The Grimm Diaries Prequels Volume 15 - 18 (12 page)

I rubbed my hands free of the
sand, and felt really good. I mean, what does a devil want but to find meaning
in life after a long journey of turmoil and troubles? Here I was, prince of my
own island, given a second chance to start all over again.

Yes, Lord, I got your message.
I repent.

I realized that I had just
become a rehabilitated citizen in the kingdom of the Gods, and I sank to my
knees with tears in my eyes--well they weren't tears, but splashes from the sea
to suit the occasion.

I decided that I wasn't going
to play devil anymore; that I would be a new-born devil, and that I was going
to accept this wooden and useless body the Gods had given me without
complaints.

It was a precious moment that
could have changed the rest of humanity's history, if only I hadn't heard the
sound of zombies showing from behind the trees in the forest.

I stood paralyzed, about to
cry real tears now. The hordes of zombies were many, and were approaching. This
wasn't heaven. It was Zombie Island.

"Brains!" They
moaned, limping and crawling toward me, while I had nowhere to escape but to
the ocean.

I couldn't believe what was
happening to me. After all I had been through, I was going to get eaten by
zombies?

To top it off, a small boat
arrived at that same moment to the island. Men and women, who looked as if they
had been lost in the sea for a while, boarded off, still not noticing the
approaching zombies. I dug a hole for me in the sand, and planned on burying my
puppet body. I didn't need to breathe after all.

As I dug, I was amazed the
zombies missed me, and walked farther to the humans from the boat. They
attached them one by one, children, men, and women. Blood spattered on my new
island, which I wanted to be my Heaven.

I stood paralyzed, watching
the massacre until the zombies noticed my presence, and turned back to me. In
my frustration, I figured that dying had been my fate all along, so I didn't
run or resist. I gave in to the heavy weight of living, and let the zombies eat
me alive.

Now historians will strongly
oppose my story, because how could I have died when the world still suffers from
evil until this very day?

Well, for one, and for the
bazillionth time, it's not always me who caused monstrosity and catastrophe. In
fact, the Gods do a lot of it. You think I can create a tsunami or earthquake
on my own?

Secondly, the historians are
right about one part. I didn't die that day--although I wanted to. How did I
survive? I am embarrassed to say it was Devine intervention.

When the zombies began eating
my brain, they discovered I had no brain. It was just a piece of wood, and it
could talk, which confused them greatly. They'd wasted most of what was already
left of their teeth to eat me, and it didn't work.

"Wood, you see?" I
knocked on my head, and smiled feebly. "Nothing to eat."

If they'd have just left me
alone that day, things would have been really different. But they didn't. To my
surprise, they knelt down and began worshipping me.

It took me a moment to realize
what was going on. To the zombies, I was the only uneatable human. I was made
from wood, and I could talk. I was everything they needed in a God, someone
invincible they could not hurt. If I hadn't achieved the status of a living
legend among humans, I succeeded with zombies, who actually had been human at
some point in their lives.

As they knelt before me, I
realized that I had become king of the zombies. I told you, fuck Robinson
Crusoe, whoever that was.

Of course, the title came
spattered with blood and gelatinous junks of brain leftovers. I had to lull
ships to the island, and let my army feed on them. No matter what I did, I
couldn't escape my nature. I was the freakin' devil, and mischief and mayhem
followed me everywhere.

Then one night, after my
children zombies had eaten, I woke up to a rumble on the island. At first I
thought it was some kind of seaquake. But then, and to make my miserable story
short, I discovered that my island was on the back of a...

Yeah, you guessed that right.
We were living on the top of a whale that had been asleep for months, and had
just woke up to sink us all to the deepest abyss of the sea. Years later, I
discovered the whale was Moby Dick, again! Can you believe that?

As the sea cradled me to the
left and the right, I ended up where it all had started, back to the Kingdom of
Sorrow.

