Down the Spiral Hill – Chapter 8: Heart to Heart

It was just past noon when Klaus found himself following his brother upstairs to the attic. They had finished their studied for the day and Mom had made a lovely lunch of peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches with a side of potato chips. Their siblings were scattered around the house minding their own business and now was the best time to get started on the plans to reach the dark place. Five had apparently reserved the attic for this matter and had paid his siblings not to bother them for the rest of the day. It was a hefty sum with the condition not to ask questions as per Klaus's request.

If they knew what we were about to do, they would all talk us out of it, Klaus thought to himself as he reached the top of the stairs. Although it was unspoken between the two of them, Klaus was well aware of the risks this situation posed for both of them. It was damaging to his mental health and put a lot of stress on him, which was probably the main cause of his nightmares. But more importantly, there was a great risk that either one of them could get stuck in the dark place. He knew that Five was at a greater risk because he would teleport there physically while he himself would only be there spiritually. If this didn't work, Five could get trapped in the dark place and there would be no hope of rescuing him.

That only showed that despite that they weren't related by blood, the bond of family was strong and Five was willing to risk himself to help his brother. Klaus couldn't put it into words how grateful he was for Five.

"Alright, let's get started," Five said in a quiet voice, standing in the middle of the attic and looking around. It was a comfortable room that they all found peace and solitude in, almost like an escape from reality. There were large cushions tossed on the floor and Five sat down and leaned against one of them, patting the ground for his brother to join him.

Klaus sat down and looked at his brother. "So how are we going to do this?"

"I've been thinking a lot about it and I think the best place to start is to meditate," Five said seriously, ignoring the crestfallen look on Klaus's face. "You have to concentrate to get to the dark place and that's something you don't do well."

"That's not true," Klaus argued, shaking his head. Even though the thought of sitting in complete silence was torture for him, he could concentrate fine. "I just don't like to, Five. I don't like when it's still and quiet, that's – that's when the ghosts start to come."

"Why does that bother you so much?" Five wanted to know, although he didn't ask in a judgmental sort of voice. He was genuinely curious and concerned about what his brother saw and heard that the rest of them couldn't.

Klaus sighed and leaned against a pillow, closing his eyes as he thought about it. "You don't understand, Five. Nobody does."

"Then help me to," Five demanded, leaning over to put his hand on his brother's knee. "Talk to me about it, Klaus. You can talk to any one of us, I hope you know that."

Klaus frowned and looked at him for a moment before averting his eyes to the floor, picking at the hem of his shirt.

"Sometimes I can see them, the dead people. Sometimes they looked like rotting corpses with their flesh peeling from their bones for a decade. Other times I see them when they've recently died, in the form that they died in. Old people that look gross, families that died in car accidents and are all broken and bloodied."

"That's gruesome," Five mumbled under his breath, shaking his head. "But they aren't always around, right? You must have learned to make them disappear then. Maybe it's subconscious but somewhere along the line from when your abilities started to start until now, you managed to find a way to stop seeing them. That's what we needed to focus on."

"I thought the plan was to find the dark place?" Klaus said with a frown, but he wasn't going to argue.

Five nodded his head. "It is, but the dark place will be there until we actually need to go there. I think it's more important that you find out how you're making these ghosts disappear when they show up. When is the last time there was one bothering you?"

"Last night," Klaus said timidly, fiddling his hands together uncomfortably. "It was the little girl that was murdered the other night. She came to me wanting help finding her mother."

"How did she leave?" Five asked him.

Klaus sighed, knowing that his answer wasn't the one that his brother was hoping for. "She left on her own because I said I would find her mother for he."

"Okay, there you go!" Five said to him. "If you can talk to them, tell them to go away."

"It's not that simple," Klaus complained, feeling irritable. He glared at his brother in resentment; no one would ever understand how complicated this whole ordeal was. "Don't you think that I've tried telling them to leave me alone? I can't control them! They're ghosts, they have minds of their own! They're going to do what they want to do!"

"I'm trying to help," Five snapped at him with a glare. "If you can talk to them and they can talk to you, there shouldn't be anything scary about that."

"They don't just talk!" