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Ilmo stepped out of the Sheriff’s station, the rain striking him like needles, cold and unrelenting. He kept his gaze on the ground, watching the raindrops splatter against the pavement, each one washing away remaining traces of blood from his hands - washing away Jaakko's blood.
His brother was dead. He was a twin with no pair, lost without his other half.
What was he supposed to do now?
Ilmo forced everything down - stuffing his grief, his heartbreak, the image of Jaakko’s lifeless eyes looking blankly up at him - burying it all beneath a mask of determination. He needed to be strong, the protector of the town. He needed to be the leader of the Cult of the Tree that Saga needed him to be. The town couldn’t afford for him to spend the time to mourn.
He could do this.
He clenched his jaw, tightening his grip on his jacket, trying to convince himself that he could do this.
He had to do this.
But then he turned to his right, and he saw them. Charlie and Charline were a few yards down the sidewalk, approaching him through the rain, and he froze as he saw them. His heart lurched, a cold panic gripping his chest.
No. Not them.
The mask he had so carefully constructed so easily cracked, splintering under the weight of reality. His breath hitched, his vision blurring for a moment as they came closer, Charlie waving with a wide, oblivious grin while Charline hung back, her arms crossed against the chill.
No, no, he couldn’t do this.
Ilmo had just lost Jaakko - his brother, their father - and he couldn't do this.
The words he had been preparing to say dissolved into nothing, replaced by a raw, aching void. A desperate need to keep pretending, to keep hiding the truth, surged through him. If he could just keep holding it back for a few more moments...
How was he supposed to tell them that their father was dead?
But then Charlie’s voice cut through the rain, dragging Ilmo back into the present as gently as a hurricane, and Ilmo had to fight to keep breathing.
"Uncle Ilmo!" Charlie called, waving to him with a wide grin as he bounded up, his energy almost bouncing off the rainy pavement. Charline followed at a slower pace, shivering in the rain. "We've been looking for you! Or, well, our dad. But y'know, find Ilmo and you'll find Jaakko, or whatever they say. Have you seen him? We heard people saying you guys were at the Sheriff's station, apparently there was a commotion over here earlier?"
"Sorry, Uncle Ilmo," Charline rolled her eyes as she came to stand beside her brother. "Charlie's had about twenty cups of coffee today, I think his brain is fried. But Dad isn't answering his phone, and we have something we really need to talk to him about. It's really important."
They would never talk to their father again.
Ilmo couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe. The words they needed - no, deserved - to hear stabbed at his chest like a knife he couldn’t pull out.
He slowly sank down to sit on the curb, the rain drumming a relentless rhythm against the pavement, soaking through his clothes until he felt the chill seep into his bones. The droplets slipped beneath his collar, but it was nothing compared to the icy grip inside him, the one that had clamped down ever since he watched Jaakko crumple to the floor of his cell, eyes wide and vacant as the shadow rose above him, his brothers hand outstretched as if he was reaching for Ilmo - hoping his brother could save him from his fate.
Ilmo pulled his jacket closer against the cold, but then he thought of how Jaakko’s jacket was draped over the shoulders of that thing wearing the writer's face, that monster that had taken his brother’s last breath, and he wished he had never thought at all.
His brother was dead.
"Ilmo...?" Charline crouched beside him, her voice tinged with a worry that cut through his numbness. Across from her, Charlie crouched too, resting a hand on his uncle's knee, his usual unstoppable energy fading into uncertainty.
"What happened, Ilmo?" Charlie asked, a hint of fear creeping into his voice. "Did something happen?"
"Why..." Charline glanced behind Ilmo, towards the Sheriff's station, its shadow looming large and cold behind them, hiding Jaakko’s body just out of sight. "Why were you at the station, Ilmo? And... where's Dad?"
Ilmo’s breath came in short, uneven gasps. His mind felt like static, like the world was moving too fast for him to catch up, each word from Charlie and Charline slipping through his grasp before he could piece together a response. He tried to hold onto the memory of Jaakko’s voice, tried to remember the way his brother used to laugh, but all he could hear was the echo of that final, empty breath.
"Kids, uhm..." He couldn’t look them in the eye. The rain pounded harder, masking the tears that mingled with the raindrops on his cheeks. "Your dad, there... there was an accident. He's... He's not..."
He couldn't fucking do this.
"Ilmo." Charline grabbed him by the shoulders, her grip firm, forcing him to meet her wide, searching eyes. "Where is our dad? Why isn't he with you?"
Charlie's eyes drifted down to Ilmo's hands, which were shaking. His brow furrowed as he looked at a dark stain on his uncle's sleeve, the faint smudge of crimson seeping into the fabric. "Ilmo, is... is that... blood?"
The rain couldn't wash away all the evidence of what had happened.
Ilmo felt like his mind was slipping, falling into a whirlpool of thoughts too fast to grasp. Charline and Charlie’s voices became a blur, as if they were coming from the other side of a radio signal that was slipping away into static.
"Ilmo, please," Charline pleaded, her voice breaking. "Where is Dad?"
Their father was dead.
"He's dead." Ilmo uttered the words, and saying them felt like he was ripping his soul apart, tearing his heart apart painful piece by painful piece. "He's dead."
Charlie and Charline staggered back as if they’d been struck.
"...what?" Charline whispered, her voice barely audible over the rain. "No, no, that's... That can't be right. Dad's not..."
"We just saw him earlier, just a few hours ago." Charlie said, shaking his head vigorously, as if trying to shake off a nightmare. "He was fine. He is fine. He's not... He can't be..."
"He's dead," Ilmo repeated, his voice barely more than a breath, "he's gone. His body..."
Charline’s gaze shifted back to the Sheriff's station, and something desperate flashed in her eyes. She scrambled to her feet, taking a step towards the door. "We need to see him. He can't be-"
Ilmo lunged forward, grabbing her wrist with a desperate grip, pulling her back. "You don’t want to see that, Charline." His voice cracked, the haunted look in his eyes cutting through the rain. He thought of his brother's body, hidden under a white sheet and stretched out in the hallway, horribly still and quiet. "You really don't want to see that."
She froze, staring at him as the rain poured down between them, as if she could somehow see into the depths of his grief.
And she saw the truth in his eyes - their father was gone.
After a moment, she sank down beside him again, her knees hitting the wet pavement with a hollow thud. Charlie fell at Ilmo’s other side, his face pale and blank.
Together, they sat on the rain-soaked curb outside the Bright Falls Sheriff Station. Ilmo wrapped his arms around his niece and nephew, trying to shield them from the cold, but no matter how tightly he held them, he couldn’t chase away the darkness that had crept into their lives.
He couldn’t keep them safe from the reality that had shattered everything they knew.
He had been supposed to protect them, protect his family, from the darkness that had crept beneath the waves of Cauldron Lake.
He had failed.
And there, beneath the relentless downpour, Ilmo wept for his brother - for Jaakko.