Roarke: An Origin Story

The Cooper Mansion

        We had been away from the two story farmhouse for hours now. Jace and I both had our fill of blood and we kept every dead rodent we drank from to bring back to our siblings for food. The burning sensation never fully left my throat, mouth, and teeth, despite having completely drained two fully grown deer and a rabbit. We had started on our way home the moment the sun in the sky started to go down. Jace and I were racing our horses like we had when we were young boys. Jace’s horse wasn’t as fast as Balias was, still. The sounds of Balias’s hooves hitting the ground was music to my ears. It made me feel normal again and forget what I was now, even if it was just for the moment.
        “Come on Methuselah,” I heard Jace say from further behind me. I heard him flick the reins twice, which made me laugh out loud.
        I could see the farmhouse in the distance now. I smiled to myself, and gave Balias a scratch on the top part of his head right between the ears. It was his favorite spot to be scratched at, and he deserved it for bringing me another victory against Jace. When he received his favorite head scratch, he sped up a little, snorting as he did so. The trees flew by us as he raced through the woods with me. I threw a quick glance behind me again just to find Jace falling further behind with his brown horse Methuselah. The annoyed look on his face made me smile to myself as I turned back around.
        Balias leapt over a massive log and then burst into the clearing in front of our home, skidding to a stop entirely. Jace followed behind shortly, his horse skidding to a stop as well, then circling around me and Balias.
        “Good race,” I said triumphantly.
        “I’ll beat you one of these days. Just you wait,” he vowed.
        Whatever he has to tell himself to make him happy, I thought.
        The look he threw at me when he heard that thought was funny. With that, he led his horse to the stables, and I followed him only a few moments after. We put our horses in their respective stables and took our catch to the wooden storage shack behind our home where we stored all of our crops and food we caught. It felt unusual going back in there again without Father around. My brothers and I never went in there without him unless it was to get something for Mother. He was always with us when we went hunting.
        In that moment, anger rushed over me again and I remembered the words I had muttered to myself to the bodies of my dead parents. We will avenge you. Whatever it takes. And I meant every word of it. I was already thinking of ways to find whoever it was that killed my parents and all those other bystanders as well and end them. I would keep an eye out for any talk amongst the citizens about anything suspicious happening. If there were any similar attacks, they would surely be talking about it.
        As I debated on what I would do about this vile creature, Jace and I walked back to our farmhouse. I could feel him listening in on what I was planning. He even offered to help in whatever way possible, which I graciously accepted. If I’m going to hunt them down, I’m going to have to have some sort of help from somewhere. We are going to have to keep it a secret from our siblings, too. We both knew for a fact that they would want to help find this demon. It was too dangerous, though, and I wasn’t about to let them put themselves in harm’s way like that. I’d rather get murdered the same way over and over again, than them have to experience that sort of torture.
        I led Jace through the front door of the house into the main room. It looked like a basic living room with a sofa up against the wall, a small table positioned in the center of the pale blue rug right in front of it with chairs across from one another facing one another on either side of the table as well. It was a small wooden rectangular table with a small white vase with some pretty orange tulips arranged neatly in it. Opposite in the room from us were the stairs to the second floor and beside the stairs was the door to the hall to get to the other rooms such as the kitchen and mother and father’s old room.
        All our siblings were in their rooms. On the second floor. I could hear them walking, talking, reading, or relaxing on their beds. Jace and I climbed up the stairs to the second floor, then turned left to head down the hall to get to my room at the very end. Jace and I walked completely silent. When we reached the door, I pushed it open. Normally, the hinges open with a sharp squeak, but there was no sound at all. Jace walked by me into the room and I stepped in and shut the door behind us, still just as silent as when I pushed the door open. I crossed the room and plopped down into the chair at the desk, then opened the bottom drawer. In it was a spare black sketchbook. I was going to use it for drawing more images of my siblings, flowers, or animals I spotted while on hunts, but I decided that I would use it for keeping track of places this creature strikes.
        I heard Jace lay on my bed. He had his breath held the entire time we had come inside, but it didn’t seem to affect him in any way. That delicious smell was starting to drive me insane again, but I was forcing myself to focus on tracking this demon down. I had opened the sketchbook to the first page and labeled it as “Location and date of attacks”. I turned to Jace and nodded my head to the sketchbook.
        “We’re going to keep track of all the attacks in this,” I told him telepathically.
        His red eyes were on mine now, and he gave me a nod. “Sounds good to me. Just be sure to keep it somewhere hidden so the others don’t find it. We don’t need them getting their hands on it.”
        “Of course. It’ll be with me at all times,” I said to him again with my mind. “In the meantime, do you suppose we head back to the Cooper mansion to try and find anything he may have left behind?”
        “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt anything. Anything that helps us find him is a good thing. Even if it’s little.” He thought to me.
        I nodded, turned back to the sketchbook that lay open on my desk and flipped to the next page. I labeled that page as “Evidence”, and wrote under that “Cooper Mansion”. I quickly closed the sketchbook and stuffed it inside my coat jacket.I decided that we would head to the mansion tonight when everyone would be asleep tonight and search for whatever would help us. It would be easier to sneak out like that so that nobody sees us when we leave. I was honestly a little nervous about going back to the mansion after what happened. I knew that nothing would happen when we go, but I couldn’t get rid of that nervous feeling.