It's really, ironic,
miserable, and mysterious that no matter what we seek out there in life, we
always come back to where it all began. A place we usually call home. We hate
it, and sometimes loathe it. But in the end, it's all that really mattered from
the beginning; not the world outside, but home.

But when we come back, we are
different people, having rather benefited or hurt from the journey in the
outside world. People would tell you there is a great wisdom behind the
journey. I never understood it. Frankly, I didn't know which one I was. Had I
been blessed or cursed?

I let Ghepetto hug me and
welcome me back, fitting me on my old place on the shelf.  Home sweet home.

After kissing me good night, I
sat there like a real puppet; inanimate and creepy, without the slightest life
buzzing out of me. I even let a cockroach walk over my nose, and I didn't
flinch.

Unable to understand the
wisdom of my journey, I listened to the night outside. Maybe someone out there
had a clue why I was born, and what I was destined for.

Then I heard someone playing
the flute outside. It was a crazy melody, hypnotic yet seductive--in later
years, I realized it was The Magic Flute by Mozart; years before he'd written
it.

I jumped to my feet and walked
into the moonlit forest, curious about the flute and the player.

Then there in the middle of
the forest, I saw him, along shades of darkness with skeleton hands, playing
his flute. There was nothing else to see about him, and I wasn't willing to get
any closer. The man scared me like no one I had laid my eyes upon before--if I
could call him a man.

A magpie landed on his
shoulder as he said, "I heard you want to sell me your soul."

"I do, Piper," I
knelt and laced my hands in front of me. "In exchange for getting me out
of this puppet's body. I sailed the world for you."

"Are you willing to pay
the price for your wish?" he asked, as the magpie fluttered its wing
briefly.

"Anything you ask of
me," I said.

"Your wish is
granted," he said. "From now on, you'll return to your old job as
fallen angel. Now, you are the Prince of Puppets."

"Prince of Darkness, you
mean."

"You got that
wrong," the Piper said. "When you seduce humans and play them like
marionettes, you're Prince of Puppets, not darkness. You will control their
threads, and make them think it's their own idea to insure evil."

"But humans are mostly
horrible on their own." I preached.

"Isn't that
beautiful?" the Piper said. He voice implied a bitter smile--years later,
I learned he was remembering how the elders of Hamlin had let him down. "I
won't ask much of you," he added. "Cause all the mayhem you want. I
won't judge you. All you have to do is to find me the descendants of the Lost
Seven. Scrape the earth for them, and hand them to me," he fisted his
skeleton hand. "Hand me their families, their children, and their loved
ones. Do what a devil has to do to find them," he said, and walked away as
my body was returning to its ordinary form. "You will also be capable of
taking shapes of humans to assist you in your search," he clicked his
skeleton fingers, and turned me into the shape of young, blond nobleman.

I let out a sigh, then
breathed in all the air I could. Finally. I had returned to what I was born to
do.

"Before you go,
Piper," I begged to ask one last question that troubled me. It wasn't
about Him. I was afraid to know more about him; I couldn't handle that at the
moment. It was about someone else, about the man I was dying to know the real
identity of. "Who is Hook?" I asked.

The Piper stopped in his place
and laughed, "You haven't figured that one out yet?" he said
mockingly, without turning to face me.

"A man who chooses people
to kill and ships to raid at random and isn't supposed to be evil?" I
considered. "No, I haven't figured out who he is."

"But you envy him,"
the Piper said matter-of-factly, as if he could read through me.

"I do," I raised my
chest, admitting my problem. "If a man can do all those horrible things at
random; kill, burn, and hurt, and isn't damned by the Gods like me, then I
indeed envy him. I need to know why I had been banned from Fairy Heaven when I
disobeyed an order, and hadn't done anything like him. I need to know how he
gets away with it. Who is he?" I pleaded.

"Hook is the one man you
can't argue with. I once heard that even the Gods can't," the Piper said,
laughing. His laugh gave me goose bumps.

"Why?" I repeated.
"Who is he?"

"He is fate. The one man
whom has the divine right to commit evil and not be judged," the Piper
said, and walked away.

