Preface: Chava

I don’t remember a day where I didn’t feel like Onyx hated me. I’m sure at the very deep end of the hollow of her soul; she loves me in some twisted form, maybe even her heart if it’s not too black to identify as a heart or to even find proof that she has one. But throughout my whole duration of being alive with her, that’s all I’ve felt is hate from her, sheer and frigid. I have no idea when it started, except the fact that somewhere along the line of being created, formed into a newborn and then small child, I have done something sinister to her that generated her breathing hate.
I will never forget her two attempts of to get rid of my existence, the first being when we were four years old, in our very own backyard in rural Vernon, Georgia. I was playing on our play set, a tall wooden tower with a yellow slide, a few swings, and a small play area with the yellow slide drooping out of it. I was kneeling on the entryway, yelling for Onyx to come and catch me, but she was nowhere in sight. I figured she was a ways away, but wanted to look for her some more. I called for her, but decided to go down the slide and try and find her on the safe ground. As I walked towards the slide, I felt hands give a rough push behind me, causing me to roll a little before falling off the side of the slide. I broke my tiny little leg, screaming for somebody to save me from the pain. Our nanny Rose, who took care of us while our parents were at work, came rushing towards me, pleading with me to reveal the information of what happened. I couldn’t speak through my tears, but when Rose looked up at the doorway where the slide was, she saw Onyx and she knew exactly what had happened. I begged Rose to never tell my parents about who pushed me off the play area onto the breaking ground, and despite her good will, she relented and agreed. I could tell it pained her when she lied to my parents about what had had happened to me, a troubling lie that I simply fell off the slide. Onyx smiled a sneering grin, knowing she got away with trying to finish me.
The next incident that occurred five years later left behind something physical and emotionally scarring. You see, our parents are chemists, naturally born to formulas and chemical compounds and mixtures. It’s almost like they live behind beakers and text tubes all day long. So, when Onyx and I were old enough to observe a chemical experiment performed by our mother while our dad was hung up at his own lab, she seized the opportunity to hurt me once again. Our mom already obtained hydrochloric acid but lacked the test tubes needed for this experiment. She told us to wait next to the table and not to touch anything while she left to retrieve them, fearing we'd get injured if we touched anything at all.
I waited patiently for my mom to return, as I was completely fascinated by this experiment and couldn’t wait to start. Onyx, however, doesn’t have any concern or worry over the subject of chemistry. She got up off her feet and poured the sodium and chlorine into the empty fruit bowl. I gasped and asked, “Onyx? What are you doing? Momma told us not to touch-“
“Shut up!” she yelled softly.
I kept my mouth shut as I listened to the sizzling inside the heart of the fruit bowl. But all of a sudden, Onyx looked at me and sneered. She grabbed my arm causing me to yell, but she looked at me hard in the eye scolding “shut up” in the coldest voice I’ve ever even heard. She gripped harder onto my arm than before and shoved it into the bowl. I felt all of the skin particles on my hand burn in incinerating ash. I screamed so loud I could see the windows shake and rattle about. Onyx began cackling like a sick and twisted witch before holding my hand down in the bowl. I began crying for my momma, and she finally came. She screamed in horror and worry for me and anger at Onyx. I don’t blame her, as it was a pretty horrifying site. She slapped Onyx across her face in rage, shouting as to how she could have done this to her twin sister.
“You’re supposed to love her”, Momma said.
“I hate her!” Onyx yells.
My mother was little too concerned with my deteriorating hand to care about what Onyx’s opinions of me were. She rushed me to the hospital, with Onyx tagging along. I was able to keep my hand, but the scar left behind was atrocious. It still looks like it’s been mangled, but the fact that I almost lost my hand due to Onyx’s wrath is something that burns deeper than any chemical burn could before. She has done other things to me, but they are mostly just harsh words that sting with piercing pain in my chest. They will forever be with me, the scars outside and the one on my arm on the outside.
We are twins, and no matter how much she wishes it weren’t true, it always will be.





