Seventeen-year-old Amy Bishop shuddered as she saw the long, menacing scar on her stomach in the mirror. Her dark brown hair was wet from the shower and it was impossible to avoid staring at the gash as she buttoned up her shirt.
Almost six years ago, something had happened to her in a dark, dreary place full of salty air, but for the love of God, she could not remember a single detail about it in clarity. She just knew that Dennis and Tom Riddle had been present with her. She did not remember what they were doing or why she had been screaming.
Everything was blurry.
Everything was foggy.
Everything was demonic.
Amy Benson shuddered.
then.
The children of Wool's Orphanage set off at daybreak in a neat and orderly queue for the Beach. Mrs. Cole was in the front, while Amy and Dennis trudged behind, right at the end of the line. A cold wind was howling and they were not dressed appropriately for the weather; they did not have enough of warm clothes.
They shivered quite violently and their teeth chattered audibly as they walked forward. Amy was just wearing a black woollen frock with numerous holes, most of which had not been repaired, while Dennis was clad in an old white cotton shirt and black shorts with only a dark green scarf to provide him with warmth. The wind ruffled their dark hair.
Of all the days to have the Annual Field Trip to the Beach, their horrid caretaker had to choose a very cold and very damp day that fell right in the middle of December.
Also, she did not feel the need to arrange a horse cart for the long trip. Mrs. Cole and Mr. Wool never felt the need to use the funds they got from the government on the orphans. Of course, nobody ever said it aloud, or mentioned it for that matter.
"How much more must I walk?" Amy asked Dennis in an exasperated tone.
"I don't know." He shrugged miserably. She scowled.
After another half an hour of walking, the tired children could smell the foul, rotten, fishy odour of the dark waters of the murky sea in the thick, fog-ridden air. When they set their feet on the beach, they got greeted by a most desolate scene: powdery grey sand met the dark swirling sea beneath the stormy and cloudy, dull blue sky in which a thousand seagulls could be seen flying.
Dennis sighed. This was supposed to have been fun. Oh well, when had life ever gone the way he wanted it to follow? Mrs. Cole halted quite suddenly, and the children stopped walking. This caused him to bump into Amy, who glared at him momentarily but did not say anything reprimanding.
"Go play," their caretaker ordered them. "But before that, each of you take one of these," she added and opened the enormous basket that she had been carrying around. When Dennis' turn came to pick up whatever she was offering, he peered inside to see that they were nothing but slices of buttered bread wrapped in napkin paper.
He sniffed it to find that it gave off the smell of mildew and clucked his tongue silently in distaste, before hurrying off to join Amy.
now.
Dennis Bishop was scared of the dark and the sinister noises that followed in its wake. There had been a time when he had been the one to volunteer to take the little children to the toilet in the middle of the night. That was not longer the case, as he spent all of his nights huddled beneath his scratchy blanket in his scratchy bed.
Something had happened six years ago that had turned him into a useless coward who was afraid of his own shadow. And however hard he tried, he just could not remember the incident. He just remembered the dark and Amy's frantic screams. Dennis also remembered Tom Riddle standing in front of them, almost looming over them, but he had not been doing anything, had he?
His bed was near the window, and when the wind rustled the leaves and heaved the branches of the oak tree outside, he froze in his sleep.
Tonight was no different. He drilled his index fingers into both of his ears and hoped for the awful noises to stop soon. Dennis shivered even though he was covered in the blanket. He had tried many times before to tell himself that he was being unreasonable, irrational, paranoid and insane.
He had failed each time to convince himself.
Because the angry, red scars on Dennis Bishop's arms and legs told another tale. A totally horrible one.
interlude
Tom Marvolo Riddle had always known that he was truly special. He had always known that he was a fully grown, emotionless man who was trapped in the body of a little child. He might have looked like a worthless orphan, but his cold and ruthless eyes gave away someone else entirely. He could not see anyone else happy - especially not when they were the ones calling him names.
Strangulating the pretty rabbit with the brilliant snowy white coat of fur had felt good. He did not feel any remorse nor any strings of guilt pulling at his heart. Its owner had been a rude bastard, anyway.
Now that the rabbit was killed and Mrs. Cole had not dared to send a single condescending word towards his way, he felt powerful. You see, Tom had an uncanny ability inside him - he could control minds with his mind and he had told Mrs. Cole to be silent. He could also make entire bunches of flowers to shrivel up in a span of minutes and cause birds to wander from their flights. He could hurt them at his will. Of course, nobody else knew about this since he charmed everyone with his manners.
He was the head around here. It was time the others came to know about this.
He would start with Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop.
then.
"Hey!" someone called out.
Dennis and Amy, who had been trying to make a sand castle, looked around for the source of the yell. They saw Tom Riddle approaching them and stood up to face him.
Riddle had always been a strange boy for them, and in the back of their minds, the two friends had always felt somewhat afraid of him. Even though the other children bullied him, they did not, and now that he had killed the rabbit, their notions had only strengthened.