End of Prequel # 17

The Grimm
Diaries Prequel #18

The
Sleeping Beast

as told by Angel Von Sorrow

By Cameron
Jace

The Grimm
Diaries Prequel #18

as told by
Angel Von Sorrow

Diary,

I am no man for words. Quill and ink aren't my best friends. Sword and
blood are.

I am a warrior, full of pain and conflict, trying to keep my kingdom together,
while doing my best not to give in to the beast that I was destined to become.

This diary is going to be short, for I have no intention to talk about
me. I am a legend. I don't write about my achievements. Others do.

On second thought, this is not a diary. It's a short confession. A
heartbreaking one, even for a man like me who had spilled more blood than shed.

My name is Angel Von Sorrow, proud father of Snow White Von Sorrow...and
Black Swan Von Sorrow. One alive; the other, well, who really knows.

I'd like not to write about how I knew Carmilla had been pregnant with
twins. Such stories are considered trivial, compared to what I am about to
confess.

I suppose there is a famous known incident about me fighting black
panthers sent after my daughter by my heartless father. It happened on the
night my dear wife bravely risked her life to give birth to one of my
daughters, Snow White.

I have heard of many parents telling their children about the bravery of
the King of Sorrow before they slept. What they don't tell, because they don't
know it, is that something important happened that day…Snow White's birth.

People think I killed the hordes of black panthers chasing my daughter on
my own, then came back to save Carmilla. People can think all they like. People
don't matter. They make stories in their heads and believe them afterwards, and
sometimes fight for that false belief.

If you have been told about the night of Snow White's birth, then you
must remember a black panther snatched my daughter from my wife's arms. I had
followed it, and brought my child back from between its teeth. That's mostly
Carmilla's version, bragging about her husband’s bravery. The problem is that
the story wasn't true. Carmilla hadn't seen what really happened in the
darkness of the forest, limited by the shortcomings of her human eyes then.

It's not like I hadn't given all my might chasing the black panther who'd
just kidnapped my daughter. I hunted it and confronted it in an imaginable
fight, my hands against paws, my might against its fierceness, as it dropped
Snow White on the ground to fight me.

The black panther's eyes confused me while I fought it. It was different
than the other panthers’, although they shone with Night Sorrow's hatred toward
me. The panther’s eyes looked like very much like mine, as if it were human. But
I thought there was no point in paying attention to this detail as it was
attacking me.

I had to kill it, and save my wife and daughter. I had to overcome any
unexplainable sentimentalities I felt for the animal.

But then, in the middle of the struggle, the other panthers had
surrounded us, nearing Snow White. There was no way I was going to make it; not
if the black panther with human eyes hadn't turned around against its own kind
with its ferocious paws and long fangs. It was fast and swift in killing, all
of them, mercilessly enjoying bestowing all evil upon them. I wondered why it
hadn't done the same with me.

I picked up my daughter from the ground and began to run, while the black
panther was busy scratching at the skin of the others. But then the panther
stopped me again. Its jaw was smeared with blood, and it let out a growling
voice from between its bloody fangs where chunks of meat had stuck to them.
Slowly, I realized that the panther had no feud with me; it growled and stared
at Snow White, as if it was going to attack her and snatch her away again.

But why didn't it?

"I don't know who you are," I said, protecting my daughter in
the crook of my armored arms. "But if you let us go, I will do anything you
ask of me."

Something shone in the animal's eyes when I said that. It shifted its
gaze and padded toward me slowly. Then it brushed its head against my knees,
and I thought it said something.

I had heard people claiming they talked to animals in the kingdom, but I
wasn't one of them.

"Resurrect me," I heard the panther say, but wasn't sure it
moved its lips. It was as if the sound just came from inside it; the sounds of
a little girl. "Promise to take me to the Swan Lake," the girl's
voice said.

The panther let me go that day, although it still seemed angry with my
daughter. She did it after I had patted her and promised her that I would take her
to the Swan Lake after saving my wife and child.

