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On this wretched and cold night among the icy tundras of the Arctic, I stood among the many bodies of Robert Walton’s crew. No longer did they screech and hiss their demeaning names at me, those of which compared me to a monster.
I took all their men from this miserable existence, one by one, cold stitched hands crushing warm and pulsing throats. I felt the wind sweep through the air lightly and blow a cold breeze on my face.
Within my gaze held no emotions, for I could not play with the thought even for a moment of feeling any regret anymore. I have traversed that road and it is one of the utmost anguish. Of all creatures, I would know this the best. With all the travesties I have allowed myself to endure, my cursed mind holds the paramount of anguish and sorrow. None of that matters now, anyway.
I let my eyes close for a moment, darkness enveloping my vision, only the cold and the creaking of the ship and the light crashing of calm waves filling my ears. The ears that were cold to the point where they should have been causing me pain if the allegedly sensitive nerves weren’t dead from the day I was brought into this world.
A thought played in my mind, a simple thought; I wonder if he’s woken . The notion should have made me grin—yes, such abject horror to be played among his idiotic and dogmatic face, seeing that I have truly killed everyone he had ever known and did not plan to stop no matter what—but instead it made my eyes flutter open to take another glance at what I had done. The corpses of Victor’s companions lay on the floor in such unabashed clumsiness. Limbs strewn about in an attempt to pry my monstrous hands from their throats, thrashing and kicking and screaming and then, nothing more.
Leaning down, I slowly reached towards one of the bodies. That of which just so happened to belong to Robert Walton, the one my creator had managed to care the most about in the end. My hand landed on his exposed throat. The angry red marks that I had created were easily discernible and ran my fingers across the delicate and smooth skin of his neck.
I brought my other hand up to graze my own hard and practically unfeeling fingers against my throat. I did not expect to be greeted with elegant and soft skin such as Walton’s, but it still displeased me to feel the ragged bumps and scars of healed stitching. The skin on my throat was colder than even the dead Walton’s, I noticed, and it made me want to cast my stare away from where I made contact with the corpse. Alas, I found that I couldn’t look away.
Whether it was a strange fascination or just pure self-hatred that made me want to continue to explore the differences between a real human being and myself; I do not know, or maybe I did deep inside my soul.
In the small number of years I have lived, I have discovered that the human mind is cavernous, for I never seem to run out of purely wretched emotions and thoughts. Perhaps this is only applicable to a cursed creature such as I. Human beings always seem to find a way to work everything out, in their little hovels with their happy social circles and their sunshine-filled days in each other’s company. If humans felt such as I did; with emotions and thoughts clawing at my brain begging to be felt alongside the sentiments I already do, and the sentiments that I try my best to shove deep down inside of myself, with the unbearable sadness and anger that bores a hole into my very being, I can surely come to the conclusion that they would not be as happy as they seem.
What is to be unhappy about when you are blessed with love to receive, a brazen and audacious love that you have not earned, but were instead given to by the Gods when you were born? Even faced with hardships, the DeLaceys remained happy and blissful in their own company. Is that not enough?
My thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the clicking of a lock behind me, shattering the silence that had been placed over the ship and its dead passengers like a comforting but cold blanket. I didn’t have to turn around to be exceedingly aware that it was my wretched creator standing in the doorway, but whether or not he had brandished a pistol and pointed it at my back was an estimate that I was apathetic to in hindsight.
At a slug’s pace, I drew my hands away from my own throat and Walton’s body, pushing my hulking form up and raising myself into the cold night air. His voice rang out from behind me, weakened from falling ill for the last few days, only just recently regaining lucidity for the time being. “You.”
His voice was weaker than I expected but still held the same hatred for me—and for himself for creating me—that I knew best. I am unaware as to why I waited so long to turn around, but I was staring ahead of me at the cold dead night when he shouted again, “look at me, demon.”
I did not turn around just yet. I attempted not to ponder over why his voice sounded so much more broken than any other times I’ve seen him, alas it was in vain. Why, my creator, do you sound so sad? The presence of a monster such as I should invigorate anger. You should be hollering wretched names at me with your useless rage that makes me grin.
“You have made me a miserable man, you have killed everything that comes your way, the least you can do is turn around and face me, beast!”
Ultimately, I faced him. I turned around in one slow motion and looked upon his small frame, wrapped in thin blankets and shivering. There was no pistol in his hand as I had expected, but that brought me no comfort. Sadness wracked his pitiful shape, and his face was twisted in a woeful expression. He was so much more frail and smaller than I had remembered, but he was still my Victor Frankenstein.
