3rd September 1907, Austria
'Run'
Elle's aching red bruised knees almost bucked under her thin frame as she dashed into the dark forest beyond the gates of the hellish orphanage. She heard their distant calls, along with stabs of light from their pitch torches as they pursued her.
The fifteen year old ran, feeling her heart hammer in her chest and her long hair sticking to her cheeks from perspiration. With a jagged breath she dragged herself through the dark woods, feeling a smaller more delicate hand in hers slip out from her sweaty grip.
"Ellie I can't." A soft voice cried out, collapsing onto the ground.
Elle turned, wide eyes darting behind the crouched girl's figure, at flashing yellow lights behind the tight canopy of trees.
'Shit.'
The dogs barked, their ferocious snarling resounded in the woods, reminding her of their fate if they were ever to return.
"They're getting closer." She hissed, pulling Clarissa to her feet.
Elle's dark eyes immediately fell to her twin sister's matching red bruised knees under the hem of her dirty dress. Her eyes stung and she gritted her teeth. They made her kneel on the raw rice grains longer than her just because they hated her more.
"Please leave me, I-I can't run it hurts everywhere." Clarissa whimpered weakly.
"It's okay, it's okay we'll-"
"You little filthy witches! God condemned your souls." Nun Moira snarled out like a hound from the depth of Hell, her voice echoed through the trees, closer than before. "Come back and repent for your sins!"
Panic flooded Elle's sense. If they found the pair of twins they'd kill them, or worse they'd separate the two. One would think death more deadly than separation but to Elle taking her twin away was like taking away the ability to breathe. They belonged together, and as long as they both lived and breathed, they fought for each other.
With her heart in her throat, Elle turned back to Clarissa who could barely stand even with her support. Her sister was panting; left eye bruised purple, legs giving in under her already malnourished weight, pale skin looking almost translucent under the pale moonlight peaking in through still leaves. Her long dark hair hugged her emaciated frame like a protective blanket. The one thing that set them both apart was Clarissa's eyes that stared up into her own dark orbs pleadingly; one amethyst and the other blood red surrounded by dark purple bruised skin.
"They'll kill you." Elle's soft glimmering orbs hardened with determination. She felt her body surge with a rush of adrenaline.
"We're getting out of this together."
She supported her sister as they both limped through the forest, no longer slinking through the trees stealthily but now running for their lives. The hunt dogs growled, prowling through the dense dark woods in search of the two girls.
The trees stretched on forever, dark thin branches elongated. They raced through the dark terrain, stumbling as their vision blurred from exhaustion and gnawing hunger. With every passing second she heard her pursuers moving closer and closer.
She hastened through the thicket, supporting her sister with one hand whilst shoving aside low hung branches and feeling for obstacles blindly with the other. Even if her eyes were being accustomed to the darkness around her by now, the forest was too dense. The trees were knitted tightly together; the ceiling of infinite leaves and thick branches stretched on forever and blocked out any form of moonlight now.
There were distant calls echoing closer, low grunts and vicious snarls ripping though the cold still air a few meters behind them. Their pursuers combed through the forest, hot on their tails.
Elle blocked out their calls and let her Instinct take over.
'Left...right....watch out for that low branch...control your breathing...there's something ahead...
Just as Elle thought they'd never make it she gasped, spotting a clearing ahead, Elle could taste freedom on her dry lips.
"Look there's a clearing! I'll get you out of here, I'll keep you safe." She promised in a cracked voice, thinking of all the torture Clarissa went through while they locked her up.
Clarissa clung to her like a limp doll, too disoriented to even see the clearing ahead. Her forehead was beaded with sweat, glistening under the faint moonlight.
"Free soon?" She muttered in a haze
"Free soon." Elle echoed in a breathy whisper.
It took every fiber of her being to carry them both forward through the narrow path.
The shouting nuns and growling dogs got closer with every passing second. Elle dragged them both out, heaving as they broke into a clearing.
They both panted, breathless and shaking.
Elle looked up and her heart stopped, vision blurring until all she could see was darkness.
"No."
"Ellie." Clarissa breathed out, multicolored eyes widening at the scene before them.
It wasn't a clearing; it was a dead end cliff.
"No there's supposed to be a clearing...I-I don't understand." Elle muttered deliriously, staggering back. Clarissa whimpered weakly.
The growls from the dogs tore through the forest and streams of light from their pitch torches seeped in through the clearing.
"There they are." A man's guttural voice alarmed.
Elle and Clarissa spun around to find their tormentors right behind them. Their black and white clothes contrasting in the darkness surrounding them.
"You witches won't escape from the judgment of God!" Moira screeched flailing her flickering fire lit torch towards the cornered girls.
Clarissa cried and ricocheted back, shielding her face from the heat of the flames. Elle pushed herself in front of Clarissa, dark eyes alit.
"You're all monsters!" She spat at the six people pouring out of the clearing with their torches of fire and baring weapons.
She was shaking from fear and the fading rush of adrenaline but her hatred for them kept her muscles burning with rage.
