Chapter Text
He had not always been the first one. Some time ago, eons maybe, he had been the newest.
It had started when the bloodlust in his mind cleared like a light against a fog, and it made him see the fruit of his rage: his father’s deformed face and semi open skull, blood and gore splattered against the walls of the storehouse’s basement, devoid of light except for the sun that shone behind him, from the open doors or the building that now felt far away.
Yet that awful grin still creeped upon the broken jaw of the old man, opening slightly from time to time to take a few breaths in. That grin was one he had seen many times whenever Archie felt on top of the world, above all the maggots that worked for him; and now, when his glee upon seeing his son being just like him became impossible to hide. Power-hungry, greedy, ruthless, and ready to get what he wanted- both MacMillans shared these traits, and the thought of such gave Archie a joy that made Evan sick.
He didn’t panic, he didn’t repent, he didn’t even shed a tear for the man that raised him, because it never felt like that. He never felt what the few fiction books he could snatch as a kid showed, where the father was caring and a well-intentioned model to look up to. Archie MacMillan was an awful piece of shit that wouldn’t hesitate to beat him or anyone out of his senses if he felt like it, to “teach a lesson” he would say, yet that didn’t mean Evan would take kindly being treated like that.
The only way to surpass that kind of abuse, for Evan, was nothing but become that very thing and overcome it with its own strengths. Fire against fire, and the result was clear for him: his father laid still on the floor, and now he was the one in charge.
Still, the relief that was to not have anyone above him couldn’t last for long. The moment the hammer slipped from his hand and hit the broken legs of his father, he came back to earth, and all the implications and laws that made his world. He stepped back to the basement’s entrance before closing the door and locking it, then turning to the storehouse’s doors; all done tranquil and slow, his heavy breathing was the only sound that kept him awake.
Outside, he was greeted by the dusty air, scent of powder in slight quantities that he still picked up. Everything was still, no noise beyond the wood’s leaves moving in the distance and his own footsteps taking him to the middle of the Estate. He looked from left to right, taking his time to truly take into account that everything he knew was done for it: the mines were basically useless for more mining, his fortune was now hanging on a threat that would be easily cut, and beyond all his employees laying buried in the rocks and boulders, his father was in the brink of death. No one else was left to blame for the massacre.
He can’t just point at his father and say it had been him all along and he was just doing what he was told, because at the end he not only detonated the explosive, but he also blew his father’s head to pieces and left him in the basement, basically dead. Evan was the only one left; when authorities arrive it will all fall on him.
The thought of losing everything would’ve worried him more, if his attention didn’t fall into the suddenly increasing fog around the Estate. It was strange, even if the dust raised from the explosion caused it, it shouldn’t be this much, less this dark hue. It wasn’t the grayish brown of the mines, it was a plain black fog.
And it was calling him in.
Devoid of any other options, he walked into that fog.
He walked and walked, the sound of his boots giving him reassurance that he was moving somewhere. Where? He didn’t know, nor did he care. It was just a hunch in the back of his mind, a whisper that told him to go deep into the fog. Why? Also no answers, no landmarks, no whispers, nothing to guide him anywhere, but he’d rather continue to avoid jail. In the end, it really didn’t matter- his life was over, so what was the difference between this and staying at the Estate?
Later than sooner he understood the difference, but at the time, Evan was only following the fog’s whispers, slowly noticing how strange embers flew before him, and not questioning as much as he should have done.
Maybe he could have turned back. Return to the dying Estate and wait for judgment as he expected; maybe he could’ve counted how many stars he could see from his prison cell if he was lucky to get a window. Maybe he could have used his fortune to buy the attorneys and jury and get a small sentence, then run away from the country and make a new life elsewhere.
By the time that idea had crossed his mind, it was already too late. Too, too late.
He finally stopped hearing whispers, at the same time the dark fog cleared and gave way into the woods that sheltered the outskirts of his residence. But something was off: he had walked from that place, there was no logical explanation of returning to the Estate unless he had walked in circles, and he was damn sure how to move around the woods without getting lost. Besides, the walk he had done was anywhere except the woods.
But he didn’t question it much- he kept walking to find his way to the mansion that should have shown itself after pacing 3 times around the place. Yet there was no mansion, nor the storehouse, nor ironworks or coal tower anywhere in the distance. Not even the mine was around; it was just the forest, eire, quiet and unsettling like he had never felt.
This wasn’t the woods of the Estate, it just looked like it, a lot, but even at the time Evan could say there was something wrong with it.
His mind would have fallen into madness for the lack of anything happening around him, he knew, and it was so on point when his anxiety was rising that he stepped on something and heard a snap , alongside the pressure of blades in his leg that made him grunt. Looking down, he saw it: a beartrap that was somehow hurting and not hurting him. Because if it hurt, truly hurt, it wouldn’t be a simple soreness as if he had cut his finger with a knife or hit his toe against his bed, it would pull his skin apart, crush his bones and leave him unable to walk.
Uncomfortable with it, he bent and opened the trap. He took to where the moonlight shone more (and until that moment he didn’t realized that, it was nighttime despite having killing all of them shortly before 7 that very morning), Evan tried to inspect it, it looked like the ones he had used to hunt animals in the past, all parts where in place and the mechanism worked when pressured with a stick, yet why it did little more than scrape his pants when he step on it? It even split a stick in half when testing it.
Things were strange, and he was grateful there was no one that could see the fear on his face.