2: Onyx

The word “hate” has always been innate to me. It must have been, as I have always inhabited its exact meaning, especially towards my twin sister Chava. What other thing can I feel towards her besides “hate”? Certainly not love, a word of which I will never know the meaning of. Love cannot be a feeling; there is no possible way it can be. It’s a delusion, something people think they feel, but really a twisted mind game that plays with their inner psyche.
Chava has been my natural enemy since we shared a claustrophobic womb sixteen years and half years ago. I have no idea if my inbound hatred for her started in there, but it started in a willful oblivion. Every time I see her, my eyes resemble the Atlantic, unstable and frigid all the way from the sockets to the veins in my arms. Her face reminds of a demon’s, an undercover mask of which only I can see. Perhaps the others ignored it, our family seeing her as a priceless brainier who is a bundle of perfection. They have to see it somehow, because I know it is not invisible. But they don’t as they see me as monstrous demonic specimen after all the things I have done to get rid of Chava and cease her mistaken existence.
I am entirely thankful for not having Chava’s face, and that our unfortunate twin ship is not identical. Fraternal twin ship for us is the best, as I’d probably rip the skin off of my face just to disfigure my appearance if it even looked remotely close to Chava’s. I hate her so much; it twists my stomach into sections of nothingness and sickness. I will hate her forever or at least until the day I end her life and live mine as the only Slenski child. She should’ve never have been born; she is a disease, and while everyone else in our family is under a delusion that she is breathtaking, she is disintegrating my insides and killing me.
And one day I am going to destroy her for doing so.





3: Chava

The sun invades my eyes as if searing into my mind. My body begs me to stay in bed for just a few minutes while it concentrates on bringing itself to a full and natural wake, but my instincts tell me to go to war with a my fatigue and make it suffer and drift away. I rise to my own occasion, rub my eyes to rid them of gluttony and proceed to get dressed in a soft pink t-shirt and a pair of dark blue denim jeans that hug my legs close in intimacy. My legs guide me to the stairs where I fly down them to consume a breakfast meal.
Onyx is sitting at the table already, listening to some dark music and reading the black book she always has with her. She has ignored my existence inside this room, or she has not noticed me, she does not look up when I walk in, not that expect her to anyway. I shake my head in disappointment and get a bowl from the top kitchen cupboard and can feel eyes on my back, making my insides turn and twist with paranoia. I turn around and Onyx hasn't moved her head since I last looked at her. I shake my head and think myself to be crazy.
You’re getting to be as crazy as Onyx, I think to myself, calm down
I sit down with the bowl and pour some Cheerios inside. I have some hope that I have at least appeared visible in her cold, dark eyes, but to no avail they are demolished as quickly as they were born. I remember that I also need milk and get up to get some, but as soon as I am standing, Onyx says in a bone-chilling voice "No milk left, parasite"
I stare at her in disbelief. I had no possible idea that she even knew I walked into the kitchen, much less sat down at the table. How can she do that, with her cold eyes being hidden from my image? Her stare is not meeting my eyes, not that I am anticipating it at all anyway, but I can still feel a cold chill from her voice.
"How did you ...?”
"How did I what, parasite? I'd quit questioning everything around you or you might get yourself severely hurt" she says and gathers her things and heads out the door for school, even though it's almost 45 minutes before the bell even rings.
If there is one person in this world that I indefinitely fear the most, it's Onyx Renée Slenski. In my mind, I believe that throughout my whole life I have tried to sleep with one eye open just to be sure I woke up the next morning. I sigh as I let down my guard and finish getting completely ready before I dreadfully head out the door.


4: Onyx.

The halls are spotless of any human, adolescent life when I walk through the doors of Vernon Senior High School. I prefer them vacant every morning when I walk in, considering I hate human existence purely to the core, as it is pointless and antiquated, as even mine is the exact same. I look for the only person who even cares to speak to me, which is Blayze Dusteux.
Blayze is an interesting character, which is what I would say if I was ever forced to say anything about him. His home life is less than preferred, as his father is careless drunk that chooses pure bourbon over his two sons, and a mother who left shortly after her second son was born. This, of course, forces Blayze to take care of his little brother Draxen, who luckily, is at the spur of innocence. However, I am sure that child has seen enough and experienced enough with Blayze to have his innocence falter even at just the littlest bit.
I find him in the corner of the hallway, reading the identical black book that I was reading this morning in the kitchen before that disgusting varmint Chava entered the kitchen. As I become closer, he looks up and meets my eyes diligently so that I am now staring into little circles of golden amber with a dot of black and surroundings of pearl white. He moves his head to the side to signal me over, and I sit down next to him.

