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Maybe there was another way to do this, but it seemed like the only way.
Matthew had taken care not to seriously injure Alfred in the process, but if it really came to it, if Alfred tried to escape and ruin everything, he’d show no mercy. That said, he’d thought about breaking just Alfred’s limbs now to make escaping less likely, but he ultimately decided to spare him that misery. For now.
Everyone was doing it on purpose. That had to be it. There was no way that all of them just happened to overlook and forget him, it had to be intentional, they couldn’t all possibly be blind. And it was all Alfred’s fault, that greedy hog. He always had to have everyone’s eyes on him, he always had to have their complete and undivided attention, and for what? He didn’t do anything special, he wasn’t anything special, yet everyone flocked to him, what was that all about? Was it his noisiness? People tend to be attracted to loud noises, and Alfred’s very existence was noise: loud, cacophonous, meaningless. Being loud didn’t necessarily make him likable. People approaching him didn’t mean they liked him.
But things could change. Matthew could be more sensible, more thoughtful, more genuine than Alfred could ever be. If anything, Matthew was doing Alfred a favor, even if he couldn’t be around to benefit from it. Matthew would wipe himself off the face of the Earth and Alfred would replace him; he would become Alfred, and in turn, he would turn Alfred into a new man, in every sense of the term. It didn’t matter that Matthew “wouldn’t be around anymore.” No one would notice or care, anyway.
He closed the cellar door and locked it behind him. There were no windows down there, and even if there were, Alfred was chained up, anyway. Maybe leaving him chained up in a dark cellar was cruel, but Matthew would come by to check on him every now and then, he wasn’t that cruel. And if Alfred died before his next visit? Oh well.
The breeze that hit him upon opening the cabin door was brisk. After closing and locking the door behind him, he took a deep breath, for this was a new beginning. Matthew had gotten that bastard out of his way, and from now on, he’d be wearing Alfred’s skin.