"Riddle, what do you want from us?" Amy said.
The boy's eyes flashed momentarily. They showed danger.
"Adventure, Benson, adventure."
"What?" Dennis said.
"You heard that right, Bishop. I am asking you two to have an adventure with me. So, anyone?"
He grinned and Dennis felt an illness sweeping over him.
Amy might have felt a little afraid of Tom Riddle, but she was not a fool to trust him and go wherever he wanted to take them.
"No," she replied crisply.
"No? Then I think I will have to use this." The boy grinned yet again and both the children felt a shiver run down their spines. It is due to the cold wind, they told themselves.
"What - what are you going to use?" Dennis asked, his tone suspicious.
"You'll see."
Riddle's eyes focussed on theirs like a hunter's on a prey's during the final showdown. They seemed to be glassy orbs which stared straight through them.
"You want to come with me," he told them.
His voice sounded faraway and distant. They could not hear anything else, not even the deafening squawking of the seagulls or the lolling waves of the murky sea. His voice could outshine every other sound around them. His voice sounded so sweet and they could follow it anywhere, like the rats and mice who followed the Pied Piper's wondrous flute.
"We want to come with you," they answered in unison.
now.
Dennis sat on a bench in the local park and waited for the sunset to take place. A few minutes later, Amy came and sat beside him. She laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. He wound his arm around her waist.
"Why can't I remember anything, Dennis?" she whispered, "Why can't I?"
By her miserable tone, he could fathom that tears had begun to pool in her bright green eyes. Sure enough, he saw them when he lifted her chin with his fingers. They spilled out of her eyes and spread over her cheeks in cascades.
Dennis wiped them away with his thumb, unable to speak or do anything else. What else could he have done, anyway?
interlude.
Winfred Cole did not like children at all, but even she had to admit that Tom Riddle was her favourite. She was sitting in her office, waiting for prospective couples who wanted to adopt children, when a sharp knock sounded on the door. Perhaps it was one of those couples. Why hadn't René notified her beforehand?
"Come in!"
It was just Tom.
"Oh, Tom, why are you here?"
"I wanted to tell you something, Madam. I was thinking that we could go to the Beach sometime in the next week. Can we?"
"In this atrocious weather? Absolutely not!"
He stared at her with hypnotic eyes.
"You will take us to the Beach," he deadpanned.
"No, I will not," she scoffed.
"You will take us to the Beach."
"I will take you to the Beach," she said, looking totally lost. His voice is so charming, she thought inwardly.
"Good. That's what I wanted to hear." He grinned. "You'll forget that I ever came here," Tom added.
"I'll forget that you ever came here." She could feel herself relaxing. She felt happy and peaceful for no apparent reason whatsoever.
And just like that, it had been done.
then.
"I don't remember saying yes to him," Dennis murmured.
"Me neither," Amy replied as she precariously checked the next step tentatively. It was well after three o'clock now. The two of them were climbing down the steep cliff together. There were a few footholds and far too many jagged rocks to hinder their journey. Dennis' and Amy's arms and legs were covered in numerous bleeding scars due to them. The rocks had torn through her thin woollen frock and created a burning scar on her stomach. They were more than halfway down, while Riddle was further below.
Suddenly Dennis lost his hold and he went slipping down, getting his chin, elbows and knees scraped horribly in the process.
"Dennis!" she shouted frantically. Riddle just laughed loudly.
"Dennis!"
A sick splash answered her. She hurried.
Riddle stood in the shallow salty water when she finally reached down. He was making no effort to help her friend stand up, who was lying limply against a rock. Riddle was just smiling widely. It did not suit him.
"There's nothing to smile about!" she shouted and glared at him. If it was possible, it seemed that the boy's smile had widened even more after her retort. She grasped Dennis with her bruised hands and heaved him up. His brown eyes stared confusedly at her green ones.
"Are you fine?" she muttered.
The half-hearted shake of his head told her everything.
"Come on!" Riddle yelled.
Again, it was that hypnotic voice, pulling her towards itself like an ant to sugar. She gripped Dennis' hand and made him walk with her.
now.
Tom Riddle would always haunt her, both in the physical and metaphysical planes. She could always see him standing behind her in the mirror. The hairs on her neck always stood when she was alone because she felt a warm rush of wind hitting it; the warm rush felt like someone's breathing but whenever she turned around, there was nobody to stare at.
She knew that the boy who stood behind was not real, but her mind refused to believe it.
now.
Skulls. He was also afraid of skulls. And bones.
He had resorted to eating his meat boneless just so he could avoid looking at them. People called him a baby for being frightened of mundane things like the darkness and the chicken bones, but they did not know anything.
They could never know anything.
then.
The cave was dark and Riddle's eyes practically glowed. It was an unearthly effect.