"So, how's the book?” I ask him
"It's interesting", he says, not looking at me. His eyes may hold stunning beauty, but they cannot hold lies or secrets very well, and I can tell from the look in them that they are hiding a secret, or perhaps a lie within themselves. His face hides nothing, not even his porcelain beauty that radiates from his skin. If I had to compare him to any mythical creature, he’d most likely be a faerie; light on the outside but so dark on the inside. Maybe even an angel, but he doesn’t much believe in them either way.
“Explain it to me then”, I insist
“It’s not the book that is interesting, it’s the idea itself. Performing sacrifices is just so … sadistic and cruel”
I’m baffled by his response. I know Blayze has only been in my satanic clutch since over a year ago in May of last year, but I figured I taught him enough to think that human sacrifice can be a natural thing or a term of victory. It isn’t only concentrated on cruelty, death and suffering, but ridding this world of the pain in this world that humans always cause. It’s sacrifice that offers the world bounty along with beauty. Human life isn’t entirely needed, so why not make life useful with death
“We have established this number of times before, Blayze. I thought you would have gotten it by now”
“I have, Onyx it’s just”, he closes his eyes and rubs the palms of his hands against his face “why her? She is your own blood, your womb mate! I know sibling rivalry is a b****, especially for twin sisters, but Onyx; that is what she is: your sister! Your twin sister! Doesn’t this sound a little absurd to you?”
I feel my skin heat up into a flame at his words. I can’t even believe he has said this, that bas****. I thought I could count on him with this, with the long-awaited task of sacrificing my sister’s life. As it turns out however, the thought of trusting has slipped through my fingers, and furthermore through the cracks of the Earth and is burning with the fallen demons in He**.
“Give me the book”, I quip. The anger can be read on my lips, and Blayze has seen the acid rain of it. His eyes have told me all.
He sighs and says, “There is no need or reason to do this to her…just let me think this over, okay?”
“Fine”, I finalize, “you have my number. Call when you finally get and understand the inborn hate that I hold for my sister”
I then walk away from yet another person who doesn’t get it.





4: Blayze

Guilt consumes me as I ponder what just occurred. I hang my head in my hands in both exasperation and exhaustion, yet also feel my heart sink down into a black bit below my stomach. It’s not like Onyx has hurt me or upset me, or that I think she’s crazy …
I think she’s extremely messed up and psychotic.
For my whole life, I have worshipped Satan, or what most people call “the devil”. Yeah, he’s evil to most; completely heartless to the rest, yet to me he’s something entirely mythical and different. He isn’t fake, and requires you to only worship him and his ways. It’s something that is dark and sophisticated, but pure with his own intentions and no restrictions. However, even though I’ve been participating in this way of life for a majority of my life, human sacrificial experiments have never been clear to me. I’ve read up on them on the internet, in books, and even in more broad formats such as the black book that Onyx gave me, but the concept is still hazy to me. How is somebody dying beneficial to anybody? I’m honestly contemplating on whether or not Onyx wrote this herself, as this whole thing; this whole demented ideas sounds so remotely unreal it’s hard to ponder if this was written by an educated person, or a psychotic teenager experiencing a silent mental breakdown.
Why though? Why Chava, whoever she is to be? What could she have don’t to Onyx that is so blistering and cruel to make black hearted Onyx want not to commit a sacrificial experiment, but murder? I ask myself this daily, just to see if I can find some sort of thorough explanation to Onyx’s soul, and her decrepit mind.
Well, there are two known reasons for this
From Onyx’s perspective, Chava has injured Onyx twice as an attempt to cut Onyx out of the Slenski family portrait. The first incident being from Chava pushing Onyx off of the play set fort in their backyard, causing an immediate fracture to the leg (this happening when the twins were just four years old). The second incident, or the last one known to me, would be the chemistry experiment. I know Onyx hates chemistry with a burning passion, but Chava doesn’t from what Onyx has expressed to me. Chava loved it so much that she forced Onyx’s hand into a bowl of hydrochloric acid that permanently scarred Onyx’s hand for life.
That's pretty sick and disgusting for a mere jejune nine-year old.
Even though I've asked Onyx to show me the trying scar from her past many times, she has denied me any sight of it, with the black hoodies and arm warmers that she always has on every day. Maybe she is ashamed of it, or is put in pain emotionally with the troubling memory. I will probably never know; I can never seem to read a girl's mind. It's like they are surrounded by walls that no level of testosterone can get through, made of steel and iron. Onyx is just naturally guarded, never lets anybody get through without some type of agreement or common enemy or belief. I probably never would have met her if it wasn't for my equal belief and worship of Satan. But the thing is, Onyx is taking this belief farther than it should even be going, and she thinks it's normal and okay. Her mind works differently, almost to another level of radiating fear that she puts on people and it scares me even to some heightened level of the unreal.
Besides dealing with Onyx and her crazy façade of everything and anything demonic, I have my own he**ish problems and issues. I have a little seven year old named Draxen, and he's about the only thing nowadays that keeps me remotely sane. He is so naïve and wants to pretend that he is just sleeping in some reclusive nightmare he can't wake up from. I want to just tell him everything is going to change one day, but I can't if I don't even believe in change myself. I try to protect him in every way possible, mostly from our drunken in father. His kids consist of Jack and Jim, or maybe a few Budweiser’s if he is "trying to cut down on the drinking". He can be abusive towards me and Draxen both, but he doesn't even try to hit Drax when I'm around. However, it's those occasions when I'm gone and Draxen is alone with him that he is left with those purple marks that might as well bruise me as well. I know Draxen wants that father who plays catch with him on the very short weekends that could last a lifetime. I try to fulfill the hole in his emotions, but I know that it won't be enough for a long while.
As for a mother, I like to pretend I don't have a mother. Sure I know I have one, as does Draxen with the same one. But to me a mother doesn't leave her children alone with a drunk who could give two s***s about his children. I remember when she left six years ago, when I was ten. She never kissed me or Draxen goodbye, a mere one year old still not knowing his close surroundings. All she cared about was her own safety, and not the well-being of her children. I hate her to this day, and I imagine I'll carry this hate for the rest of my life.
Everyone is burned and scathed with the past of our own demons. We bury them, but they will always resurface. We just have to find the strength to deal with them in the present.
But sacrificing a human, Onyx's own sister Chava? That's not dealing with anything.
It's just crazy.
I smooth my warm scene-like black hair out of my face, deciphering my thoughts as I look to the watching sun that pours over me in the hallway. The window next to me is the messenger between us both, and bakes me with the sun's message of warmth. I fold my pale fingers together and place them against my forehead in concentration, just to try to get my thoughts back to the reality I live in. The pressure of everything makes my heart heavy with worry, and what Onyx is asking me to do is almost diminishing my mind of its normality. I'm trapped and there is no way for me to ever get out of this holistic clutch.
"Excuse me?" I hear a new voice next to me say, a chipper one that I have never once heard before.
I look up into the eyes of an angel, of this I cannot ever lie about. A girl, probably the same age as me, maybe a year younger, with blonde curls shaped in such a spiral fashion you'd think she's wearing a wig. Her eyes are gorgeous, a subtle blue inside the sun that only makes them shine a bit brighter. She almost makes my heart stop with those eerie pink lips of her. Her face is so wonderfully sculpted she reminds me of a breathing manikin, so perfect yet so undeniably real and true.
"Yes?" I say with upmost fashion or courtesy
"Do you happen to have Mr. Stracker? For English 3, perhaps honors by any chance?” she asks with hopeful eyes, seeping into me like paste, and sticking to me forever like adhesive.
I nod at her, "Yeah, I have honors. Is there something troubling you with him?"
She nods softly "It's the culture assignment that is due next Tuesday. I don't understand a word of it at all"
I move my things over by my feet and motion for her to sit next to me, "Here, I'll teach you if you wish"
She smiles broadly "I wish very much so, but if you don't mind me stepping on your toes, what is your name?"
"Blayze, Blayze Dusteux, and you?"
"Chava Slenski"
My heart has lost its pulse.



