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After the death of my father I did not dare to dream I could feel that childish light again. I suppose I was correct in some regard for my heart did not lighten with each step I took, inching ever closer to him. I had once spent years alone living in a fantasy to keep my mind straight and my heart apart. But I suppose I should have wished for less.
This had been the moment I had dreamed of- yes dear Savior I can see the excitement in your eyes—my tale will have its end— I had given my mind for the chance to end his and this was the moment which we had both shed lives. The creature, the horrid creation I had mistakenly given a mind and body belonging solely to the form of man, now stood alone in the far corner of this tomb, awaiting my arrival.
Over the years of my hunt he had always appeared as grotesque as the cursed day he opened those rotting eyes. The same hand he had once reached towards my face, the same hand he must have used to asphyxiate Williams’s throat–is now the hand that stills as the sight of the man capable of bringing him the same pain he inflicted to others.
This sight had once had me frozen in fear, but now all I felt was the burning anger that ran through my blood as the creature roamed free. I had spent years hunting this creature, I prepared my mind, body and soul to put an end to his miserable life. So when his arm suddenly snatched at me, I was ready. With the knife I carried on me for this sole purpose I slashed at the creature–but he moved faster than my arm could swing and quickly retreated. Again, I lunged forward to strike him but he once more danced just out of reach.
We fought as one would dance with another, a dreadful ballet of violence, both moving in an unnatural tandem. I tried to keep a clear mind–I truly did–but with every step the creature took my sight began to fog, until the only view I saw was a yellow blur moving gracefully across the ground.
I began to lose focus as my arm swung harder with less control, with less precision, still the creature evaded each slice to silently dance around, his eyes never once leaving mine.
“Dreaded creature stop. You pled a miserable being yet you still cling to life when peace death will bring” I roared in a moment of anger. I had spent so long hunting him. What right did he have to stop me now? To proclaim his pain yet still dangle along where I could not catch him?. My words, though spoken in fury, struck something–he froze, if only for a second. A simple second but it was all I needed to graze his arm before he could move. Letting out a roar the creature viewed his arm, his eyes scrunching tight and face anguished as he assessed the damage. Joy and grim satisfaction filled my chest but my celebration would wait for the creature still lived and was filled with strength. With another step I quickly slash the creature again, this time the arm he used to cover his first wound and again the creature roared with a wild screech flinging his arms out wildly as though to defend himself from any other attacks.
With two strikes in I approached again my movement quick so as to not get caught by his arms. Another slash followed by a fourth and a fifth. Oh each slash and each shriek filled me with more joy and relief to finally end this dreaded creature. Yet I see now with each strike my confidence grew. As did my ego. I felt I could finally kill him, but how could I truly kill something so monstrous–a creature that could knock trees down with a swing of his arm?. Never matter now nor then as the creature suddenly gripped my wrist the next time my arm came down to slash again. With his grip as harsh as his stares which he brought with no mercy, he dragged me closer and snatched both of my arms before I could begin to think of striking him again.
He was tall–too tall–that I felt a stab in my neck looking up at him, but he would not look at me. What fascinated him so I do not know for he simply held me but his eyes straying toward where I had entered.
“Dreaded creature, will you kill me now?” I spat. “Strike me if you have strength for your words!” I fooling taunted. I admit my words were bold but my heart trembled as I saw how easily he held my arms with the same strength a mother held her babe. Not with the same gentleness but secure in all the same. Yet he did not strike but my words were enough to stir him from his fascination and turn his gaze upon mine.
With a blank face, he spoke “Creator of mine is that what you wish? You wish for your end so close to your goal?” I had not realized how much those words would strike my heart but they did. Oh how they did. Rage. Fear. How could I die now, with the faces of my family so close to heart. My Elizabeth… How could I not fight, when ending him was all I had left.
With renewed strength I began to struggle, but the creature did not move, his grip only strengthened. Oh but I did not stop. His hand gripped my arms but my hands were free to dig my fingers into the open wounds of his arms.
The creature roared.
His grip loosened enough for me to slide free and stumble back from his grasp. I could only watch as the creature shrieked at his wound, his arms wrapping around himself in pain and heartbreak as he held his arm. I wish I could have creeped closer but his failing body blocked the exit and my knife was dropped at his feet during the struggle.
Eventually his cries calmed. The creature looked up at me. He did not move nor speak simply stood by with a flow of red trailing down his arm.
Now I plead with you to not mistake this as a moment of calm. There was no calm between us. All I saw was rage and pain. The creature would not strike me but nor would he let me leave.
“What now?” I cried. “What more will you do? Will you strike me? Will you finally get your revenge for your dead wife? WHAT MORE WILL YOU DO.” I had enough. I had enough. In that moment all the pain, grief and anger I carried, was let out as I shrieked at the creature. I had tired of our game of cat and mouse and my arms still stung from his grip. It would not surprise me if bruises already bloomed beneath my sleeves. My body ached, and the suspense of his silence was unbearable.
“Victor Frankenstein”
His voice was low and enough to fill my body with chills as I watched him.
“Victor Frankenstein” he repeated. “Will you continue your pursuit or will you settle your grievance against me for a provisional time?” His words were measured, articulated, but filled with sorrow. “I have meager patience for such a man with uncultivated character. Oh, Creator, whilst you let me speak as thy let me once? Your abhorrence wounds me but not without cause yet vanity is not without its cascade and you, dear Frankenstein, are overflowing with it”
“So speak no more and let me render my speech to your bitter soul.” The creature still guarding the exit did not move a step nor did his face change but his voice grew more piercing with each word that I was unable to do anything but listen to his miserable plea. “You have arrived closer to your wish then you ever previously could. You have no chance Frankenstein but you will not die now. You still do not understand. You still do not suffer.” His words so staggering my words formed before I could think.
