Written By Laura V.C
The night before, what happened the night before that he couldn’t remember? A prick of pain in Brian’s neck reminded him of two yellow eyes melting deep into him. They were like two bright bulbs; he couldn’t look away, but he knew that he should before he lost his sight. His eyes finally opened to find himself in cold, lonely darkness without the yellow eyes there to greet him. Had he been snubbed?
She gave him no name; just the sweet reminder that she was there by her scent still lingering close and her touch kept beneath his skin. It was a good reminder of the night before, he thought stretching his arms above him.
Empty air wasn’t what met his hands rather a hard surface caused the pain he suddenly felt. It was like a shock to the system. Where had that mysterious woman put him? What kind of cruel prank was she trying to pull? His eyes scanned the darkness looking for clues to where he had ended up which became easier. That’s when he screamed louder than he ever thought he would; just by the silhouette he knew where he was. He just as easily knew he didn’t want to be there. He thought he’d lose his breath, but confusingly he didn’t. “AJ!” He called with no other alternative. “Help me I’m stuck in a coffin!”
He pummeled the lid, but that only resulted in bruised knuckles, not his escape. What did she do pad lock him in? “HELP!” He howled this time.
AJ’s voice caught his heart in relief, “Brian?”
“Get me out of here!” He cried.
The lid was thrown open and he shot up to gasp for clean air. “These fans are crazy, man. I felt pasted to the floor,” AJ muttered.
Brian climbed out wiping the sweat from his brow. “We have to go now, before anything else happens,” he suggested noticing the look of concern on his best friend’s face. “Nothing else will happen AJ.”
AJ nodded subtly and the two ran to the stairs. Brian stopped on the bottom stair to feel around the wall for a switch. “Come on we don’t have time for…”
AJ’s words faltered once Brian had found the switch and flicked it. It wasn’t a bright light that flooded the room, but a dim bulb hanging over a coffin in the center of a basement. “I don’t remember this being part of the tour,” Brian mumbled glancing to AJ who looked to have stumbled on the stairs.
“We were only here to perform for a harmless birthday party. Who do those girls think they are anyway?”
“What happened last night?” Brian had to ask since AJ seemed to remember more than him at that moment.
“We performed… that’s all I can remember. What about you?”
He couldn’t even remember that much, but those yellow eyes still stayed in his mind. The yellow eyes of an entrancing woman who had him in some kind of spell he couldn’t escape for the life of him.
Fear brought his hand to his throat clutching it; each touch caused a piece of him to tremble. What kinds of secrets were hidden down there? Did anything happen that he might regret? He sucked in a heavy breath and turned to race up the stairs. He wanted answers to every question rolling about in his head. He wanted to know who the mysterious woman with the yellow eyes was. He wanted to know what brought him to that menacing castle in the first place.
He stopped in the large foyer carpeted in scarlet; in the center was a circle that looked much like a hypnotizing device; spinning and twirling on and on and on and on… The closer he looked; the more he saw of her. The woman with the yellow eyes; she stood in that circle. He remembered…
He laughed, she looked so silly standing there, but than he had drank too much anyway and the entire room was spinning not just the circle she stood in. It was a funny looking circle that began to take shape in his head “Listen to me Brian… are you listening to me?” Her voice called.
“I think so…”
“You have to listen to me, this is important.”
He wasn’t listening, but she suddenly looked amazing in that soft white dress. He approached her and lifted her to spin her gently. Down they went onto the hard floor. Why couldn’t the circle have been on the carpet?
“Brian… he cannot live without it, he cannot change without it, without it he will never be saved.”
“Without what?” His eyes were on her and he might’ve heard each word, but none of it registered. She still looked amazing and in moments he had dragged her into a kiss…
AJ’s voice caused him to stumble away from the circle, away from the memories. “What is that?”
“AJ we have to find out what happened last night,” he gasped turning to face his best friend who still had his dark eyes on the circle. He had felt so dizzy and his stomach seemed to be doing flip flops.