Large, dark grey rocks could be seen on the sides, and Dennis could tell that the dark water present at the far end was deep and sinister. He wanted to be as far away as possible from it. There were a whole lot of various types of skulls and bones present on the rocks, making the place even more eerie and frightening. He could tell that none of them belonged to human beings, but they did the job nonetheless.
"So, why have you brought us down here?" he managed to mutter.
"You'll see," the boy answered with a wicked smirk.
You'll see. Dennis groaned lowly; his answers were beginning to irritate him.
Suddenly Riddle clapped loudly. The clap reverberated within the cave, sounding like the call of the devil. As soon as the reverberations died out, out came slithering an enormous, black snake.
"You see," Riddle said, nonchalance dancing in his voice, "I've been here before on previous trips and made some friends." He bent down to have a good look at the snake and caressed its head fondly. Dennis and Amy could just stare. They wanted to run but their feet were frozen. They were petrified and their breath had stuck in their lungs.
"I still haven't thought of a name for her. How do you think Nagini sounds?"
They did not say anything. They could not say anything.
Riddle began murmuring something incomprehensive to the snake. Was he talking to it or was he talking with it? Amy could not tell which of the two was happening. Approximately thirty seconds later, it began slithering towards them. Its hiss was positively evil. They hastily backed away.
"What did you tell it?" Dennis cried out.
"Nothing."
"Well, stop it!" Amy yelled from beside him. He could see that she was shivering violently. He did not know whether it was from the cold or the fear of the snake.
Perhaps it was both.
He shoved his hands in his pockets to find something - anything that could make the creature stop. His fumbling fingers only found Mrs. Cole's squishy and mildewed bread slice, which he promptly threw in front of the snake.
The creature slithered right over it, crushing it in the process and headed towards Amy, whose skin was as pale as alabaster.
"Ha! As if that miserable breakfast was going to stop Nagini..."
"Please, just stop it!" he screamed. Dennis was begging now, but the malevolent boy ignored him completely. He simply did not pay any attention to him.
The snake leapt off the ground and coiled itself around Amy's waist, causing her to scream. Not thinking about the risks, Dennis clutched its shimmering tail and tried to pull it off her frail body. In return, it bit him and he gasped in agony. Amy was hysterical by now.
All of his body ached. His vision was getting foggy...
then.
A thick film of tears was obstructing her sight. Dennis had fallen onto the moist, sandy ground. Was he dead? This thought caused her to wail further. Meanwhile, the vicious creature slithered up her body slowly and steadily.
"Shut up!" Riddle ordered.
She did not.
The snake's mouth was near her neck now and its slippery tongue touched her skin. In a fast and fluid motion, the snake had wrapped itself around her neck and began squeezing it. Amy tried to pull it off, but her efforts were useless. Her eyes bulged out of their sockets and all air left her lungs. Darkness was creeping into the edges of her field of vision. She could hear many people laughing diabolically. It seemed that her head could explode open at any moment.
A few seconds later, she lost her balance and blacked out. The snake left her.
interlude
It was nearly evening now and Mrs. Cole began gathering the children. As soon as she saw that a large amount of them had formed a queue, she began counting them.
The results of the count were shocking; three children - Tom, Amy and Dennis - all nearly eleven years old, were missing.
"Has anyone seen Tom, Amy or Dennis?"
Hushed discussions broke out in the crowd. It looked like none of the children knew of their whereabouts.
"Madam!" someone shouted sharply from behind her.
She whirled around to see Tom Riddle running towards her like a steam engine gone amok. His expression was one that of extreme shock and streams of sweat were dripping from his brow, even though it was practically cold enough to snow. He was heaving in deep breaths when he finally came to a stop in front of her.
"Amy, Dennis...I saw them descending the cliff...and I followed them. They went into a cave. By the time I reached them...it had been too late. They were unconscious. Still must be, I think."
By the time the boy had finished his narrative, her hand had come to cover her gaping mouth by itself.
They found the children bloody and bruised outside one of the caves, lying in the shallow sea water. Thank Lord, they were still breathing.
It was only much, much later when a man with a long, flowing beard came to visit her and told her that the Riddle boy was special, that he was wizard who was required to go to a special school, that she had wondered whether the sweat on Tom Riddle's brow had only been plain old salty sea water.
now.
Their past was a blurry mess and they could do nothing about it. They were the only ones who understood each other in ways others did not. Their minds were linked at that unexplained, messy point in their lives. They had managed to escape death together and perhaps, perhaps they would never get to know the answers to their questions, but they could not stop living, could they?
Perhaps the image of Tom Riddle that stared at them from the mirrors or the irrational paranoia that shook them every now and then would never leave them, but they could not stop living, could they?
They could not stop living.
now.
Amy Benson hugged Dennis Bishop tightly.
The world could never understand their normalcy or why they slept with the lights on or why they preferred their meat boneless every damn time or why they avoided the sea even in the uncomfortable hot season.
The world could not ever, ever understand them or their ways. But they did understand each other's.
And that was all what they needed.