KIN

His skull broke. 

 

The inners were shot on the grass and glistered in the rain as morning dew in the sun. The boy’s eyes discovered mine behind a tree from where I peered. He raised his hand with difficulty as his muddy fingers shook. He gasped his last breath. 

​

I persisted in the quietness of my hiding place. 

​

The blues of the clearing deepened as the waters washed it all off of it. The reds ran downward the soil, where they were consumed, and the kid’s shattered pieces fled with the current: The boy had been cleansed. 

 

The drumming of the rain dampened his final words, if he even had, so I grasped the dry bark of my tree and stood still, quivering with a pondering heart. He had slept. 

 

I sought predators to ensure he’d have a peaceful rest, but I would've been the sole witness of such a young corpse if it wasn't for the moon, that hung low in the firmament and flew close to where he was. 

 

If grandma had been there, I thought that night, she would have avoided his agony, she would have sacrificed a bit of her reason to save another sufferer. So, despite my doubt, I lifted my hand and wagged it. There, inside me, the arcane manifestation awoke and wafted through my nervous system like the leaves on the growing streams around. The dust and leaves next to him hovered for a beat but fell. I wondered if it had been because of my curse or an invisible presence claiming for the kid’s soul. 

 

I came out of my shelter and approached him. His brain was exposed and surrounded by the fractured bones that once protected it. I knelt down and brushed his hair to the side. His eyelids were wide open and his grisly gaze lost into wherever he went after dying. The iris looked terrifyingly enormous in the blood-soaked sclera, so I shut them down to start my workings. 

 

I summoned nature… its ghost ascended in my body. I pondered deeply and concentrated in aligning the harmonies of my mortal sounds with hers. The energy stalled the rain that plummeted in that spot, to shield us. 

 

As if something struck the earth, I sensed it was her. I welcomed its ripples, controlled my breathing, and redirected the corporal warmth towards my hands. Then, by recalling the least

corrupted memories, I obliged my brain to dispose of them: the kid needed my sanity to be re-sparkled. My fingertips became red and swollen as the ardor blazed my interior and concentrated it all on my hands. 

 

I tasted metal in my gums as my head dizzied. I trembled not due to the seasonal coldness, but because my brain was being dissolved by the tasteful power. Voices echoed as I called for the kid to renounce from entering the long tunnel. 

 

The grass commenced to sway in my direction. The leaves, twigs, and pebbles on the ground floated and revolved around us. The light oozed out of my hands as a tiny star surrendering to my touch. Its dazzle lit me and the corpse. I smiled at both. 

 

“Wake up,” I whispered. So did he… 

 

The world turned to darkness. 

 

………. 

 

The clock is ticking. The world hindered. Dad holds a gun. 

 

“Drop it,” I whisper to him. 

 

I cover my mother with my body and face him. I lift my hand towards him as he points the weapon to us. 

 

“Give it to me dad, it will be over.” 

 

“Shut up bitch, what have you done to my family?!!” 

 

He pulls the trigger. I force the bullet to change its course two heads above us, bursting a family picture on the wall. Mom whines and rescues herself in her arms as the glass shards impact the floor. I mutter and contain my pain. With one hand I clean the blood running down my nose and keep the other one firm and loaded before him. 

 

Blood has been drawn on dad’s piercing gaze. On the floor there lay his easing pills: it’s happened again. 

 

“They will come back, just take your medicine and they will be back by the morning.”

Beads of sweat dampen my forehead. The living room becomes smaller and the oxygen wanes down. My heart races as my brain effaces life: my parents’ faces are still encrusted amongst its rifts, but who's the kid my little-self embraces in one of the pictures? 

 

“They make my head hurt!!!” 

 

“I'm a nurse Stephen, just give me the gun and I will give you strawberry gums, Sarah and Joahnne will be here by the time you wake up.” 

 

He subtly shakes his head no and tightens his grip around the gun. His eyes are an abyss behind the barrel. 

 

“Mom?” 

 

She has her face on the floor, dead frozen. 

 

“Should I…?” 

