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The heavy scent of smoke fills Abel’s lungs, forcing him into awakening. He feels lightheaded, confused, and as he tries to take a breath it catches in his throat, forcing a heaving cough out of the young boy.
Darkness surrounds him, he notices, the moon-shaped night light seems to have gone out during the night. Still, Abel is not scared; not when the smoke makes it almost unbearable to breathe, not when he starts to hear quick footsteps and muffled voices outside of his room.
Sweating, he stumbles out of his bed. His mouth feels so dry, so he reaches for the glass of water his mother had left on the bedside table the night before and, rubbing his already irritated eyes, makes his way towards the door.
“Mamma?” He calls out, his voice meeting no answer. “Gabriella, is that you?” He tries again, and it falls on deaf ears.
His face feels hot, like the flesh could melt right off his bones. He takes one step, reaches for the handle, and the door flies open with a burst of red, suffocating flames.
—
Abel wakes with a scream, sheets bundling around his hips and trapping his legs when he tries to move. Panting, he looks around as his eyes adjust to the darkness of his room.
“A dream.” He thinks, taking in as many details of his room as he can; the collection of vinyls sitting on top of his dresser, the couple of posters hanging over his desk, the wrinkled bunch of clothes sitting on his chair, which he had left there the night before, promising himself that he’d sort them out in the morning.
When Abel’s eyes land on the full-length mirror that stands a few feet away from his bed, he feels his body tense up, a dreadful weight settling on his chest. He can see himself in there, small and weak, like the child that did nothing to save his family, and standing next to the bed is a tall, slim figure. Panicked, his eyes dart to the spot where they should be, and he barely manages to crawl back a couple of inches before he’s being held captive by the sheets that so oppressively tie around his legs, like a snake around its prey.
The figure moves closer, and as the dim light that makes it past the blinds illuminates their face, Abel can start to make out a familiar face.
His sister’s face.
“Gabriella…” He calls out, hopeful, like the last seventeen years of his life have been nothing but a bad dream and he’s once again a child, being comforted by his dear older sister.
Except it’s not his sister. It has never been.
As the figure steps into the light and he makes out more and more details, the horror builds in his chest, panic keeping him glued to where he sits even though every single fiber of his body is aching to run away, to free itself from the living Hell he is experiencing. Abel can see the woman’s face now, the absence of a lively shine in her left eye, as blue as his own. The other side of her face is no better, the flesh melted over her fair features like candle wax, turning her loving smile into a dreadful grimace as she extends a charred hand towards him.
“ Fratellino …” She whispers, but Abel knows it’s not Gabriella’s voice, it’s not the voice that used to sing songs every morning and read him stories every night. It’s hoarse and shrieky, and when her hand lands on his arm he can feel the skin start to bubble and burn under her touch, but as much as he tries to scream, no voice will leave his throat. “... It was all your fault. You didn’t save us, it was your fault, YOUR FAULT, IT WAS YOUR FAULT–”
—
The sound that finally comes out of him can only be described as pathetic , that of a scared animal, a hopeless, weak child in the hands of Death itself, and not the ruthless killer he’s grown to become.
This time, no ghosts haunt him in his sleep, no shadows lurk in the corner of his eye, no fire can take away everything that he holds dear, for he no longer has anything else to lose.
He has nothing, except five words that ceaselessly ring in his mind.
“ It was all your fault .”