“I have suffered enough wretch”
“Have you?” his voice turned bitter, “You have lost all but I had lost all before I could possibly understand what there was to own. I was robbed by men like you. Your suffering is only a miniscule shadow of the loss I bore from the moment I was wretched into this world”. His words were tainted in pain and perhaps somewhere, deep inside long ago, I could sympathize with his grief but his implication of my pain being lesser only threw me into a blind fury.
“It was never yours to own. You truly believe this world owes you anything? You are not fit to belong, you have lost nothing.” Without thinking I rushed at the creature arms flying wild without thought. “You have only stolen and killed and plunged what was not yours and yet you still cry pain. No you wretch. No you never deserved. You have never owned. You have no right to mourn what was never yours”. With those words my arms lunged out to grab at the creature’s injuries and dig my nails into them, digging deeper, ripping flesh. I grabbed and ripped and through the clouded rage I could feel something warm covering my hands and flowing to my arms. With anguish strength I thought this would finally be the end of the creature but then–a decaying arm swung out and smacked me hard in the stomach. I had landed hard on my back and for a few seconds the world darkened and my hearing vanished. I’m unsure how long I laid, couldn’t possibly be more than a minute before a blurry shadow stood over me. It was him. The creature.
Oh what a fool I was. What a fool I was for building this creature. I was a fool for giving him life. I was a fool for releasing him into this world. I should have destroyed before he could live, as I had done with the bride.
He stared, silent. Not a word was said but something in the silence weighed heavier than any blow.
“You still don’t understand,” he sighed as though speaking with a spoiled child. With no sign of violence I took the opportunity to sit up and steadily move away from the creature.
“What is there to understand wretch? You have already wailed your story to me. I have no more to offer you” I spat finally finding a wall to guard my back, my sight never once leaving his. At this the creature sighed again, his eyes scurrying to the sides as though searching for an answer that had hidden itself from him. The river of red painting his arms only seemed to grow larger.
“You are an intelligent man, Victor Frankenstein, although it pains me to even consider, how could you not be when you have constructed life from death” he declared before going silent for a few moments. “Yet it takes a mind of intellect to design the rules of life but it only takes a simple man to debauched it before it has the chance to prosper. No Victor Frankenstein you are a fool. A fool that has suffered through the pain of others and the grief of your own to fall to where you are now.” He paused. “But do thy regret? Do you thy wish to take it back or even worse do it again? I can not claim to recognize all that transpires within that wit of yours, not when we are mere strangers. But remember we stay intimate through our pain. We commune through our grief. Alone.” His voice so confident as he took a few steps forward, that pool of red still flowed steadily down his arms.
Quickly, I rose and moved as far to the right as I possibly could.
“You truly are lesser than I thought if you believe in this. I have suffered because of you. Say no more of your pain for I understand every mutter and every wound that has been inflicted. I understand what you do not” I spat as viciously as I could. Yet my words seem to throw the creature into a storm as his head whipped side to side violently.
“This is not true! This was to be a moment where you ultimately recognized your faults but–” his face contorted together, “–fools can not see past thy despondency. I was imprudent to let you get this far. I see this now.”
With heaving breaths, I finally looked up to meet his eyes.
“No. No, you wretch. No, you do not.”
His eyes grew cold. “Then thou are not to leave.” With sudden fury, he lashed out, but I had already begun to move away. With a dash to the left–opposite to where he stood–I bolted towards the spot he once blocked. The same spot where the knife lay forgotten. Quickly picking it up, I ran to the exit. No, no friend, I had learned my lesson I stood no chance against the creature. He may have indulged me once, but he would not make this mistake again.
I ran and ran until it did not feel like I was running anymore. No, I was soaring. Yet I heard no movement behind me. Unsure but too curious to resist, I turned.
There was no creature.
Alas, there was no creature following. But in a distinct shape, a man collapsed in a puddle of red. With slow steps, I stopped and turned all my attention to the creature. He was silent. Too silent. Unable to resist, I took a few steps closer and, like a prey sensing a predator, the creature’s eyes shot up to meet mine.
His expression was shrewd in a way I had never seen. With eyes as dead as the rest of him, there was no pain or grief. No, his yellow eyes watched me, not in hate but in something far worse.
Disappointment.
This was no longer a predator, no longer a creature. Curled in on himself, bleeding and broken, he was no longer a thing of terror but a dying shadow in the snow. I had believed once that this sight would bring me triumph, but all I felt was a hollow weight buried in my chest.
It seemed that the creature left in a pool of red blood, as mad as it is to say, what monster bleeds as red as a man–was now dying from a lack of it. He had never expressed a dying pain, but his crumpled form appeared frozen, and among the vastness of the land, he presented himself as small and harmless. From a distance, he did not appear as a monster but as a man. From this distance, he appeared as beautiful and human as he did before I had given him life.
I had bested the monster. But the monster had already been dying.
I had defeated the monster. But I had only finished the task, life had already begun.
With a feeling tight in my heart I could not name, I broke eye contact, turned again and ran, sprinting blindly–that would, in some strange blessing, later lead to you finding me– and ran until the sounds of the wind no longer howled at me.
The creature was not dead.
Not yet.
Perhaps he would die there, laid alone and forgotten, or perhaps he would survive, he has always been peculiar. But on whether the creature truly lived or died–
I no longer wished to find out.