 

She doesn't respond but I nod. I straighten my spine and breathe to let the presence grow inside of me. Its roots and branches scratch muscles and bones and rapidly scrape my skull. For a beat, the sun goes black and revives, along with my reason, so I touch the gun’s barrel with the tip of a finger and turn it into bubbles. My father stares in awe at the rising shiny spheres. 

 

I fall on my knees and wrap my head with my hands, as if trying to keep together a broken ceramic pot. The light butchers my sight and the liquids inside me boil up. For sure, fragments of my dwindled reason evanesced to never come back, but after looking up towards my dad, who plays with the remaining clusters of bubbles, I remind myself that he’s fine, and that's enough. 

 

………. 

 

“You'll end up like him,” mother says from the corner of the bedroom. 

 

I brush dad’s tufts of hair to the side to wet his sweaty forehead. I submerge a cloth into a bowl on the nightstand and squeeze it once it’s swollen. Then, I gently pat his face with the cloth until he smiles in his sleep. 

 

It’s becoming harder to coax him away from his delusions, but deep down he’s still him, I sense it. By the morning, he’ll join us at the table and tell the lives he dreamt of last night, as he did when he was better. He’ll be the same father and husband appearing on the surviving pictures of the house.

“Just like him and your grandma.” 

 

Silence. The moon glides its pallid beam through the window and rests on the figure in the bed. My wedding ring twinkles golden under the light. 

 

I look back at my mother. She's a silhouette in the dark. 

 

“They both had good intentions.” 

 

“But at what cost?,” she points to the sleeping old man. “I'm afraid one day he’ll finish me.” “It won't happen. He hasn't used his magic in a long time.” 

 

“How do you think he got a gun? I’d send him to a senior’s house if I could. Besides that, don't call it magic Joanne, I see nothing but unnatural disgrace.” 

 

“We’ve talked about that before… he’s not safe when I'm not around. And that unnatural disgrace made your life easier, mother.” 

 

“And I'm thankful.” 

 

“If it weren't for it, I wouldn't have met Lewis, he’d still be a dead kid lost in the woods...”

​

“Lewis, Lewis…” 

 

I snort and continue nursing my father. 

 

“That idiot… he unleashed that disgrace in you-” 

 

“-and you in dad.” 

 

She stands up and gets a step closer, raises his hand in a threatening way, and opens her mouth for a second… but she shuts it down. Instead, she walks toward the door and stops under its frame. 

 

“I've told you the same since you were a kid, honey… be smarter… It'd kill me to see a delusional stranger in my daughter’s place.” 

 

She waits for my answer without moving, but I keep on doing my thing.

“Anyways… I'll go to work now, and after checking on Lewis at home I will come back here.” 

 

I look at her. Something in her is off though. Maybe the light of the room deepens her wrinkles or she’s bought new clothes, but it’s as if her features were someone else’s. 

 

………. 

 

Diane’s smile is missing a few teeth. She told me her last sweet tooth fell off last night, so I've told her to put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy. The whites of the hospital room would blind if it weren't for the drawings and decorations we’ve both made, and the balloons and toys she’s received throughout the months she’s been here. Opalescent drawn figures adorn the space as they illustrate stories of knights saving princesses from dragons, astronauts crossing the universe to find the brightest star, and kids like her growing up… 

 

Besides my parents and Lewis, she's the only one who also knows my secret. One day, based on a dream she told me about, I made snow fall from the ceiling and animals speak, after learning that apparently she wouldn't survive the night, but she did. Another time, I gave her fairy wings so she could fly around after one of her arms got amputated, and up there, I saw an angel. However, without her knowing, I've been using my powers to try to cure her. All that at my own health expenses. 

 

She hugs me for a long time after I enter through the door. The dimple on her right cheek is more visible when she’s truly content, so I pull her up and caress her face. We say nothing… our attachment is enough. 

 

“They told you yet?,” she pulls me closer with her only arm but I linger in confusion. Now, more than ever, the little girl burns in elation whereas my inners shudder in doubt. 

 

“What happened?” 

 

Lauren smoothly appears on the scene and reposes on the frame. The weary gaze of Diane’s mother is inscrutable behind her shuddering smile. 

 

“They let me go out for the weekend ‘cause I've taken all of my medicines.”

