Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Well this was quite the tale. I've been curious to see Rhian's side of the story and wow I was not expecting to be hit with something this powerful and emotional. I always thought there'd be a lot more to it than simple murder but I couldn't have predicted this at all.
Anyway let's get right to it,
In 1864, there was the Davidson family. Rhian the husband, Karina the wife, and Rose the daughter, only ten years old.
They had love and light, but not much wealth. Their house was but a sogging shack, their food was the grime they could afford, and their beds were weaker than cots.
Rhian sought for means to help his loved ones live as they deserved, always looking for the positives, the good things. The escape.
In searching for help, he had come across a curious group of people who always seemed to blend into the shadows and who only spoke in mutters. They promised him riches beyond what he could imagine, a life his beloveds couldn’t fathom.
Oooooh well this is a story I have wanted to see for some time now having seen things go wrong from the points of view of both the others. I'm very excited to see what happens here. Already from the very beginning things are starting our rather intriguing.
Rhian had joined their crew, but had soon regretted his choice, for they stole people away to carve them into cadavers and bury them in a beautiful, well-furnished home that was to be the Davidsons soon if he kept his promise.
He expressed his innermost concerns and worries one night after their kills, but they only whispered to each other hurriedly and then placed a curse upon him, that he would be haunted with the urge to take away the lives of innocents.
Rhian believed their words to be nothing but lies.
Well that was...quite the tale there. Out of all of the possibilities I thought could be had in terms of what had happened to Rhian for him to be in that position that was not what I was expecting to see there. Quite the moment this.
Rhian stared at the royal house. The crew had given him money. Money to buy clothes for Karina, money to buy a doll for Rose, and money to buy food for all three of them, but the house was free.
And it was all theirs. They were standing right in front of it.
Rose giddily ran inside of the house, joy in her skip, but Rhian carried Karina in his arms.
He wanted her to feel loved while she still lived.
Well this was quite the moment. The fact that Rhian seems to think they're living on burrowed time even now as things finally turn for the better for them and things are all still smiling and happy definitely adds on an extra sinister note to everything here.
As he carried Karina up the steps of the home, the pounding urge to pierce and cut through her skin screamed in his head, vibrated throughout his body. She was so sweet and loving, the very thought of hurting her was nothing short of what an animal would do.
But it wasn’t his choice.
Rhian opened the door to the master bedroom, where they would have slept if the urge wasn’t overwhelming.
The room was dark, but Rhian had visited the house for so many days that he already knew where the candle was. He took hold of the candle in the darkness and let it light the room.
Well it looks like that curse that was performed there is certainly no joke in terms of just how powerful it is that Rhian can't help but feel this way even while just holding the person that he went through all of this for.
“What I did was so vile, so cruel, so against the ways of life.” Rhian whispered, setting the candle down on the ground.
“How do you mean?” Karina asked, still innocent.
“I thought I could show you something beautiful before your demise.” He took out the knife in his pocket.
She grew tense under his arms.
“I love you, Karina.”
Rhian stuck the knife in her back. He could feel her warm blood spilling out from her skin. The only sound that came from her lips was ghoulish garble, the sound of despair.
He lost her.
Wow, that part hits you really quite hard there. You can really feel how all of this horror just plays out there as Rhian just cannot manage to control himself in the slightest until everything horrifying has just come to a head there in the worst way possible.
Rhian heaved Karina’s body into the room of other victims. He would bury them all later. He just needed to…help…Rose….
But the pained, corrupted thought of murder crept into his mind and seeped into his heart. He took out the bleeding knife…in the far corner of the room was an ax…he walked inside, past the many bodies lying on the ground…he took the ax…
Oh dear, it seems even though he wanted to try and avoid things going too too badly his internal curse just is too powerful for him to try and actually manage to prevent anything and now we've just got him wondering about, ready to do the worst here.
Rhian roamed the halls with the ax, searching for a way out. He couldn’t stay. He had to jump out a window…but they were so high…he couldn’t reach…Rhian stopped walking and tried to jump-he didn’t jump high enough.
Rose screamed.
“FATHER! C-COME UP HERE!” She cried out.
Rhian ran up the stairs. He didn’t want to, but again, it wasn’t his choice.