I didn't.

Months passed by, and I dreamed about the black panther every night. It
usually took the form of a black swan in my dreams. But being occupied with the
war against my father on the borders, I never went to Swan Lake, which I knew
existed from only the talk of some of my fellow warriors.

One late night, coming back from war, I spent the night outside the
castle, pondering why we fought in the first place. I asked myself if war was
really necessary; if there could have been another way around it. Although I
had been fighting the beast in me for years, wishing for the good in the world
to arise, I had never understood war. A bunch of lunatics crashing into another
bunch of lunatics, each one praising their own God, own king and queen, and
willing to die for them. Some of these warriors could be destined to be great
scientists, poets, or just regular fathers and mothers who were important to
someone, loved by someone. But in war, your individual worth didn't matter. It
was a game of numbers, where the side with most chopped heads on the ground,
lost. In war none was considered human, only sticks and stones counted to determine
one the winner. Still, with all the logic, I was a warrior. I just couldn't
find another way to protect my people.

While thinking that night, I heard a shrieking sound nearby, and began
looking for its source. I came upon a dead swan on the ground, some strides
away from my wife's chamber. It was a Black Swan, and once I neared it, I heard
that voice again, "Take me to the Swan Lake."

This time, I was reminded that I had postponed a promise I had made to
the panther that had spared my life. There was no doubt the panther was the
swan, or some spirit that possessed both of them.

I picked up the Black Swan and rode to the Swan Lake, thinking maybe this
was God’s answer to me, to understand if I should continue my war on the
borders or not. Maybe He had something better for me to do.

I assume you have read my wife's diary about meeting Lady Shallot and how
we got our sun and moon, so I am not going into the details of the woman I met
at the Swan Lake. Her name was Brighid, the Swan Queen. She told me all about
how babies in Sorrow were swans before they were born, and how my wife had been
ordered by Lady Shallot to come here to lift off her curse to get pregnant. In
the end, she told me how the universe demanded balance and how Snow White, my
daughter, the White Swan, killed the Black Swan in Carmilla's womb. The Black
Swan whom I was holding dead in my arms, who I walked away from in the forest
when she was a panther, was actually my own daughter, too.

I sank to my knees on the shores of Swan Lake with moistened eyes,
staring at my own baby.

"Who would believe that Angel Von Sorrow would sink on his knees
before me," the Swan Queen said. "It was for the good of the world
that your Black Swan daughter died."

"How could you even know she was the evil one?" I asked the
Swan Queen.

"Black is all things evil, you know that my king," she said.
"What do you think the color or Sorrow is? It surely isn't white. Your
father, the vicious and heartless Night Von Sorrow controls everything black,
doesn't he? Why do you think that is?"

"You can't judge things by its colors, or by its last names," I
yelled. "That's one of the humanity's most unforgivable sins. I myself am
a Sorrow, but I fought to be good, and I am still a good man."

"For how long, my king? Can you guarantee you'll stay that way
forever?" The Swan Queen said. "Do you think Carmilla will stay good
forever?"

I didn't know what she was implying. My wife was from a noble descent.
Her blood was cleansed of any evil.

But it didn't matter. What mattered was my daughter.

"Why did my daughter ask me to bring her here to Swan Lake," I
asked Brighid.

"Snow White had won the war against her in their mother’s womb, and
now her spirit roams lost in the world, unless she is brought back to Swan
Lake," the Swan Queen said. "It's the dying rules in Sorrow, the way
people bury their dead in the earth in other places. The dying should come back
to the place of the beginning, for the death and birth are in many ways synonyms
of change."

"She couldn't come here by herself?"

The Swan Queen said nothing for a while, as if she was pondering whether
to lie to me or not, "The soul of the Swan dies and is never to be
resurrected, unless it had been gifted with immortality while alive, or
if..." Brighid paused again.

"Or if what?"

"Or if one of her parents brings her to Swan Lake," Brighid
said.

