Millicent felt as if she had burned her fingers through the letter. Despite the desperate feeling of abandonment clawing up her throat, she honestly was happy for her sister. Just because they were identical in appearance did not mean they had to be identical in their lives. And it was clear that her sister struggled more with their new lives than Millie ever had. It was common for Millie to wake up to horrible screams coming from the neighboring room in the middle of the night. Mercy always claimed to have terrible nightmares, and it did not take much imagination to find what an unconscious mind could fear in Typhon Manor. 

Typhon Manor was a brittle, run-down two stories in the middle of desolate, barren land. Its master, Uncle Balor, a caustic alcoholic solved every disrepair with four-inch nails and a claw hammer. However, he is simply adding scar tissue to the broken bones of this house. The windows are rusted closed, and the walls shake in a stiff wind that is ever-constant, at night Millicent has nearly died of hypothermia several times with only a moth-eaten blanket to cover her. Uncle Balor never feels it, he is too drunk to have nerve endings. 

Before Mercy ran away Millie never felt like complaining about her prison. After their parents died three years ago when they were eight, Millicent thought they were lucky that they had a roof over their heads and three meals a day thanks to Arina the Russian cook. At least she and her sister were together instead of being ripped apart in foster homes. As long as they had each other she could make friends with the rats in her room, withstand the freeze and the midnight screams. But now Mercy is gone. Left in the middle of the night. It has been five days since her disappearance and Millicent has found herself going mad. 

Typhon Manor and its solitude have begun infecting her mind. A smell she has never smelled before has invaded her senses. It isn’t hard for Millie to assume the gathering rodents in the area have all begun to hide under the floorboards for a hint of warmth however small it may be. The rotting bodies have been collecting as winter has progressed, if she listened closely, Millie swore she could imagine the crunching of tiny bones beneath her footsteps. 

Without any company to keep her sane, Millie had begun speaking to her new friend Silas, a little rat in her room who seemed to have been chewing through all her things. Silas chewed through anything in his path, the walls, her mattress, her furniture. Millicent always found herself jealous of Silas’s ability to chew his way through any prison he could be held in. Silas was much like Arina, in the sense that Arina could not speak with her either. 

No matter how many hours Millicent spent speaking to her, Arina never so much as opened her mouth. Sweet Arina always with a pale smile and squinted eyes that crinkled her transparent skin. It almost appealed to Millie more knowing Arina was mute, all of Millie’s secrets were safe with her. Perhaps that is why Uncle Balor liked her too, never asked questions, sassed back, never requested days off, and never shared the outside world with the prisoners.  

Ever since Mercy’s disappearance, Uncle Balor has been more drunk than usual. Nowadays he passed out before dinnertime. He and Mercy always had an odd relationship that constantly made Millie feel like the odd man out, not that she minded all that much. She was always closer to Arina anyway. Uncle Balor was always staring at Mercy, and when he did talk which was a rare occasion, it was always to her. He never thanked or complimented Arina’s dishes, and he never acknowledged Millicent’s existence until Mercy left. Oddly enough, Mercy appeared to have a sort of indifference to him in return. She never replied when she could help it, and this odd back and forth always appeared to be some sort of secret language Millie could never understand. Now she supposed that without his favorite amongst them, Uncle Balor came to realize through his intoxication that Millie was all he had left. 

That’s why when Uncle Balor said his first good morning to Millie yesterday in the past three years, she had nearly fallen out of her chair. She had noticed his eyes on her more often than not the past few days, and before lunch today he asked her to pass a green bottle of some other vile toxin to him. She could still see him, slouched over in the harsh angles of the termite-ridden rocking chair. His stomach sticking out more than usual, drool dripping down his chin and onto the white-stained shirt, the one he never removed. Millie wasn’t sure if she liked this new attention. 

Now Millicent was sitting at the splintered table in the kitchen watching Arina cook dinner: beef tongue and beets. The cooking tongue aroma mixed with the rotting smell of the manor. Perhaps it was the stench of her own mind rotting, Millie thought humorlessly. 