 

“Really sweetie?” 

 

I look back at Lauren, who contains her tears. I understand…

A beast emerges in my stomach and rips apart my heart and impedes words from coming out of my throat. I bury Diane in my arms and avoid howling. The world revolves faster as if unaware of the situation. Lauren covers her mouth to hide her shedding tears. 

 

“Why are you guys crying?!!!” 

 

“It’s nothing,” Lauren interrupts, “we’re just so happy to see how much you’ve improved.” 

I want to root out the cancer from her, to use my scythe to put an end to the invasive weeds that have corrupted the kid’s body. I remember that my grandmother, before she went insane, once taught me that our powers have limits and they work in mysterious ways, but how could I revive a kid decades ago and not even be able to heal another one now? 

 

………. 

 

I sit on the chair next to the kid’s bed. I gaze at the room and sigh. Tears have been shed enough. I recall the stories I told during our games and before her treatments. I wish I could believe that there could be a world where shapeshifting castles, talking animals, and eternal youth potions are natural and easily reachable. But I've lived, obtained, and lost so much that I've come to terms with my existence. That superheroes only exist in the movies and magic belongs to fairy tales. 

 

Lauren lays with Diane. I approach them and pose my hands on their foreheads, then close my eyes and let the light do its work. As a shiny little star, the room is lit by it and seeps into their face skin. For a moment, their heads glitter in the dark like a lighthouse guiding sailors in the sea. I see their dreams… they fill the gaps of my mind. 

 

I give the mother and daughter a thousand years in one night, before the latter leaves.

 

………. 

 

I cast the car to drive itself. I dont give a damn of what it caused in my head. 

 

It takes me a while to recognize my house in the homogeneous streets of the suburbs, but thanks to an enchantment I conjured when Lewis and I bought it, ours shines green just for my eyes. 

 

I park but stay in the car for half an hour. I sense the world moving throughout the universe, which in turn, is unaware of the earth’s scratch on its vastness. My hands are nothing. The fire inside is nothing. I see my future-self encaged and forsaken in a hospice, just like my grandmother, my great-grandfather, and those unfortunates that came before them. The fire I carry in my hands destroys instead of giving warmth.

I come out once the sun sets in the horizon. However, the main door of my house is slightly open. Lewis’ car is not here yet. 

 

I prepare my hand in case something happens and slide the door without making any sound. I tip toe inwards and look around. The furniture is where they should be placed. The windows are intact. There’s no sort of prints on the floor. But the lights are on. 

 

A noise upstairs guides me towards a figure in the darkness of the restroom. It is arranging the mirror cabinets looking for something. The medicine bottle and makeup click when impacting with each other. It is the only known sound. 

 

Its prominent silhouette almost reaches the ceiling. Its rapid long fingers move like spiders foraging in the wild. A bestial moaning emanates everytime it gasps for air. 

I stay in my place. My hand shakes at the speed of my heart. Sweat streams down my face. The power in me is nowhere to be found. What's that creature?!! 

 

The moon beam breaks through the window. Its sharpened light creates a division between the monster and me like day and night. Water and fire. Insanity and reason. So, from where I stand, I recharge my power and feel the warmth vaporizing. Memory particles peel off from my skull as chicks molting their feathers to transform. I don't transition but convulse. 

 

The creature pierces me with his golden eyes. It broadens its shoulders by anger and prepares itself to tackle me and devour me. Its shape eats away the light from the glass and we go dark. The dazzle of its eyes expand as twin full moons in deep black, and as a wolf cub, I frighten instead of howling at them. 

 

My hand doesn't respond. It’s its presence. I'm able to recall most of my memories, but I break.… 

 

Before I surrender on my knees, a man unknown to me prevents my fall. We're alone in the restroom. The darkness still reigns but there’s no traces of the beast. 

 

“Joahhne, you arrived early?” 

 

The features of his face don't follow a recognizable pattern. However, a prominent scar on his head draws a sinuous river that touches his right eye. The scar is of Lewis’ but not the face. The man hugs me while a ring in my finger shines a vague light under the moonbeam, but I wonder where it came from.