, we hadn't grabbed enough in our frenzied escape and as a result we lost five people to the waterfall, they slipped wordlessly out of our hands and over the edge. Then the things we once knew as kin counted that only some of us had gone down, leaving behind more than enough of them to take us on and win.
We had no choice but to go over and pray we'd find safety.
As we came to a fork in the river, the current grew stronger and swept Arnulf down the wrong way to the shallow streams and to his demise at the hands of his grandmother and niece. It happened too fast for us to fully comprehend, we all turned as one and pushed onwards into deeper water while abuse was hurled at us from all the faces we knew and had loved.
There was nothing left to love in them now, they were so barely recognisable as our kith and kin that we began to mutter among ourselves that surely killing them would be a mercy, allowing whatever scraps of a soul they still possessed to head into the afterlife.
Klothilde was the one to suggest luring them all into the mists in the pit of the valley, all we had to do was pretend to have gone over the waterfall and let them "follow us down". Whatever lived down there never let anyone come back up. We would have been safe.
Our plan was that we tie rope around ourselves and to a boulder further upstream so we could hide under the water with breathing reeds while the damned villagers chased our imaginary trail. Once they had all begun their descent down the sides of the waterfall we would head back to the village, saddle our horses and leave the country in silence.
What happened instead was that there wasn't enough rope, we hadn't grabbed enough in our frenzied escape and as a result we lost five people to the waterfall, they slipped wordlessly out of our hands and over the edge. Then the things we once knew as kin counted that only some of us had gone down, leaving behind more than enough of them to take us on and win.
We had no choice but to go over and pray we'd find safety.
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