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Mick stared up at the ceiling of his room from his four-poster bed, the first clean and comfortable surface he’d slept on following his several month stint of being homeless. Painful memories came rushing back to him in a whirlwind of images and emotions—blood-curdling screams, soulless black eyes, the terror he had practically choked on at the sight of his parents’ corpses—and it took him a while to come back to the present. He had been taken in by a kind but strict woman named Dr. Hess and enrolled at an institute called Kendricks. Not only was it the top school in London, but it would teach him how to be a hunter: someone who tracks down and kills monsters so that the tragedy that befell him wouldn’t happen to anyone else.
He was rooming with an Arthur Ketch, someone he hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. From what Dr. Hess had told him Arthur was a hard worker, if a bit rough around the edges, and right around his age. He’d taken to hunting almost immediately, and was near the top of his class. If Mick worked just as hard, the two of them should get along just fine, she’d said. He didn’t really know if this hunting thing was for him, but who was he to question Dr Hess if she thought this school would be good for him? She’d saved him from a life of pickpocketing and living off scraps, and it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go. If Dr. Hess said this was the way things were going to be from now on, that was good enough for him.
A year later, he would seriously question that line of thinking.
Mick felt numb, the frigidness in his chest a sharp contrast to the scorching heat of his still bloody hands. A murderer’s hands. He couldn’t believe he’d just… Oh, Timothy. How could he live with himself knowing he’d killed his best friend in cold blood? He knew he owed the Men of Letters everything, that he would do anything they asked of him, but this? This had been too much, and he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to look at himself the same. He sat in the middle of his bed, uniform rumpled and ruined by his earlier tussle, staring down at his violently shaking hands. A tear splashed on his palm, creating a small trail of pink that dripped and stained his clean white sheets. Another fell beside it, and it was like a dam burst. Unable to hold back his sobs anymore, he curled in on himself and mourned the loss of his friend and the person he used to be.
It would be some time before the door to the room opened, and Mick sat up to see a trembling Arthur walk in, face and neck covered in a spray of crimson. He shut the door quietly behind him before collapsing onto his own bed with a dull thud!, staring blankly and wordlessly at the ceiling.
“A-Arthur?” Mick asked hesitantly, sniffling. When he didn’t get a response, he made his way across the room and tried again. “A-Arthur, what—”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Mick,” the older boy whispered harshly, eyes watering and fists clenched at his side.
Mick sniffled again, but didn’t ask again. He laid down beside Arthur on his bed, and the two boys shifted until they were back to back. They couldn’t bring themselves to look at each other, afraid of the horror and rejection they would find if they revealed what they’d done. An uncomfortable yet understanding silence settled between them for a few agonizing minutes until Mick couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“It was Timothy,” he said, swallowing against a lump in his throat. “I… I killed him, Arthur.”
Mick felt Arthur tense before his friend turned around to face him.
“What do you mean you killed him, Mick? Did they… Did he…”
Mick quickly shook his head, forcing down a sob.
“Dr. Hess said that only one of us could leave the room, that only one of us could become a Man of Letters. I didn’t want to do it, Arthur, but I didn’t want to die either.” He stared anywhere except at his hands and his bloodstained uniform, ashamed and distraught. “I don’t know how I can live with myself knowing that… that he’s gone because of me.”
Silence returned, and Arthur couldn’t help but feel the ache in his heart as Mick failed to hold back a shuddering cry. He finally relented.
“Alexander,” he whispered. “The other person in the room… It was Alexander.”
Mick let out a shaky breath.
“And did you…?”
The question hung in the air unfinished, but Arthur knew what he was asking.
“No.”
“No? What do you mean no? Then how did you—”
“He went over to the desk and took the knife. I thought he was going to kill me with it and I didn’t plan on trying to stop him. It’s not as if I could have. But then he… he looked at me as if I were the most important thing in the world to him… and the last words he said to me were, “I love you, little brother.” Th-Then… Then, he walked up to me, hugged me, and… He slit his own throat. H-He died in my arms.”
Arthur heard his voice crack, vision blurring as he finally broke down, but he didn’t care anymore. The one person who knew him best, the only real family he’d ever had, was dead, because of him. He felt more than saw Mick wrap his arms around him, eyes squeezed shut against the tears that just wouldn’t stop falling.
“I’m so sorry, Arthur.”
The pair desperately clung to each other, shaking and sobbing and trying to understand why things had to be the way they were. They hung onto the knowledge that they understood each other, that they weren’t facing this pain alone, until they were out of tears to cry and drained of energy to mourn. It wouldn’t be long before a strained silence fell over the room, the two falling into an uneasy and exhausted sleep.