5:Chava

Each time that he speaks, my heart skips more and more beats than it should. His voice is mesmerizing, and my eyes are fighting a constant battle to bat flirtatiously at him. This pure gentleman with the golden amber eyes, Blayze Dusteux has captured me in way I have never known in my whole entire sixteen years of being alive. I want to read him, drink in his soul like burning nectar inside me. I am feeding on his words, intensely satisfied all around, but craving more with my appetite. I am ravenous for more of his words, of which I am being fed with my famished soul. This feels like some twisted optical illusion that could bring dire tears to the moment, tears of breathing happiness. Every cell of him resembles midnight, and eclipses my soul to a tasting pleasure.
His eyes find mine in subtle gravitation that pulls me to him even closer. I have already understood this assignment as of five minutes ago, but his voice is just so breathtaking I cannot possibly get enough of him. When our irises become connected I feel every part of my body become warm and complete, like this moment has already been authored out for us and we just had to live it. His eyes blink at me as he asks
"Do you understand it now?"
"Every last word of it", I tell him with a shy smile as I start to put my things away in my violet messenger bag.
I can see a blush generate on his cheeks and his lips purse as he grins and begins to put his own things away in his black charcoal bag.
He looks at me and asks, "Hey do you want to have lunch with me today?"
My heart jumps as the thought of sharing a priceless meal with him grasps my thoughts and makes them anew. Can he see my racing heart thump through my baby blues?
I smile and say "I'd like that...a lot" just before I turn my head to hide the initiating blush that is forming everywhere on my face.
A playful smile plays on his coral lips and it feels as if the whole world has stopped spinning in that instant and is melting before me. I am putty in his hands at this very moment and he is molding me into something I've never seen myself as before.
The bell rings and he gets up to leave for his first period. "I'll see you there", he says as he leaves me behind with his triumphant smile still engraved in my mind.