At the sight of my abhorrent face a rage sparked within him anew, he straightened his back slightly and furrowed his eyebrows. I wish I was able to grin at this development, but no I could sense no oncoming emotions that could relieve me from this ice that was forming around my heart.
He opened his mouth to speak and faltered for a beat before stating, “hateful being. Creature from Hell. I have no reason to live anymore, all because of you. Is that what you so desired to hear?”
“No,” I managed. I know not why I said it. Wasn’t it what I desired after all?
He seemed taken aback by my statement. “No? Then why have you murdered all that I have loved and cherished in one fell swoop, with no remorse?”
This only fueled my anger and I felt the ice in my heart grow colder. “You do not know the extent of my grief.”
At this, the man scoffed, “your grief? You have no room for grief in your hateful heart!”
I said nothing, and this seemed to enrage him further. “Speak, foul beast! Defend yourself,” I observed him as he began to stumble towards me, halting when he had crossed the midway point of the distance that was once between us. “You—” He seemed to choke on his words as he looked to my feet, seeing the cold and dead man at lying there that he once knew to be his companion during his bouts of sickness. A sob escaped his throat and his body hitched, gripping the blanket thrown around his shoulders like it would shield him from the horrors that reality held.
“Purveyor of evil, you have... You have left me with nothing,” His voice was scarcely above a whisper. His head was downcast, brown locks protecting his face from my sight.
“DEMON!” He yelled, his voice echoing through the empty tundra with what I thought was renewed vigor and he sped at me as fast as he could manage, which was admittedly not very fast. He crashed into me, fists raised into the air, slamming his hands into my chest. I merely stood there, watching as he passionately battered me with his tiny fists. As he did this, he muttered insults towards me and his tribulations into my chest.
It surprised me, even if he had been hitting me with his utmost strength, he had not been hurting me. I was unaware of myself—peering down at his face screwed in frustration, tears flowing down his cheeks—as I lifted my arms and brought them around him, guiding him to my chest and holding him there in an embrace.
For a moment he shouted at me with a voice overpowered by tears, voice breaking pathetically every few words, attempting to struggle out of my grasp. He thrashed and wailed and it dawned upon me that his actions were akin to how a man struggled when I would end his life. Was hugging me, a hideous creature, such as grim as death?
A minute or so had passed before he had ceased his struggling and sunk quietly into my frame, fists unmoving and propped against me, his forehead pressing onto me. I could not see his face, for it was buried into me, but I could see the top of his head and I could smell his scent. It was of the sea and of sweat, nothing pleasant or comforting, alas, I found myself drawn to it, leaning my head downwards and planting my nose there. I felt him flinch.
The warmth of his head radiated onto me and perhaps it unfroze a part of my heart as well because I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes.
“I despise you,” He whispered hoarsely, to my heart.
“I love you,” I replied.
His delicate fists un-clenched and his palms rested on my chest. He hitched again in a pathetic sob, beginning to cry against my body. I allowed him, as he cried with unrelenting force. His sobs wracked his body and I held him up as if his own legs didn’t work for him anymore, practically crushing him into my chest. A tear broke free from my eye and thus followed more. His gasps created a patch of heat on my clothes, and I felt as if my heart was glowing and breaking free of its icy grip once more.
I had not allowed myself to cry for months previous, always ignoring that itching feeling of sadness at the back of my brain. Fortunately, I was forcing myself to stay strong and succeeding, if not for myself than for Victor.
I did not want to admit to myself that I needed him to need me.
His crying lasted for a long while but I was planted in my spot, built to care for him. At one point he took a final gasp of air and fainted as he tends to do, dropping in my arms with as much grace as a dead man. I will not tell you of the worry this ignited inside of me, lifting his delicate body into my arms and carrying him back into the cabin, closing the door behind us and locking it as if I thought it would make the world and its afflictions vanish.
With utmost care I placed him back into his cot and covered him with a number of blankets and my own jacket. The moonlight shone upon his face, light magnified by its reflection on the ice and snow, and he looked like one of God’s angels.
Even in his state of disrepair and emaciation did he look like he was unearthly and divine. He was beautiful and it made me forget how detestable I was myself.
I leaned down slowly and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek, and astonishingly it was so soft and smooth that it caught me off guard. I desired to kiss it again, and again, and again, and I wanted to destroy him in his absolute perfection. In love and in hate, I planted another kiss on his cheek and a tear dripped from my eye to leave my third and final mark on him.
The tundra was freezing, and I was alone, leaving behind the almost lifeless ship with my dear Frankenstein resting inside. I do not know when he passed, but I know he was not able to survive his sickness.
He wasn’t all that strong, anyway.