XY

Y’s breath hung in the air as he trudged through the snow. What was left of his sister X’s body rested in his delicate arms. The memory of her death played over and over in his head. It was traumatising - horrifying - watching her body suddenly burst. Her once ivory skin had been reduced to shreds covered in her own translucent blood. Her ribcage and skull were filled with the bodies of butterflies.

Her dear, treasured butterflies.

The only thing that remained of X was a lock of her golden hair which Y knew wouldn’t last. X was a strange one, with her curled hair shining the colour of flaxen fields instead of white like his own. Y himself was not exactly the definition of “normal” amongst his race, no. They were exiles from a supremacist land, and now Y was alone.

His weak heart was the only thing keeping him company in the twilight, other than the memories of his sister. They were corrupted, broken, darkened by the macabre premise of thinking her to be dead. She couldn’t be, no. This was someone else’s body, he considered. It had to be someone that looked like her… His fractured state of mind was slowly driving him mad with what could be and what never was.

As he approached the clearing, a familiar face showed itself. A thin, emaciated man with a crooked staff, a cloak, and a beaked mask. The man cocked his head to the side in a most curious manner, and Y attempted to run. As he began to shift his weight, he could see and feel things wriggling and writhing just below the surface of his skin.

He dropped his sister’s remains and ran as fast as his legs could take him. The cold wind cut through his body like razor wire, and frost began to burn his lungs and skin. Y caught the edge of a tree root and fell shoulders-first into a small snow-covered hole in the ground, right next to the river he feared so greatly. He tucked his knees close to his chest and waited for the sound of every biological substance the man in the mask touched dying to cease. The plants were screaming, begging for Y to save them.

However, the sound could have been a mere mental delusion.

Perhaps there never was a man in a mask after all.

The one thing he was certain of, though, was the young, frozen boy clinging to his neck who whispered dark, horrible things into his ear.