Memoir of a Contract - Part Four

  Back then, we had no concept of death. Not a real one anyway. We knew it as a reality, a fate we would each reach one day, and yet even with Ophelia, a ghost, in our lives, neither Inge nor I had ever shown fear of the inevitability of death.

  The end of ‘now’, perhaps a beginning of an ‘elsewhere’, and yet ultimately no more than a simple ‘goodbye’.

   It wasn’t until it came knocking that we realized just how frightening such a thing could be.

  When the raid began, that’s when it hit us. When it hit me.

  Death had never frightened me, and even then… Even then, it was not Death that I was afraid of. Not mine. I was afraid of living. Living without my beloved Inge, THAT was what terrified me.

  And so when the screams came and the smell of fresh blood filled my nose, I wanted nothing more than to know he was safe. It was Ophelia that I called to. It was Ophelia that I put all my trust in. It was Ophelia that I gave my brother to.

  I just wanted him safe… Something told me that she could keep him that way.