The soft voice that penetrated against the hallow, cold brick walls was one that the several inhuman figures who sat gaping at their closed-in spaces they’d later refer to as their prison while their barely-clothed, pale bodies illuminated the darkness haunting the peeling corners of their nightmares fearfully shrunk away from through the brutality of seeing with their minds. Their distant pupils took in the sense of his presence in the icy air of which a third of us had already been taken by, while the others died of the fear that remained locked in their pasts and stole away their meaningless futures.
Seventeen seconds passed by without words. Complete silence seemed to echo about my clearing of space, where the time was useless to read unless you were counting down the hour of death, and the darkness had dominance over whatever light slithered around the heavily-guarded entrance. Silence was unusual. Every day, for the past four years of my life, the screaming and moaning of horror, pain, and sorrow buried itself deep in this prison, deep in whatever was left in the ruins of my heart.
The patient above me paced frantically across the creaking floor panels, muttering words of nonsense to himself. He brought laughter into my throat, and I mounted the rocky ledge of my windowsill for a better chance at not only hearing, but seeing him lose his hope. I scraped my palms on the rough wall bordering the window, and my skin burnt as small dots of blood began forming along my pale, fragile hands. I winced but continued hauling my body upward with wobbly arms.  A small crack running across the ceiling enabled me to barely get a good glimpse at him. I stooped against the frail, foggy glass, my back brushing against the windowpane representing the image of St. Jerome, the rain appearing to melt the cross he held alight in his exposed palms. I squinted upward, my lips grazing the rotting ceiling while I glimpsed the figure who had grown silent. 
An elder man, with long, fraying grey hair pulled back in a beautiful braid trailing down his back, sat nimbly on the edge of his damp mattress, gripping the rickety frame with such force that his veiny knuckles whitened. His bulging eyes, red from lack of sleep, stared unblinkingly ahead while his white lips moved to produce silent words.
“Friend, I advise you keep your pathetic sanity to yourself,” I called out into the darkness. My eyes could only observe the pale outline of his body as it shone out through the black ink of the night. I squinted and attempted to trace his shadowed face, but he flung his long, scarred hands before his bright eyes and his behind his withered fingers. A hiss came from the back of his throat and transformed into a low, silent chuckle.
“Deuce,” he whispered, his voice heavy with a European accent, “It’s vith you.”
His eyes flitted down to where the broken cement exposed my face, and lightning caught hints of his appearance when it decorated the night sky. His long nails ran along his skin and lips before he grinned broadly and began to hum softly.
His boney finger pointed shakily at me, and a face appeared next to my reflection in the windowpane. I glanced absently behind me, searching for my father whose presence caused a smile to appear on my lips as I stared into his mirror image. Green eyes blinked excitedly from our reflection on the glass, and we drew our attention back to the man.
“Your fear strengthens our unity,” we said.
The man sat for a moment longer before his mouth slowly parted and thick, dark threads of liquid leaked from his smiling face, and his lips revealed a silent scream which echoed through my ears. I drew away in sheer surprise but could not take my eyes from him. The blackening stain spreading across his white gown was so beautiful, and Deuce laughed from his perched position on the bed frame, his hands gripping a black heart. He set his tongue against its slick surface. The man dropped forward, his face burying in his knees so only his golden eyes were visible.
Keeper of Raum.
His voice was barely heard over the thundering of my heart as it crashed furiously against my chest, and with shock I stared incredulously at the man, whose entire body had now folded into the floor, and his empty, golden eyes stared desirably at me from his fallen form. His words repeated in rhythm with my heartbeat, and his gaping mouth remained frozen in a bloody grin.
“Jordan, ready or not… here I come,” Deuce purred, black blood spurting over his cracked lips and staining his white teeth, and I could see his bloody lips form a smile as his silhouette darkened with the shadows.
The words brought my eyes open with a jolt, and a familiar tune captured my attention.
I pushed back the images of the nightmare and focused intently on the song.