Oh dear it looks like despite literally trying to jump his way out of a window somehow to try and make sure Rose survives a bit longer, Rhian just can't actually help himself in any way and the worst is just inevitable in this particular moment.
“I didn’t want it to come to this.” He said when he made it to Rose.
She stood still, rooted in fear.
Then she turned around, eyes white with fright.
“Father?” Rose asked.
The blood from his hands dripped into the ax, staining it with blood. The evil in him didn’t want to clean it off.
“Did you..kill them all?” Rose asked.
He nodded.
“How could you?”
Oooh well seeing this scene in the reverse view now makes this so much worse I think because somehow the father's situation here is significantly more terrifying that seeing it from Rose's point of view as she's about to die.
“I had to. For your sake. For your mother’s.”
He thought that he could spare them, that leaving the others was a good thing.
Rose turned to Karina, who was lying disjointed on the ground.
“But you…you killed my mother…” She said, the words hardly leaving her mouth.
“And I’m deeply sorry for it. Rose, please. Don’t scream.” Rhian said. He took a step closer.
Rose took a step back, not trusting him in the slightest. She almost ran away, but he caught her arm.
Well even knowing exactly how this is going to play out from this moment forward does not make reading this any easier. Wow this is somehow even moree painful seeing it from the other side as yet again just the thoughts the father is having mixed in with those urges as well is just extremely powerful.
She screamed louder than before. She was trying to leave. She was trying to get away.
He wouldn’t let go.
“Shut your mouth, Rose!” He cried out.
If only she just stopped screaming, then things could be slightly better. If she just relaxed…
No. She wouldn’t because she knew that she was going to die.
Rhian pinned Rose to the ground. She still held onto her doll, called “Chrysanthemum” and sometimes “Chrissy”.
Well that about sums up how that's going to go. Now that we've pretty much survive the horror of this section, I'm very curious to see what happens to Rhian post this point given there clearly does seem to be a little more to this.
His hands shook as he took out thread and needles, something they gave him before he left. Rhian never took them out.
He stuck the thread in one of the needles, the other two falling to the ground, and stitched her mouth shut.
Maybe then she’d find peace in the quiet.
OOoooh well that's an interesting bit of motivation behind that particular one. I don't think I managed to consider that being a possibility earlier but presented like this it does certainly make a lot of sense.
Two years had passed. He had buried the bodies, but he still felt the presence of the victims. He sometimes wondered if Rose was there, plotting her revenge on him.
Rhian got up from the staircase he carried Karina on. Perhaps he should leave.
He felt a small, childlike hand forcefully pull on his arm.
Rhian looked down.
Standing before him was his bleeding daughter, Rose,with her mouth all stitched up and her body bleeding just like he remembered.
Oooooh here we go. Let's see what this aftermath is going to be like. I have a feeling we're going to see some potential vengeance here only given we know the circumstances behind it all I have a feeling this is still going to be tragic rather than satisfying.
Rose may have been permanently mute, but he could see the hurt glittering in her emerald eyes, like tears.
He tried to rub his eyes, to make the image of Rose go away, but she stayed where she was.
Rhian wanted Rose to find him. He wanted her to make him pay.
And yet, he still ran from her. He ran up the stairs, but by the time he got upstairs, she stood waiting for him, covered in gore and flesh.
Rose grabbed his hand, her fingers like claws. She pulled him down to her level. The hurt in her eyes boiled down to hatred.
Okayyy well it looks like there is definitely going to be a bit of a murder here but Rhian living this rather tortured existence in an empty house seems very much like that's what he seeks. To finally be free of the horror that is his life.
He could feel that someone was behind him. Karina, probably.
With her other hand, Rose turned him around to his right side. He was face to face with his wife.
Karina lodged her right hand in his throat, her fingers sharper than Rose’s.
Finally, Rhian would die.
Ahhhh well that turned out to be even more tragic than I was expecting it to be. Rhian just desperately wanting to die and having to face it at the hands of his own family that clearly seem to not know the horror he faced and clearly seem to hate him very much.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall I think a very powerful piece this one. It went places I really didn't think it was going to go towards and I really loved this quite a bit. I think you did an awesome job there.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Kate
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