6: Onyx
The anger inside me fluctuates to extensive lengths from the episode that occurred this morning. Da** that bas**** Blayze Dusteux, who thinks my plan, is so sick and twisted that he wanted to walk away from it, when I have been waiting for it to become initiated for years upon years now. If he wants to be a juvenile a**, then let him. If I can generate this plan without him, I can act it out without him too.
I silently da** him in my mind to a burning section in he** that was created for him. He may worship my Lord Satan, but he doesn't understand a da** aspect of it at all. He's an incompetent idiot who doesn't even know who the devil Chava is, but if he ever meets her he will completely understand what a complete b**** and parasite she is. Maybe then he'll be on my side, or maybe I'm more so murdering Chava than using her as a sacrifice, but either way she deserves to die.
It is the end of fourth period of which I walk to lunch and sit in my usual spot between the wall and cafeteria. I never eat anything here as I never wish to at all. I am too busy delving into my plans and knowledge of how I am supposed to perform this act of murder and sacrifice. It takes studying and time, so I use lunch to expand my knowledge of it. I still have a long way to go before I can even think of performing this act.
However, my stomach becomes mush when I see two people walk up to the cafeteria beside me. I cannot believe the sight that my eyes are authoring out for me. It is Blayze, and Chava, my parasite sister that has now placed Blayze underneath her spell of evil. They are looking longingly into one another's eyes as if they haven't seen each other in years.
This is it. The time has come, perhaps not yet, but it will very soon.
Chava Brigitte Slenski, count your days, because they're running immensely short.

~3 months later~
7: Chava
some may say I'm crazy or only a lovesick teenager that doesn't know what love really is. But when it comes to Blayze, I wear my heart on my sleeve for him to steal and nurture with grace, and he does so. He glazes my heart with his love and completes me with his worth. I have known this love since I first looked into his golden eyes that remind me so much of timber wood whenever I gaze into them. There is no doubt in my mind that I am in love with Blayze Dusteux.
I've never felt this way before. It was love at first sight for us, and it went off like a gun. It exploded into something magical and wonderful, and there is no possible way we'd change it. Three months is nothing to some people, but to me and Blayze it's the start of something long-lasting. Time doesn't measure the love we feel for each other, and like they say, you only fall in love once. If this is the real thing, one time is all I need with this amazing prince charming that has oh so fortunately entered my life. I'd never let this go.
It's not like I didn't know what "love" was before, but those were practiced compared to this. There is nothing more surreal, and my past boyfriends just don't have what Blayze has, which is peace and clarity. His sweet timber wood eyes are nothing compared to nature, so instead they nurture me and my heart forever. I feel it in my veins and see it in my dreams when I drift off into a sleep that is filled with calming bliss. It is nothing compared to reality; however thanks to reality my dreams are that much sweeter. There is no greater feeling than love, and what I and Blayze share is more surreal than a public service announcement. Blayze and magnificent facial structure are all that completes me and makes me whole. He has filled the emptiness that Onyx dug into my heart for sixteen years, that and her aspiring wishes for my end.
And for some splintering reason, I have a notion that's coming very soon.



8: Blayze
I have to be crazy, messed up, insane, or just totally messed up to be in love with an ex-friend's much hated sister. But the thing is, I can't help it. Everything about her mesmerizes me; her baby blue eyes, her fair skinned face, her curly blonde hair, and her slender body that floats everywhere when she walks. I was hooked onto her faster than it hit me, totally magnetized by her forever and for always. She is an angel stuck in this he** we call Earth, and honestly I believe she likes being lost within me and my dark ways. I never believe that any heaven could exist before her, but now I have no choice but to believe in everything because of her. I also know that everything Onyx told me was bulls***; it was Chava who holds the scar from the intentional accident that was initiated by Onyx, along with Chava's leg that was also fractured by Onyx when they were four years old. I should have known by the suspicion that Onyx radiated from her lies.
Chava, however, has received more emotional wounds from Onyx's wrath than physical. All her life, she has been called everything from "b****" and "parasite" to "mistake" and "unwanted". She's completely wrong when it comes to those last two words though. Chava is wanted by everyone around her. When I met Chava's parents about a month ago, they spoke so kindly of Chava, almost as if they were her prized gem. Onyx, however, wasn't even brought up, except when asked about her whereabouts. It's almost as if Onyx was just a past memory that the Slenski's unfortunately had to bear witness to. They probably don't think too highly of her after Onyx pretty much has tried to kill Chava twice already, and is planning to do a big finish. When I met the Slenski's, Onyx ridded herself from the household, probably because of her newfound hatred for me, or because of her sick amusement to rid the world of the wonderful girl I call my girlfriend.
I am not sure of much in my life, as I live the life of an invisible Satan worshipper, but I am sure of one thing: I am completely taken and in love with Chava Brigitte Slenski, and I plan on being so until I take my last breath. My heart has been stolen by the girl with those baby blue eyes, and we were made for each other in every way humanly possible. It's like her blood is mine, running coarsely through my veins every minute of every day.
It's us against the world, fighting against everything we believe in.
And if it's us against Onyx and her murderous thinking, than we're going to need the power of love to help us through this and give us the upmost strength we need. Other than that, we're defenseless.


