Chapter One – The End
He could remember nothing. Well, almost nothing. His mother was a blur, a shadow in the fuddled clouds of his memories. He could, however, recall the warm caress of her tongue. He remembered the rhythmic motions and velvety feel of it across his back. He remembered her life-giving milk that she so generously gave him, and its faint taste of hazelnuts. His mother was a good doe, as he recalled. Her lovely golden pictogram floating atop her head just as his did. They looked so similar, yet so alike. The symbols were their names, for spoken names were deadly in the endless forest.
His life had been normal, wonderful and delightfully normal. His mother would take him on such long, meandering walks, taking large strides as her son would run to keep up with her. They would walk all day and sleep all night. Then the next day, they would keep walking. They walked for such a long time, for his mother always told him that she wanted to see “The End”. He never had understood what she had meant by that. That was, of course, until they had found it.
They had been walking countless days when they had found “The End”. Oh, and how lovely it was! Bright sunlight peeped though the brambles surrounding the forest. He had never seen such a dazzling display of light as the two fearlessly marched through it! “We have found The End to The Endless, my son.” He remembered her say, her sweet voice still clear in his fumbled mind. He remembered the shining smile on her human-like face, and the sweet smell of her pelt as she had said,
"We are free…”
The young woman crept in, her bare feet silently pressing against the tile floor. The stag had known of her presence for a while now, but chose not to speak of it. Jergens was oblivious, although he had never been observant to begin with, and mentally fretting over his boss didn’t help any. The woman snuck up to him, bent over, and leapt up onto his back.
“Tag! Yer it!” she screamed, encircling her arms around him. Jergens hollered in surprise and sprang away from her, much to her disappointment. “Who the Hell are you?!” he gasped, putting a hand to his chest. The woman cocked her head and looked down at Bartleby, who was breathing quite nicely now. “Humm… He sleeps so much…” she grabbed his arm and wiggled it back and forth. “Faaaiiith… wake up…” she mumbled, too softly for Jergens to hear. The stag cleared his throat and spoke. “Lady Bartleby, please don’t do that.” He muttered in masked annoyance.
Nippers stood and turned to the stag. “Oh! Hello-…” Jergens saw that her eyes flicked up to the pictogram floating atop the stag’s head for a few moments, as if regarding it. She continued, “…Do you know why Faith is sleeping so much?” she smiled sweetly. The stag glared at her silently, a sign that she was not wanted. After a few moments Nippers seemed to get the idea. Reluctantly, she left, politely closing that door behind her, leaving an irked stag and a confused (but amused) young man.
After a little while, the stag spoke again. “You have questions.” It wasn’t a question; it was just a passing comment, as casual as remarking on the weather. Jergens’s head was swimming with questions, and he was grateful for the opportunity to have them answered. “Who was that just now?” he asked the stag.
Bartleby’s hand was still bleeding. Jergens, being the understanding and kind gentleman that he was, shrugged and hoisted Bartleby onto his back.
“Wha… What are you doing?! Unhand me!” Bartleby struggled against him his kidnapper casually ran down the halls at a casual pace of casualness. “Hell no, man. Besides, you think I want to carry you? Yer freaking blood is leaving a stain on my shirt.” Jergens didn’t even know where the ‘infirmary’ was. Hell, he didn’t even know WHAT an ‘infirmary’ was. He hoped he was going in the right direction, but knowing his own luck, he probably wasn’t.
After a while Bartleby, growing a bit faint from blood loss, lightly tapped Jergens’s shoulder. “Do you even know where you’re going?” he almost whispered. “The infirmary is well behind us now; you see the plaques on the walls, don’t you?” Jergens turned around without a word and doubled back, noticing that there were indeed little sheets of metal on the wall with unrecognizable scribbles on them. Jergens guessed that these were probably words telling one where to go to get to somewhere… or something like that. Hell, he didn’t know.
After a bit more of running and pushing away bewildered servants, Bartleby tapped his shoulder again, this time barely moving. “You passed it again…” he managed to mumble out. “You can’t read… can you? I should have known…” he faltered and fell limp against Jergens. The red-headed youth promptly began to panic and took a random turn into another hallway.
It wasn’t very well lit, and the whole area seemed to be giving off some bad vibes. At least to Jergens it was. Unlike the rest of the estate, it didn’t look like anyone maintained it. He saw that there was a large door at the very end of it all, and he walked towards it, exhausted from carrying the extra weight of Bartleby around. His hands were supporting both of Bartleby’s legs, so knocking was out of the question.