The four assailers were women, although in any light you'd think them as men with their gnashing teeth, round noses and small beady eyes. The groundskeeper was the only man in the group, gripping a rattling chain that held back three snarling dogs.
The smallest of the group spat towards them, gripping a worn out whip in her hand; a whip that faded its color on Elle's tailbone.
"One with the eye of the Devil himself, another who simply will not die. The Devil calls you both and keeps you both here."
"I'm not the Devil." Clarissa sobbed into Elle's gaunt neck.
"Then what are you?! With an eye red as the pits of hell!" One of them shouted.
"Come back and repent, unholy child." The other tried coaxing. "You will be forgiven."
Clarissa cried harder.
"The Doctor was fixing you; he'll rid you of your Devil eye." The cruelest of them all, Moira, tried feigning a soft tone, "You'll be normal just like Elle-"
"She's fine the way she is you ugly wench!" Elle growled, temper flaring.
Moira's face contorted with such rage Elle was afraid she'd run over and push them straight over the edge.
"I will wash your mouth with soap and lock you in the-"
Elle let Moira's pestiferous roar sink into the backdrop of her head as she held her sister tight and felt helpless tears roll down her cheeks. She looked around desperately for an escape. There had to be a way out. But they were slowly inching towards them, fanning out until all her darting eyes could see were their menacing faces lit by the glow of their torches.
The unfortunate twins were inching closer and closer to the edge.
"Come closer and I'll claw your eyes out!" Elle warned, looking around wildly.
The nuns gasped in horror, at the audacity of her to threaten them like this.
"You're not touching her ever again!" Elle shrieked madly, shielding Clarissa completely. "You'll have to kill me before you touch her!"
The groundskeeper loosened his grip on the leash with a sickening smirk and his black dogs leaped forward. The two sisters screamed out and jumped back to avoid getting bitten by the mutt's snapping jaws. The groundskeeper sniggered and held the leash back, stopping the dogs abruptly. They whimpered and yowled in frustration as they struggled against their chains, teeth barring and saliva trickling down sharp canines.
The girl's both backed away in a helpless terror until Elle felt her heel almost slipping into nothing. She balanced herself, and felt a rush of wind blow against the back of her neck. She looked back and saw nothing. Not even the sky held a star. The full moon against the dark empty sky loomed over the scene. A swirling mass of thick fog clung to the bottom of the cliff. The fog hid how deep the fall would be, but Elle knew with full certainty that if they fell, it would be certain death.
She whirled around and saw the nuns and the ferocious dogs slowly filling up the space between them. The nuns hissed out cruel words, one was praying vigorously, thin lips moving over yellow teeth in a blur, the other held her crucifix so tightly in her palm it stabbed her pink flesh, one stretched out her whip and Moira, the head nun, glared at the two as if they had crawled from the bowels of hell.
There was nowhere to go. Her own blistered knees were begging to buckle, to give into Clarissa's weight, to allow the black menacing dogs to tear her apart so it would all finally be over.
She was destined to die the moment she was born.
'Jump.'
"Ellie," her sister's soft voice murmured.
She looked down and her eyes met with mismatched pools of ruby and violet. It hurt her to see the black bruise around Clarissa's ruby eye. Twinkling eyes stared up at her, dry cracked lips trembling, silently asking her 'what are we going to do now?'
Hot tears streamed down Elle's cheeks like two silver rivers glistening against her alabaster skin.
"I-I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry. I just wanted you to be safe and stop hurting." She choked out.
Clarissa's gaze suddenly softened and she smiled; it was a soft hollowed smile; a smile that knew pain, a smile that was tired, a smile that was oddly content in that moment.
Her mismatched eyes glimmered and tears streamed down her pale cheeks.
"It's okay. They can never break us."
They stared into each other's identical faces with a dawning realization. They'd either go back with the nuns and surely get separated, or they'd choose their fate.
Their thoughts mirrored each other; in that moment they both made an unspoken pact, promising to die together right then and there.
'Jump'
Elle smiled through her tears and blurry vision. "I love you Clarissa."
She took a step back, shoulders shaking from suppressing a violent sob. The rocks under her feet crumpled and dropped, falling over the edge and vanishing down into the dark abyss below.
"I love you Ellie." Clarissa hugged Elle, voice sounding like shattered glass. "Our life might have been short, but you made me happy."
Their hearts now beat in sync, thin arms clinging onto each other's bruised asthenic bodies.
'This is the only way.'
Moira's eyes widened, realizing too late what they were about to do.
"Suicide is an unforgivable sin!" She leaped forward to grab them but her clawing fingers slipped through air instead.
The fog swallowed them as they plummeted down.
With a content smile, they ascended; allowing the howling wind to wash away the blood curdling scream from the nuns and the barking dogs as they teetered to the edge after them.
They clung to each other as they fell, their identical dark hairs whipping around their frail falling bodies until they were finally one, entwined and whole.
Clarissa laughed into the howling wind and Elle whooped joyously. They felt like newborns; innocent, free, happy and together. They came into this world together, left alone to fend for themselves in a cruel world that tormented them for their peculiarities. It was only fitting that they leave their suffering together as well.
Then they collided onto the rocks below with a sickening tumultuous SPLAT! Everything around them stilled. Even the wind stopped howling and birds scattered from treetops.
Clarissa died that instant, body splattered to pieces, her last moments happy and content in her sister's arms, finally free from all the pain and torture she had endured since birth.
Elle did not.
She writhed in pain, body convulsing until she could barely breathe. Her body was twisted and mangled, she couldn't pinpoint where it hurt the most because her whole body was on fire. The full moon stared down at her, its glowing beams bathing her blood drenched body. The pain was unbearable and she begged death to come quick. Her vision was beginning to blur.
Suddenly she heard a rustle nearby. She tilted her head aside and caught the glimpse of a pair of glowing blue eyes staring down at her from atop a tree stump. It's black fur was outlined by the moonlight.
She stared back at the obsedian cat.
It tilted its head, an almost curious glimmer in its vivid blue slitted eyes.
Then the whole world seemed to still. She couldn't hear the wind, the forest or any animal. It was as if someone had put a pause on the world. The silence was deafening.
Is this dying?
Her pain dulled completely, ebbing away until she couldn't feel a thing. It was as if someone had pumped her full of anesthesia; she couldn't feel an ounce of pain.
Then something peculiar began to happen.
The pool of blood around her drifted back into her body, her twisted legs and shattered hand pulled back into place, twisting and snapping back into her body.
Through clouded eyes, Elle turned and was startled to see that the same was happening to her sister. Her eyes were closed but her dead body was beginning to do something strange. Brain matter rolled back into Clarissa's split skull, the top of her cranium pulling back over the mushy texture of her brain.
Her sister's splattered body was also drifting back into itself. Her wrangled left hand twisted, her spine cracked as it straightened, her blood matted hair dried as the blood seeped back into her closing wounds.
Elle was too disoriented to even wrap her mind around what was happening. She weakly reached for Clarissa's hand when her twin sister suddenly ricocheted abruptly, startling her.
Elle gasped and pulled her hand back.
"C-Clarissa." She rasped, voice hoarse.
She watched in a frozen confounding terror as her sister floated up. Clarissa's hair whipped around her body in a silent wind, arms spread out blithely, jerking in awkward angles. She went higher and higher towards the top.
It was like watching a clip replay backwards right in front of her eyes.
Elle's eyes widened; she was watching Clarissa being rewinded back onto the clip they jumped off mere moments ago. But without her.
"Wait!" Elle clawed at the dirt around her, struggling to get on her feet. Her whole body felt almost foreign to her.
As soon as Clarissa's body landed on the top of the cliff all at once the sounds came back, the play button hit; the whispering wind, the slow buzz of the Forest, the rustling trees, the muffled screams of the nuns and barking dogs, the soft purring of a cat.
Elle hissed and clamped her hand around her ears to ease the sudden boost of sound.
She couldn't understand what was going on but all that mattered was her sister.
"Clarissa." Elle tried calling but her voice was faint.
She finally gained some footing and crawled onto her knees, feeling her legs wobble under her. She felt like a toddler trying to walk.
Scampering towards the wall, she grunted as she pulled herself to her feet with the support of the rocks near the cliff wall.
Pebbles scattered off the cliff, raining down the edge.
Elle looked up and gasped. She saw Clarissa right at the edge, struggling to balance herself and not fall off. Elle saw the flames from the torches being swung lividly. The wind carried their distant shouts muffled by the distance.
Elle's whole body went numb and her heart stopped beating when a dawning realization settled in her mind; she would watch her sister die alone.
Her eyes were wide, whatever fight she had before died in that instant. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Then Clarissa ascended, arms spread out, long hair lashing and whipping around her small body. It was exactly like it happened a moment ago, only difference was now Clarissa would die thinking she was alone. She would die knowing her sister had jumped first leaving her to fend for herself in the last seconds of her life.
"Please no. Stop. Just go back I-I don't want this." Elle cried out begging whatever cruel deity that was responsible for this.
"I wanna die with her!" She screamed into the dead night. "Please! Let me go back!"
Glowing blue eyes stared at her from the tree stump.
Clarissa's body splattered right infront of Elle, her blood exploding all over twin sister's body.
Elle sobbed violently and sank to her knees. She squeezed her eyes shut so she wouldn't see her sister's dead body, or her wide mismatched eyes frozen in pain.
"I'm sorry. Oh God I'm so sorry please Clarissa forgive me." She wept, pulling her sister's crimson body into her arms and hugging her tight against her chest.
The black cat silently watched the girl weep, trembling as she pressed her cheek against her twin sister's face and gently straightened her silky hair. Her tears prickled onto her sister's face, diluting her blood stained cheeks.
Then the black cat jumped off the tree stump and paused for an instant before disappearing behind it.