I could tell he arrived when the pain stopped. I heard his fingers tapping a small rhythmic music against the broken walls outside my dirty cell, the same five notes my father had played on the piano before he died, which allowed my bowed head to shoot upwards from my closed in position on the broken-tiled floor, an earlier attempt to shield my thin body from the deadly air and protect myself from the people taunting me.
Instantly, the hallways grew quiet, and I knew every victim was clawing away at what was left of their rotting souls, praying hysterically that his footsteps would not wander into their isolated rooms. They begged God for whatever mercy he had and claimed repeatedly they were good people. But there were never mistakes regarding your sanity. One’s mind could only last so long before it disrupted itself and broke apart.
I did not fear him as the others did. Everyone cringed at the mention of his name or hyperventilated when his voice drowned out the suffering resonating from the halls. However, I seemed attached to his persuasive voice and attracted to his presence.
I collapsed on the thin board mattress which served as my bed and decorated my decaying room. The small pool of iced-over rain, formed from cracks in the window ledge, reflected my filthy image staring hesitantly in the direction of the barred, locked door. I found myself holding my breath as I awaited his entrance. I knew he had come to visit me. Oftentimes, he would. He was my only companion, yet something about him seemed to capture my attention and draw me in. He made me do…things. Things that changed me and made me lose control… of myself…
I could smell the disease in the air as the several nuns went hustling by without a second glance in my direction. The sickness was enveloped by my blood, and it ate away at my damaged mind. The darkness provided me with the vision to see unclear images, people who begged for my help in the deepest and deadliest times of night when my eyes were closed and my body nearly immobilized with a fear too complicated to imagine, let alone experience.
I heard the slight creak of my door, and I was greeted by bright green eyes staring at me with a feverish desire. A joy spread across his face as he smiled coldly in my direction. The sight sent a chill down my spine, and my breathing became difficult; the air was too thick for me to inhale. I could feel the dark strands of my hair sticking to the dirty sweat plastered across my face. The pounding of my heart dominated my eardrums, keeping me from hearing properly.
I felt his cold fingers splay across what little warmth my blood provided on the left side of my cheek, and the smell of metal polluted the air around me, causing me to gag. My body shook involuntarily, though I was not cold; my skin was on fire, and my heart echoed with a high intensity that my head purposefully spun in imaginary pain. I felt his breath against my ear, his musical voice burning through my thoughts with rapid satisfaction. The bright emerald fires, resembling the eyes of which blinked away the years of torture I embedded in myself, still stared me playfully in the eye, pulling me deeper into an abyss of lies I couldn’t comprehend.
“Look at me,” the words rolled smoothly from his tongue. He drew in a gasp, gripping my thin face, pulling me closer to his astonishing image. His voice was joyous as he tried with undeniable effort to rid the smile and laughter from his pale face. His vibrant, green eyes trailed the outline of my body. “Look at me. Do you not see the damage? Tell me, Jordan, was it love that brought you to me when she was killing me or was it fear?”
I flipped onto my side and threw up acidic liquid that burned through my esophagus. Coughing, with tears stinging my eyes, I clutched at my head, attempting to shake away the pain forming in my thoughts without warning. He drew away from me, a small sound of disgust coming from the back of his throat, and strode to the center of the room, examining the walls, running his delicate, scarred hands lightly over the surface of the cracks as if they were extravagant artwork. He began to hum, his passionate, musical tone carrying out around the lonesome space.
I had pushed away from the rickety surface of my bed and buried myself in the corner once again. “You’re not real,” I whispered to myself hoarsely, pressing my eyes shut with such force that the salt of my tears burned my irises. “It’s not real,” I assured myself, nodding my head to confirm he wasn’t towering before me, grinning with mockery.
My hands clamped down roughly on the surface of my ears, but the same four notes of music replayed in my mind.
“I am real,” I heard him say softly, his voice a pitch higher.
“You’re a liar. You’re lying to me! My-my m-m-mom put me here to help me…” I stuttered, my dry throat causing my voice to crack and falter.