8.5: Onyx
December 21st, 2011 at 12:31 am.
It's time. Tonight is the night we're everyone says goodbye and farewell to Chava Brigitte Slenski. At one a.m., her torture begins.


9: Chava

My eyes burst open as if pried open by the dynamic night. My heart feels as if it has been sped up by something unknown in this room, almost as if I am nervous. I sit up and move my head nervously in a million motions. I take deep, even breaths, anything to calm myself down. My blood pressure has skyrocketed, and my mind goes through every possibility on what could be going on right now.

I relinquish my mind in a positive state, calling myself paranoid and overdramatic. I’m most likely just assuming something is terribly wrong when it is probably nothing but correct. I am safe in my home, and in my bed that protects me from anything harmful, and dreaming of things that could make any girls’ heart skip a few beats in the night. So could I just be imagining things that are not really there? The blanket sticks to my body in sheer sweat as I am drenched in an immaculate heat of overworked nerves. It is almost the end of December, yet I am swimming in sweat and redundant paranoia.

Before I can author out my surroundings, I hear soft but audible footsteps outside my door in the hallway. I am trying to pretend that my father has just come home late from the lab, but I just can’t wrap my finger around it, as it feels like a parched lie. Perhaps maybe it’s true, or my mother has gone to bed, finally tired from waiting up for Dad, but that lie is just as parched of any truth whatsoever. I burrow deep into my blankets and take out my phone to send a quick text message regarding my fear to Blayze. He has told me multiple times in our relationship to call him or text him if I even have an inkling that anything is wrong. I slide my phone into my pajama pants pocket and walk slowly and carefully to the shut white door in front of my bed. Fear eclipses me, but this time, I have to secure my fear and be just a little braver tonight. I push open the door, and come into view of a vacant hallway, nobody in sight at all.

My skin is crawling with fear

I look from side to side, and nothing. If nothing was amongst this hallway less than three minutes ago, than who’s footsteps were those that I heard? Is there some type of paranormal apparition living inside my house, or am I literally going crazy? I decide to walk towards Onyx’s midnight room, which are just ten footsteps away. As I am stepping towards the room, I sense something behind me reaching for my shoulders or my neck.

The grotesque stench of chloroform enters my nose and throat as I choke up air.

The whole world has become a sheet of true, black onyx.



10: Blayze

Something is terribly wrong.
The feeling inside my chest is turning into immense pain as the sense takes over every nerve inside my body, empty and hollow but filling just the same. Everything besides my love and care for Chava is emptied and taken over by the sickness of worry that Chava’s text message has caused me:
I heard something in the hallway; Going to go check it out. Love you <3 – C
Although I know Drax needs me to protect him tonight, as our father has drank at least twice the legal limit of Jack Daniels tonight, I get up to get my bag to hunt down Chava and her crazy, psychotic twin sister. As I am leaving, I peak into Draxen’s room at his sleeping body. He is more peaceful than a sleeping newborn, perhaps just as innocent. His purified soul radiates upon his skin like starlight, and I go over to kiss him on his forehead and whisper, “I’m scared too, Drax. I’m scared too”



11: Onyx

The woods are colder from what I expected or remember from last year’s winter solstice. The wind’s chill envelopes me in a chilly embrace of comfort, and I am ridded of any ounce of nervousness I previously had before I arrived here with Chava drugged up and knocked out. The murder, or sacrifice as I previously called it, is coming so close after months of planning, and the world will finally be done with Chava’s life.
I lay Chava’s distilled body in a patch of leaves, her body already cold from the frigid wind. She looks almost peaceful, not at all scared of what’s about to come to her, the end of her life. I look at her for just a few more moments, just a number of her last moments before I stop her breathing and end her life for good. She’ll no longer be a standing human, but blowing ash in the cold wind tonight.
This is better than Christmas.
I hear my Lord Satan speak to me in his blissful language of Hate, “Kill her; kill the menace that causes this world so much grief”
Yes, Satan; I will do just what you ask of me.
I smile sickly and begin to initiate a blazing fire, representing my Lord’s favorite element. The winter solstice blooms in the sky in wonderment, almost like a newborn child that has been born over and over again, once every year, but never fully in bloom to its power. I pull out my black book which has my long-ago written spell-like chant that I’ve spent months preparing. This was it; I’m ready, and it’s time to say the chant on the edge of the scalding fire. I begin the chant in a monotone voice as it rises to an alarming crescendo to wake Chava.