The next day the servants of the Bartleby estate awoke to a rather strange situation. Their Master no longer had the quiet, subdued air that he usually wore, but rather had quite the spring in his step. If that wasn’t strange enough, they also woke the sound of a hideous screaming coming from the nearby dog kennel. However, injuries at the kennel were quite common, due to the ferocity of the hounds that lived there, so they just took it in stride. They were also greeted to the new employee, the young man simply called ‘Jergens’. He was a somber fellow, walking through the halls with a vacant look in his eyes, as if he were in a stupefied trance.
As Bartleby dined on some pastries and tea for breakfast, one of his servants came into the room and whispered into his ear. “Master Bartleby, the missus is awake now. She wishes to see you.” Bartleby nodded and followed the man down the spacious halls, leading him to a grand doorway. The man knocked on the door promptly and called, “Lady Bartleby, the Master is here.”
The door opened a little and a young woman stood peeking through at them, a childish light in her eyes. She looked to be in her twenties, with long creamy brown hair. Her shining eyes widened in glee as she threw open the door and flung herself on Bartleby. “Big brother!” she cried, wrapping her arms around him and kissing his cheek. “Ah, hello Nip.” Bartleby returned her hug, petting her hair affectionately.
Nippers Bartleby was her full name, actually. She was the first born between the two and resented for the fact that she was female, and therefore unable to carry the family name. Bartleby was born soon after though and Nippers was just quietly swept under the rug, guilt prevented her from being completely wiped out, but shame kept her hidden. Unlike his parents, Bartleby loved his sister immensely. She was the only person that called him by his first name, not even his own parents did that.
Turkey
Bartleby
Jergens
Debit and Credit
“Okay… options… Gotta go over the options… Sure there may be two big freaking dogs in front of me…” Jergens’s mind was going all around in a blur. He decided to go over all the possible choices that he could make…
A. Scream bloody murder
B. Run like Hell
C. Continue with phase one and act as if the dogs don’t exist.
After carefully eliminating the various options he could take, Jergens decided to go with option ‘C’. It was his least favorite, but it was the only sure-fire way to go on with the plan.
Actually, the ‘plan’ really only had one phase. Jergens just thought that the idea of ‘phases’ sounded cool. No, the actual plan in order to land himself some employment was to seduce Bartleby. That was it, no strings attached. Ludicrous, yes, but it was the Jergens way. The Jergens way didn’t have to be sane. He stood up and walked out of the bushes, brushing stray leaves off of him.
The two dogs snapped their heads at him simultaneously, a vicious growl rumbling within them both. Jergens saw their black gums curl over their fearsome yellow fangs. Using every bit of composure to not piss himself in fear, he smiled rather suavely at Bartleby (or at least in his general direction, his eyes were completely locked onto the dogs).
Bartleby cocked an eyebrow at his new visitor when he came out of the foliage and eyed him suspiciously. A very light blonde lock of hair covered one of his eyes. “You again?” he muttered, almost in disgust before standing up and looking him over. “I’ll admit that it’s an improvement though…” he said, tapping his lip in mild thought as the two dogs sat on both sides of him, glaring at Jergens. Jergens himself, on the other hand, didn’t feel as thoughtful. With a very forced (but natural looking) grin, said, “Hey, what’s going on?” Hmm... a bit nonchalant, yes, but it would do.
Never before had Jergens felt so clean and refreshed (as well as sexually assaulted). Irene had given him a gift of some of her husband’s old clothes. Sure, they literally almost fell off his skin and bones body, but they were clean. Several people that he walked past no longer glared at him, they just gave him odd, awkward glances. It was quite an improvement, really.
As he strolled down the mansion gates he passed by a rather lovely rose bush. Jergens, who was quite impulsive when it came to matters such as these, picked one without even slowing his pace. He glanced over and happened to notice one of the nearby forests’s deer walking along on the other side of the street. Ordinarily, Jergens would have stopped and inspected it, but for this town, visits from the deer seemed pretty normal, and he wanted to blend in.
When he reached the rock wall enveloping the estate’s garden he considered how he would meet Bartleby again and begin phase one of his plan. Hide in the garden? No… he didn’t quite like that, did he? It also made him seem more like a creepy stalker. Go through the front door? He considered this, going through the front door… asking for some employment like a normal person? For shame! That wasn’t the Jergens way, no sir! But it was either that or the garden stalking…
Of course he went with the garden stalking, who wouldn’t?
He climbed over the wall and dropped behind some bushes, only to stiffen himself and bite his lip in fear. Right across the garden path, less than twenty feet away from him, were two black guard dogs. One had the oddity of a white muzzle; the other had dirtied white paws. Both of them were looking at him in curiosity.
Jergens had been terrified of dogs ever since his birth. No, he had no traumatic event that gave birth to his phobia, he was just deathly afraid of them. Even the small, puffy varieties were scary to him!