"That why she asked me to resurrect her," my heart bloomed with
mirth.

"But you have to know my king, resurrecting her is bringing evil to
the world," Brighid said. "It's better if you let her die."

"I don't want to let her die," I snapped. "She is my
daughter. I understand what Carmilla had to do, and I respect her for that,
even when she didn't tell me..."

"She wasn't allowed to."

"I see," I nodded. "And I understand Snow White killing
her in the womb so that good prevails. I don't blame her either. But the Black
Swan is my daughter. I can't let her die. I want to give her a chance in this
world, like I had been given a chance that I wasn't destined for evil."

"And can you bear watching your two daughters on the opposite sides
of a war?"

I shrugged and said nothing.

"Haven't you just been thinking how to a avoid war, and why people
fought?" The Swan Queen followed.

I realized at that moment that although war was humanity's greatest
mistake, it had been unavoidable at the time. Not because it was necessary--but
because it was a natural result of some events. Like me now, unable to decline
my dead daughter's wish to be resurrected. I just couldn't. Even though I had
never seen my daughter in her human form, I couldn't deprive her of a second
life if I could give it to her, even knowing that the result could be
disastrous.

"I take your silence as a change of mind," Brighid said.

"No," I dared her. "I want to resurrect my Black
Swan."

The Swan Queen said nothing for a long time. "I could not argue with
my king," she said. "But I will only remind you once more that you
might end up seeing your daughters killing each other when they grow up."

"I will do my best to raise them not to," I said. "I
believe that people can be taught, and that they can learn. People can change.
If I teach them to love each other, this won't happen."

"The problem, my king, is that by fate, they could not live together
anymore. In the universe's eye, the Black Swan, even resurrected, can't become
a Sorrow. You might be able to give her life, but not control it."

"So where will she go when she is resurrected?" I asked
furiously.

"To where she belongs."

I grimaced, not saying a word.

"The other side," Brighid said. "The dark one."

I had to think this over. Would I want to resurrect my daughter to be
raised by the hands of evil? Was that a good bargain? Or would I let her rest
in peace?

What tore my warrior’s heart out was that Snow White killed her in the
womb. Or could that be considered an act of goodness, when one was foretold to
become evil?

Other people might have agreed about killing evil before it was even
born, but I couldn't. If I had been judged for what I had been destined to
become, I would have never met Carmilla. I would have never been given a
chance. I was like my Black Swan daughter once. I was raised and fathered by
the dark side, and I resisted it eventually.

I kissed my daughter in my arms, and decided she deserved the chance. I
prayed for her to resist the hell I was sending her to. It wasn't being raised
in Hell that changed us, but how we reacted to it. I trusted my Black Swan would
grow up and become like her father. Frankly, in that moment, and in many years
later, she had been my favorite daughter, for I could understand what she was
going through.

"I agree with the universe's demand if that gives my daughter the
chance, and the right, to live," I said to the Swan Queen.

"Then give her to me," Brighid said.

I walked into the Swan Lake, many other white and black swans at my side,
and handed her my daughter. The Swan Queen asked me to go back to land and
watch, as she submerged her in the water, turning her into a baby again.

The swans, black and white, folded their wings to create a bed for her
above the water, as she began to cry like newborns do. My daughter looked
beautiful.

"Such a sleeping beauty," a voice said from behind Brighid.

I watched the shadow approach, but could not make out its features in
this moonbeam. When I tried to approach, Brighid told me to stop as from now on,
I had nothing to do with her as we had agreed upon.

I watched her hand my daughter to the dark shadow as I sank to my knees
again, fisting my hands, "Stay strong, darling," I hissed, wondering
if I had committed a big mistake. "Be a warrior like your father. Fight
the dark, and prevail."

"The Dark One wishes to know what you want to name her," Brighid
said from afar, as the shadow cuddled my daughter.

"Let the Dark One show himself to me!" I shouted, as it started
to rain. "Is that you, my father, Night Von Sorrow?"