As usual, she ate her meal in solitude and silence. Using the same fork and knife as the day she arrived, at the same uneven, rigid table she had eaten at three times a day for the past three years. Sometimes she would contemplate her parents in silence, however tonight she reread her sister’s goodbye. Over and over again. Trying to understand why she didn’t walk to the room next door and wake Millie up from her slumber and escape with her. At the very least, she could have said a quick goodbye in person. Millie allowed her mind to wander and daydream of her and her sister running off into the night hand in hand, finally free. 

Millie was tucked tightly underneath her thin holy blanket, shivering, teeth chattering in her sleep. She could feel the wood of the bed slats beneath her, her mattress half chewed out by Silas and his friends. Her nightgown provided no safety from the chill, it was even thinner than the blanket. She fell asleep to the constant creaking of Typhon Manor as the susurrus of wind swept through every corner. 

It was the stomping that woke her. The loud creaking of every step forced her eyes open, a warning that made her heart beat faster and shiver harder. Her eyes were greeted by Uncle Balor trudging towards her bed, whiskey still dripping from the front of his shirt. She could smell it from his breath. 

His dark, oily hair, now beginning to bald in the middle, was sticking out on the sides making him look like the devil in the night. His teeth, rotten from all the days of ingesting poison, yellow and crooked formed a smile before her.

“So much like your sister” he slurred and leaned over Millie, both hands on either side of her hips. He ripped away the blanket and Millicent couldn’t help but release a blood-curdling scream. 

“You can scream all you want, there isn’t a soul to hear you for miles” his drool lingered above her eyes “Besides the rats,” he cackled and coughed. His face was a putrid breath away, and Millicent’s breathing became rampant. She felt his callused hands grip her arm and flip her over on the bed. She felt his rough fingers scrambling around her back like cockroaches. Then she heard the rip of her nightgown. Thin as it was, it gave away with the ease of paper. His hand was tight around her neck, sure to leave a thick black bruise, pressing her face so firmly into the mattress that she felt the suffocation tightening her lungs. She breathed in all of the dirt and the grime she had been forced to sleep in for the past three years as she felt her underwear drop down her legs. 

“I can’t wait to see you bleed,” he said. Millicent cried and screamed into her deathbed, her hope and will to live expelled through every wail of misery and shame. Seconds turned into minutes as her body was skewered and ripped to pieces, blackness invading her vision, her voice fading into the desolate land. It was then that with helplessness and humiliation, Millie realized that her dear sister never dreamt of nightmares, she was living one. 

“Oh Martin” he growled into her ear, “Martin.”

That was the last thing she heard before she escaped into the darkness. 

Months pass and the nightmare continues. Some nights Millie would get a reprieve and Uncle Balor would become too drunk even to make it up the stairs to her room. Some mornings she would find him asleep outside her door, always smelling of piss and cheap liquor. She never slept well, in fear of his visits. She only ate enough so that Arina felt appreciated, Millie would instead save her voice for the screaming later that night. She feared that if she used it for anything else she would lose it forever. 

Millie became the ghost of Typhon Manor. 

After the first few times, of his violations, Millie began to learn that holding her breath and thinking of other things helped. She would imagine running away and finding her sister, the life she had before this purgatory, she would even imagine herself as Silas, chewing her way out the walls. The ladder was her favorite, especially since she spent so much time clenching her jaw shut to stop the screams from escaping. She now had a very strong jaw like her friend. 

But once she imagined running out to the fresh empty air, she could not imagine anything past that. She had no money, no shoes, nothing but the ripped clothes on her back. Sometimes Millie prayed that Mercy would be the one that startled her in her room, coming to save her from this suffering. Mercy would be her guardian angel and take her away to her hiding place where they can truly call it their home. 

Arina started treating Millicent with extra attention and care, considering the grief of losing her sister was to blame for Millie’s stillness and deathlike state. She even took to using the leftover coals from the stove and placing them in the cracked fireplace in Millie’s room. It allowed some warmth to creep into the chamber to make up for Millie’s nightgown, which is now ripped to shreds. 