“You look sick man,” AJ admitted.
“We have to leave here now,” he muttered clutching his forehead.
“I’m with you, man”
He took hold of AJ’s arm to drag him to the massive front door. With all the strength he could muster he pulled that door open. A burst of sunlight struck him down to the ground, burning straight through his clothes. He couldn’t move for the pain that wracked his entire body and he heard himself cry out with a hand over his face.
That sun had once been so good to him in Florida. Through his fingers he could see AJ coming toward him and he stretched his hand out. Skin curled along his fingers as if they were all made of paper. “I’m dying man… the pain… it won’t stop,” he suddenly gasped.
AJ’s arms were felt around his ribs. He was dragged into the castle screaming, crying, and wishing he had never opened the door. AJ would make sure he made it. He had to or he knew he would die. With a swift kick from AJ the door slammed closed.
How long would it take to heal from the sun’s wounding rays? AJ walked over to him placing a cold cloth on his wound and oh how it stung. He had to take a breath; suck it in than exhale gently. How he wished he was on stage rather than stuck in a cursed castle they couldn’t leave. He wanted to go back to being the famous duo known as “AJ and B” all over the world. He missed the fans and the applause. Why did something he loved get them in so much trouble? “What’s happening to me man?” He wanted to know squinting from the cold. AJ looked at him sympathetically, but he knew that wouldn’t help the situation.
To avoid him, he gazed to the circle in the center of the foyer and remembered the words told to him by the woman with the yellow eyes…
“Brian… he cannot live without it, he cannot change without it, without it he will never be saved…”
Without what, what were they missing? He shuffled through the words as he would shuffle through a puzzle to find the missing piece. Could it be hope or faith? He was sure he had enough of that though, even though the loss was great the night before. Did she mean family? Guilt? No way the only one who should’ve been feeling that was the one that had done this to him.
Across the way he caught a wall mirror reflecting everything in that room to the sofa, and love seat to the standing lamps to the paintings, even AJ… everything but him. His breath caught in his throat nearly choking him as he felt tears well up in his eyes. He walked over to that mirror bringing his fingers to it. There was nothing, not even his fingers slowly tracing the mirror now.
Tears blurred his vision and he screamed. “This? Is this what I’m missing?” With that he swung his entire body into the mirror shattering it. Each piece fell all around him while smaller pieces rained above him, falling into his hair. “Brian what are you doing?” Cried AJ staring at him as if he had gone mad.
“I don’t know,” he choked trying to hold back his tears. What were they going to do? What was going to happen to them next?
The dark of night kept Brian awake as he sat by the bay window watching the occasional car speed past the thick gate of the massive house. His tears had built in his eyes until pin drops began to leak through. No one could save them if they had no idea how to be saved. Just than a pair of headlights flashed by the window and he covered his eyes to avoid them. “Someone’s here,” came AJ’s whisper from behind him.
Immediately he was up and out the front door staring out over the dark property. He couldn’t see anybody so maybe his brain had played tricks on him. “Brian?”
A voice, maybe that of a fan who had found out everything, “hello?”
“Brian… do not step any closer. I will make it in.”
The voice sounded familiar and he felt as if he was spinning around and around and around again…
“BRIAN NO!”
He pulled back to look down into her yellow eyes; they looked puffy and sore. She blinked over and over; her hair of black waves was a mess on her face concealing her nakedness. She was trying to gain herself. “The words sound late,” he murmured. Was he still drunk? Is that why he felt like he was spinning? Was he going to be sick?
“You… deserve this Brian. You deserve everything that comes to you. How could you do this to me?”…
With that he felt a pinch in his neck and his eyes shot open to gaze into her eyes. The eyes of the woman he remembered only too well from the night before. “What happened?” He breathed grasping her arm roughly, desperate for answers. “What did you do to me?”
Her eyes squinted closed and she yanked back. “You are not ready… I shouldn’t have come,” she muttered.