In the fires of He**,
I wake thee to scald, burning bright
You hear the bells of death,
Ringing loud.

I see Chava’s body twitch and I begin to smile at my accomplishment. She is waking to the torture.
I start to my say continuation of my chant to finish off Chava’s wake, but I hear a bristle of branched between the bushes behind me and the high fire. My head snaps and I turn to see who is behind me, but everything is vacant.
“Who’s there?” I shout to the trees and sky, “you have no right to—“
“Chava!” a screaming voice calls out, “my love, Chava. I know you’re in these woods!” the voice is becoming much louder and closer as the mere human becomes closer. However with the deposited clues being dispersed, I tell who it is immediately.
That bas****, Blayze.



12: Blayze

My lungs have become hollow and empty without any air to inhabit them. They haven sunken deep into my chest from lack of oxygen. The running has turned my legs’ bones into soft tissue, almost the equivalent material of a wet, moist sponge. This is killing me, but I feel Chava’s closeness in my heart, and at this point, all I care about is getting to her. I smell smoke, an eerie gray that enters my nostrils.
There is a fire in the woods.
I smell the burning oak that is surrounding the air around me, and see the orange light behind the bush in front of me. It’s eclipsing, but frightening almost. The fear of being way too late for coming to Chava’s rescue pierces my heart and almost kills it, but my eyes locate her laying on a batch of brown, deceased leaves. She looks so peaceful, almost like she’s sleeping with no complications. Then I see Onyx, standing quite a ways from Chava and in front of the speaking fire. She is confused clearly, and scared that her murderous plan has been revealed to a million people. I crouch low, hoping she doesn’t see me right now. She doesn’t, thank god, but she stands still in worry and fear.
She relaxes and says, “I must continue then”
Over my dead body.
I launch my attack, and charge at Onyx just as she is about to turn to face the bright fire. I grab her shoulders, and try to choke her before she turns around and punches me hard across the face. I stumble and place my hand over my pending bruise in dire pain. The punch hurt my cheek like he**, almost like it wasn’t human. I can already picture the bruise on my face, or worse, Draxen discovering it and thinking it was our father.
Onyx begins to speak some more, so I run to Chava to try and hold her. Onyx stops me and grabs me by the collar and throws me down in the dirt. I look up at her in fear, and he eyes flash inhuman anger, worse than I’ve seen in anyone.
“Why are you here, you parasite?” she screams at me
“To save my girlfriend from death you dumb b****. Did you think I was just going to let her die?”
She cackles and looks at me “Well, of course not, but that means there’ll be more blood on my hands; such a shame.” She turns around and begins walking away towards the fire, but I speak up.
“Good, kill me now if you wish, because if you kill Chava, I’ll just do it myself at home”
She scoffs and says “Oh wow, young love. Deadly when it starts, but so naïve and stupid in the end”
“You don’t even know love! Have you felt anything other than hate your whole life? God, what kind of legacy would you leave behind if you die Onyx? A legacy of hate, never knowing love your whole life? Wow, really classy”
“I’m not dying tonight, because after this, I’ll live forever”
I shake my head “You’re really psychotic aren’t you?”
She cackles a bit, but just as she gets into the height of it, a figure from out of nowhere comes up behind Onyx and grabs her by the throat, pulling every muscle inside.



13: Chava

The feeling of Onyx’s throat beneath my fingertips is exhilarating. I can feel her choke and suffer, and I eventually wrap her into a head lock, choking her even more. She gasps for air and the sound is the sweetest music to my ears. She starts to squirm and put up a fight, but for once in our lives it’s me who owns the strength.
“Why, Onyx? Why do you hate me so much? How could you possibly hate me so much when all I’ve ever tried to do is love you?” I yell into her ear, hoping that maybe she’ll answer me. I loosen my grip as a sign of giving her an attempt to speak.
“You’re a menace; a troubling, disturbing menace. Mom and Dad never wanted two children, especially a daughter like you. They only wanted one child, and that child is me”
The words sting, but I know my parents enough to know it isn’t true. It’s her they never wanted. She isn’t anything but a crazy psychopath that should have been locked up when she was a newborn. I tighten my grip and feel her body start to fail as more oxygen is deprived from her body. I glance at the fire and back at Onyx, and realize what I must do to destroy her and the demon that I know is inside her.
I begin to drag her towards the fire, her trying to get out of my clutches with an immaculate fight of failure. Once in front of the fire, I hear myself relax as I bring her close to her death. I throw her fragile body into the fire and she screams into the night, and burns to succulent ash.
Blayze comes up behind me and holds me as I cry into him. I listen to Onyx’s deadly cries as they diminish into the night, and into the winter solstice. I feel Blayze kiss me as I feel like I am failing along with everything around me. I fall asleep on the ground.

