Malachai

WARNING: This story contains content some readers may find distressing.

Images for this come from the dark recesses of my mind.

The first time I saw him we were on holiday, somewhere in Whitby. I wasn’t very old, six maybe, yet I remember the room so vividly. The bed was raised two steps higher than the rest of the room, shrouded by draped nets. Matching nets danced in a breeze trickling in from the balcony. Waiting behind a door on the far side of the room an en suite bathroom was situated, raised to the same level as the bed.

I was standing in the doorway watching my parents sleep, something had woken me and I was seeking comfort. He was at the foot of the bed, watching them too.

Midnight. Everything about him was so dark he blended in to the shadows, everything except his face. There were bright white circles painted around each eye and his mouth. Lines ran from his nose across his cheeks and another down the bridge of his nose. I suspected from the glow beneath his hair there were more on his forehead. He wore his hair in dreadlocks that hung just past his ears. And his eyes, so dark I was unsure there was anything sitting in the sockets but air and emptiness.

Slowly he raised a hand and pointed towards my parents. No, not my parents, just my mother. She lay on her back, pregnant belly protruding, uncovered, into the air. Without looking back to the foreign figure cloaked in the night I wandered over to the bed, climbed the steps and tumbled over my father. Once in between them I wriggled down and felt my mother turn to cradle me.

Lifting my head I looked back to where the figure stood still as a statue. With impeccable care he cradled his arms and swung as though an invisible baby lay between them. One hand broke free and a single finger made its way across his throat. I frowned and rested my head back on the edge of my mother’s pillow. I balled my fist and drew up my knees. Closing my eyes I kicked out with all my might feeling the heel of my foot connect with the mountain of unborn baby nestled at my back.

My mother stills looks at me with accusing eyes. I guess now she’ll have reason to let her eyes show the hatred she feels towards her own child. It took me many years to figure out why he made me do it. After that night I didn’t escape becoming a brother, I now have two siblings, alive and breathing air outside the womb. Eventually it dawned on me that the first one was a test, a trial of how willing I was to follow his orders. I passed and I’ve been following him ever since.

Malachai, Copyright of Lucy Marsh 09/02/2013