“Ready? Ready for what?” He demanded to know ready to strangle her for leaving him and AJ stranded in an abandoned castle. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO US?"
She wanted to escape he could see it brimming in her yellow eyes. “I can’t break a curse… you have to do it,” she gasped leaning back.
That’s when he felt it, a strange sensation with the unveiling of the full moon above them and in seconds he was racing after her pinning her to the ground. “Take the curse off me,” he growled, bearing his new fangs.
“I can’t,” she gasped and her eyes directed past him. He couldn’t look to watch AJ change, morph into something else, something evil. “Look inside you,” came the woman’s plea. “Understand the reason I did what I did…”
“BRIAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” AJ screamed. With that he lifted from the woman to gaze into AJ’s brown eyes. There was no change, no difference in him. Had he not been affected? “Leave her alone man,” he demanded in stance to fight. Brian was going to kill their enemy; the one whom had made him into what they were. “I want answers.”
The moment he said it, it was as if the entire world began to spin sending him into that hypnotizing circle that began to envelop his mind. He saw himself and AJ performing in that giant circle for the fan that had invited them to her birthday party. She had enjoyed them, he could see that by the wide smile on her face, but than that smile was wiped away once all her friends had left.
She had been squirming in his arms screaming until she struggled to throw him off her, but it was too late and he was too drunk. All he could see was her eyes; how angry they were; how pained they looked. “He cannot live without it, he cannot change without it, without he will never be saved. You will never be saved.” She was sobbing and choking on those words…
The woman with the yellow eyes spoke up through his memory. “I have not made you the creature that you have become.”
“The curse, those words”, he realized staring forward to AJ who was only inches away from them now.
He shook his head and pressed her into the ground. “You can’t do this, you understand you can’t do this…”
“I never wanted to do it this way,” she murmured
“LIER!”
She trembled beneath his hands and gazed up into his eyes. “I came here to tell you…”
“I don’t want you to tell me anything,” he growled.
She gasped, but before any action could be made AJ attacked him thrusting him off the woman. “Get off me,” he growled.
“You can’t do this Brian! You…”
AJ’s words faltered once Brian sank his fangs deep into the flesh of his neck. It was all he could do to save himself. He didn’t make a mistake did he? Blood, human blood seeped into his mouth tickling his tongue, streaming down his throat. He had to stop; he had to stop before it was too late. He couldn’t take it back. He let go of AJ and he slid to the ground.
“Look what you’ve done… Brian, don’t you understand?” Cried the woman. He shook his head and looked away from AJ’s body trying to contain the many tears that escaped from his eyes.
“I couldn’t let him…”
“He’s dead!” She screamed.
He tore at her in rage. No, he didn’t deserve this curse. None of this was his fault and the woman would pay. She ran for the gate hanging onto it as if that would protect her from him. It wouldn’t. He would make sure of that. “You will regret this…” His hand gripped around her throat. “I didn’t deserve this you understand? I didn’t deserve this.”
“You have learned nothing I see. Don’t you understand what you have done Brian? Are you willing to do it again?” She demanded to know beneath his grip.
“I will do what I have to, to be rid of you,” he snarled allowing his threatening fangs to show.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with, no one ever does. I’m that puzzle you can’t understand. I’m that one thing you lack. I’m the curse and Brian… I’m eternal.” With that she yanked out something from inside her midnight black cape. What was it? Her yellow eyes took on the haunting look of the full moon.
He wanted to move, but he felt that hypnotizing pull he had felt the night before. She was beautiful, dangerous and beautiful and like a bolt of lightening her hand shot out to thrust the object into his chest. He gasped and brought his hands to what felt like wood. It was a stake. He stumbled backwards clutching the stake even though he was sure that would do him no good. Nothing could save him now and her words continued to haunt him even in death.
“He cannot live without me, he cannot change without me, without me, he will never be saved. I am Love and Brian… Love never dies.”