~One week later~

14: Blayze

I take a look at myself in the mirror at my dressed up self in a smooth black tuxedo and tie that brings out my gelled hair. I exhale as I realize what is going on: I am attending the funeral of Onyx Renee Slenski, the now dead sister of the love of my life, Chava. She has been crushed by all this, but somehow I think she is also relieved. I don't blame her for being desolate by this, as I know that if I ever lost Draxen I'd be lost in the mist of despair. But then again, Draxen isn't a crazy psychopath that sets out to kill me every day that he has been alive.
Everybody figured, me included, that Chava could be charged with first degree murder for Onyx's death. However, when Onyx's journals that contained gruesome plans to end Chava's life and many of the witnesses that have hear Onyx speak of hating Chava enough to murder her in the most painful way possible, or when Chava's parents mentioned the two incidents that happened when Onyx was younger, along with Onyx's therapist mentioning her previous wish of being hospitalized for a possible case of schizophrenia, everyone relaxed a bit with Onyx's death and any suspicion of Chava being crazy diminished with the holiday season. Burying Onyx couldn't have been easy for her parents, especially with her death being only four days before Christmas, but perhaps in time the pain of losing their daughter will subside and life will return not to the way it was before, but to the way it always should've been.
A voice behind me interrupts my thoughts and makes my heart thump a little bit, "Blazey?” I identify the voice as Draxen's and I turn around to his peachy face shining in the sunlit room. He is dressed up in a black shirt and pants, the nicest thing I could find in his spacious closet full of loose-fitting clothes.
I smile at him. Perhaps taking a seven year old to a funeral isn't the best idea in the world, but when I returned home on the night of Onyx's death, I spotted a bruise on Draxen's arms and tear stains on his pillow. After that I refuse to leave him home with that monster that created the both of us.
"You ready buddy?" I ask him
He smiles a big smile and takes my hand before saying "Yeah, I'm ready"
I smile one final time as both of us walk out the door, hand in hand.

15: Chava
After the poignant service of my fallen and deceased twin sister, I walk towards the cemetery with Blayze holding my hand tightly. Draxen is on the other side of him holding a Tony onyx umbrella to protect him from the falling precipitation. It is only drizzle to me that covers my grief up a little bit, even though it is clearly written all over my face. Blayze is sullen, not speaking at all, and I want to tell him that I love him so bad, but I cannot seem to find any of the words inside my mouth to let go of.
When we reach the casket, I look down at the black hardwood that encases my sister’s bones. Her bones were saved from extinction, but not her skin, so the casket serves as a tomb in her honor. On that night, I stayed behind in the woods, telling Blayze to go on home to Draxen so I could be swallowed up in my own misery. How can I grieve a sister who held intrusive hatred for me my whole life, and wanted me dead as well? She hated me so much from the start, and although she had enough courage to try and end my life, she didn't tell me why except for the same things I've been used to hearing from her. My heart is aching her, a pain beyond healing. She may have hated me, but I've always loved her, and I wish I could've told her that just once.
When the reverend halts his speaking of my twin, I feel a small nudge on my left arm, and I turn to see Blayze trotting off and motioning me to follow him, which I obediently do so. I smile as he leads me to a field of butterflies where we find Draxen running around happy and carefree.
"Guys look! They're flying!" he shouts with glee.
I grin and look at Blayze "He's a great kid"
Blayze nods, "He is, and I just wish I could give him a better life and get him away from here"
My heart twists for him. I know Blayze wants to take Draxen far away from Georgia and give him the life he clearly deserves. It will come one day for him and Draxen both; they just need patience and perseverance.
"Whatever happens, I'll be there for you, and love you through it all" I tell him and take his hand, holding on tight.
He smiles at me as if I have just grown angel wings, and pulls me close to him before kissing me lovingly on the lips. When we pull away, we look out to the field of butterflies that Draxen is innocently playing in. Onyx could not be more wrong; I am loved everywhere, maybe not her before she died, but everyone else nonetheless. As the field invades my eyes with green, I see Onyx's legacy that was once so bitter and filled with hate miraculously fill with undying love, and forever, Onyx's legacy lives on.