Millicent would stare into the fire with her old tin jewelry box and Mercy’s letter in hand. She reread with obsession and tears, guilt chewed up her heart with dull rotten teeth, leaving gangrene in their wake. Why did she never examine her sister’s screams? Why did she never question about the dark circles under her eyes? How did she not witness her sister’s hope drift away into the empty cracks and crevices he left within her? 

One afternoon Millicent was sitting in silence again, staring through the cloudy window pane in the dining room, glaring at the desolate land, the wasteland that she was forced to call home. She was surprised that even rats scurried across this sacred ground, the sacred ground of hell and death of all things colorful and vivacious. Her pallor had become as gray as everywhere around her. Dead, gray, lifeless, and dilapidated. Millicent supposed that this happens when you enter purgatory, you cannot live and you cannot die, simply eternally ensnared in a wooden cage with a beast. 

Arina arrived with a hot plate of lentils, catfish, and cabbage. Millie offered her a small smile of thanks, and as Arina turned away her stained apron caught on the only other chair at the table, the one Mercy used to occupy. A sudden rip released a small parchment of paper from the apron pocket. Millie lifted it from the floor before Arina could notice. 

Arina,  

• Vermouth

•  Whiskey

• Cigarettes

• Absynth

• Sausage

Millicent froze in her seat, the steam of the food hitting her pale cheek. The A, that inscription of capital A carved into her memory. All my love. 

And with this revelation, she sat at the table staring through the decrepit window and breathed the rotten air deeply. She smiled at her domain beyond the glass, she chuckled and savored her lentils. Once she finished she took her plate and the note to Arina who accepted with a silent smile. Millie stood on her tiptoes and kissed Arina on her dirty cheek before heading off to grab her supplies. 

The scene was set. Carefully, and methodically, with utmost care and attention to detail, set. Millicent had thought of every possibility. She knew with confidence that Uncle Balor would visit her tonight, as the list proved that he had run dry. His intoxication would be severe, however, he will most definitely make it past her doorway tonight. 

With patience, Millicent sat on her bed staring deep into the coal flames set by Arina, smiling at the burning adding a lovely bright hue to the room. She petted Silas with warmth like never before, whispering reassuring words of affection and care. 

Her heart raced with anticipation as she heard the barbaric stomping. Slowly but lucidly Uncle Balor’s steps grew closer. 17 steps it took for him to make it from the landing of the stairs to Millie’s room. She knew because she had counted them dozens of times, in fear. Now she counted with joy, as her breathing and heartbeat ran thrice the pace. 

14…15…16…17

The door flew open without a fight as it was already ajar to begin with. A roaring scream of the hinges announced Millicent’s victory. 

“Are you ready darling?” the Neanderthal huffed. He was already shirtless, alcohol-drenched his front to his jeans. Is hair was falling towards his eyes and his hairy navel was covering his zipper. She smiled in reply, startling him. He had only been accustomed to her tears and screams, never pure joy. 

This only angered him. He spittled with rage screaming gibberish as he took a foolish, drunken step toward her. Only to trip over the floorboard Millie had ripped from its place and hit the floor. 

She pounced with newfound energy, life seeping into her frozen bones as she slammed down the clawfoot hammer. 

Uncle Balor awoke with blood-curdling screams. Pain erupted from the back of his head, thick liquid pooled around and down his neck. He was frozen in place, no, nailed in place. His screaming grew as he turned and lifted his head, this way and that to discover the fire in his limbs. 

Four-inch nails twisted and bent in odd directions stuck out from his elbows, palms, knees, and feet, driven into the wooden floor beneath him. The nails were pounded hastily and without expertise. Millie had missed at times and ended up breaking a few of his bones. Without the necessary strength to go through the bone, she ended up jumping on the limbs themselves, using her weight to bend them at unnatural angles and driving the rusted nails to the floor. 

“There’s no point in screaming Uncle, no one can hear you for miles.”

She was a demon in the night standing in his oxfords. Blood was splattered across her face, her hair, and her teeth. She glowed with delight. 