He let out a malicious laugh, and a grin spread across his face, but never reached his eyes, “They’re the liars,” he said, looking as if he were trying hard not to laugh any further. “If she had wanted to help you, she would’ve come back when she promised to. I am your only friend, Jordan. Where was your caring mother when her beloved son woke up in tears as he heard the nightly sirens of screams echoing in his ears? You were eleven. And your damn mother didn’t seem to be there. But I was. I sang you to sleep like I used to.
“Remember who your enemy is,” he continued, “because if you forget, you will die. Mom killed me, Jordan. Ethan doesn’t know who you are anymore. I am not your enemy. The people who keep you here and treat you as if you are an animal are your enemy.”
He set his palm against my shoulder. His touch caused me to jump, and I jerked wildly to the side, away from his coldness, muttering all the while, “Not real, not real, not real…”
“I died for you. I watched myself die in the light reflecting from your eyes. And it was for you,” he breathed, steadying his weight on the rough edge of a rocky wall and tapping his fingers along his leg as if he were seated at a piano and softly skimming the keys.
He squinted up and swallowed hard before pushing himself from the wall and slowly striding toward me.
“I want your devotion, Jordan. I want to be able to help you in a way your mother could never be able to. I want to feel the things you feel. I want to love you in a way that will ensure we’re never apart. Tell me you love me,” he whispered, holding out his hand. Delight and desire coated his words.
“You see me. You see what she did to me… what she did to you” he hissed, outstretching his hand, once more, toward me.
“Pain does not kill me. Pain is a motivation to keep moving forward, and it is a lesson: to learn from your mistakes.  If I fall, I will keep rising until she falls with me,” he said, “Give me everything, and I will not disappoint.”
I felt sick to my stomach. No words escaped my mouth, and as I touched my tongue to my dry lips, I could hear his breath against my ear as he pressed me harder against the wall, jerking my face toward his, “Say you love me, Jordan. Say the words, and I will not stop until your mother is dead.”
I dug my nails into the wall, felt them split, and focused on the trickle of blood as it ran down my burning fingertips. The memories of what I had done so long ago whipped through my mind, and I tried to find the decent side to my life. Yet the more I focused on finding it, the less I was certain it was there. Everything I did was to protect us from her. I remembered every word of the truth my dying father gasped to me while he bled to death, and I still did not understand why I was here. I was not crazy. I was trying to help Ethan, and once she realized I knew what she’d done to us, she sent me away.
I was not crazy. Mother was the one diagnosed with the motivation to kill my father, and if I thought for one second that she would protect Ethan the way I could, then surely I fell to the insanity knitting these people and me together. I was not crazy.
“I watched you. You d-died…” I whispered. 
“I can give you more than she can. I am your keeper. Anything you dream of will belong to you. I will unlock this prison and form in you a person of purity who will reign until the end. I will give you my life. She’s drowning you, and I can lift you up, can provide you with the power and ferocity to fight back. Fear will bend at your hand, and you will have the power to create it in a way which will have people cringing when they hear your name. Just say the word, and my life is yours,” he whispered, his lips skimming my ear.
I blinked back the tears threatening to stain the wreckage of my face, gritting my teeth with such force, I was sure my jaw shattered under the pressure.
“Think of what we can become together. Think of your future. Know that my desire is to be a part of it. Forget suffering, I can show you the light. These people will not learn the true meaning of suffering until we unite. Show them what fear is.” He drew away a few inches, touching three fingers roughly to his lips and sucking in a shaky breath.
He brushed his free hand loosely through his dark hair, and an encouraging smile appeared across his face when our eyes met. I realized he was the fire I could not release, and he gave me hope for living again and protecting my little brother from this world of hatred.
I was fourteen, and I couldn’t process what was happening to me, so I pressed my forehead against his, all the while saying my little brother’s name repeatedly in my head Ethan Ethan Ethan, I’m doing this for you.  My eyes blinked hesitantly into the bright green abyss that lit the darkness surrounding me. I set as much passion into my voice as possible, shocking myself when the words left my mouth clearly and strongly. “I love you.”
My father smiled back with blood-stained teeth. “I love you more,” Deuce whispered, vigorously taking my hand in his, gesturing that we were one, and he would never part with me.