I whirl on him. “My family,” I choke. “Why are they tied up? What’s going on?”
His expression is unreadable.
“Do you love me? Trust me?” he asks quietly.
The question slams into me like a wall.
“What?” My voice cracks. “Morbius, we need to help them!”
I try to pull free, but his grip tightens painfully.
“Just answer me,” he says urgently. “Then I will make sure it will all be over.”
“It must be now.” A cloaked figure steps from the shadows.
My blood runs cold. My heart pounds so violently it feels like it might tear itself apart.
Morbius leans closer, his voice dropping to something dark, almost threatening.
“Tell me. And I promise it will all be over.”
I look back at my family.
Their eyes plead with me. My mother shakes her head frantically through her tears. My father stares at me with desperate helplessness.
I turn back to Morbius.
“Yes,” I whisper, trembling. “I love you. Now please, please save my family.”
Outside, fireworks explode as the village celebrates the new millennium. The windows flash with bursts of colour.
Morbius closes his eyes. His face transforms with pure, blissful euphoria.
“With those words,” he murmurs reverently, “you have given me the ultimate gift.”
Confusion barely has time to form before another cloaked figure moves.
A massive, unnatural blade glints in the candlelight. In one impossibly swift motion, it slices cleanly through my father’s neck.
For a split second, the world freezes.
Then his head tumbles to the floor.
My mother and sister’s muffled screams rip through the room.
“No!” A feral scream tears out of me as the blade rises again.
Blood splashes across the candles, the floor, the walls of the bar I grew up in.
I fight wildly against Morbius’s arms.
“Stop! STOP!”
But his hold on me is iron.
My brother. My sister. My mother.
One by one, they fall beneath the blade. Their blood fills the ritual circle. Their bodies crumple like broken dolls.