“Except for the rats.” She held up Silas by the tail, “This will only be uncomfortable for a moment my darling” and placed him on Balor’s stomach and covered him with her tin jewelry box. She stepped over her masterpiece which was Balor’s broken body and crouched by the fire. Without releasing him from her gaze, she shoved her hand into the flames and grabbed a handful of coals with a silent clench of her jaw, and set them atop the metal box. 

The screams were a symphony. Violins and trumpets, french horns, and the smashing of piano keys, all the while Millie stayed crouched right next to her uncle. The light of the flames stroked her cheek as she watched Silas’s body crawl under Balor’s skin, chewing through his organs. Finally, she saw his little fingers digging into the skin from the inside out, his teeth next.

As this excavation continued, blood began to gather on the floor, hot and thick. Millie relished in the feeling, splashing her feet in the warmth, savoring the reprieve from a life of chill. 

“Oh Uncle, I couldn’t wait to see you bleed!” She was met with an even louder roar to the torture. All the while Millie was laughing and clapping through the whole thing. 

Finally, little Silas chewed through the side of Balor, and Millie quickly caught his bloody, sticky body in her hands. 

“Oh my darling Silas, you did so well! I am so proud of you, good boy,” she caressed and stroked him to calm, blood coating her hands, chest, and nightgown as she held him close to her heart with the care of a mother. As she heard the blood beginning to gurgle up his throat she stood with Silas and straddled Balor’s head, exposing her body to him. She leaned forward, lifting the leftover fringe of her nightgown to her hips, and smiled, letting the blood from her body drip over his face, and smiled until his very last breath. 

Once the whisper of winds creaking through the house was all that was left, she sighed with deep relief squeezing Silas to her chest. 

“I’m so tired Silas,” she took him to her bed, not bothering to step over the dead body, and crawled beneath the moth-eaten blanket. She lay amongst the blood, grime, and dirt with burns on her hands and a rat on her chest, and slept the deepest she had ever slept before. 

“Aaaaaaahh!!! какого хрена!” Arina woke Millie up with her screams. She had never heard her voice before, it would have been lovely if it weren’t infused with so much fear. Arina ran out of the house, pale as the moon, screaming the entire way to her old bicycle outside. 

She returned in an hour with the police. 

They found Millie sitting in the rocking chair in the living room. Instead of its usual position next to the ratty couch with foam escaping the cushions, it was dragged over to the window facing the porch. Glass was shattered, twinkling to the barren ground outside the house. The police saw the blood as they walked closer to the young face staring out at them. 

Millie still had Silas in her lap, both were still bloody from their murderous slumber. As the police entered the house, each of their jaws dropped in confusion, wondering how this place was still livable. It wasn’t. 

“I thought this old shack was deserted for twelve years,” one of the officers said. 

A kind man with a walrus mustache crouched down next to Millie. He said his name was Ivan and asked if he could clean her hands off the glass and she nodded. No one has ever asked for permission to touch her before. He gently cleaned them one at a time, letting Millie keep Silas in her lap. Afterwards, he wrapped his police jacket around her, it was the thickest piece of clothing she had ever worn, and Ivan shivered from the chill. 

Ivan’s officer friends scoured the whole house. Their noses crinkled from the smell of rot and decay. An officer with red hair went into her bedroom first and quickly ran out vomiting over the railing onto the couch below. 

Millie smiled at the fact that her artwork could evoke such a reaction. She was never allowed to do anything creative, it made her proud to know that her first attempt was a hit. The men all took pictures of everything, preserving her work for eternity. 

Arina sat at the table silent, in shock. Sitting in Millie’s seat staring out of the same rusted window. Both of the women sat with their backs to the invading men as they searched high and low for all the facts and evidence of this hellscape. They found all of Silas’s rat friends, the animals under the floorboards, the empty bottles of alcohol, and the ashtrays filled with cigarette butts. They found exactly two pairs of shirts and pants and a pair of oxfords in Millie’s room. They found pictures of men in Balor’s room. They found the nails sticking out of all odd ends in the house, including Balor. They found my room, the blood on the sheets and scratches on the walls. All the evidence of fights and torture on the mattress. 

Then finally, blessedly, they found my frozen, broken body in the walls.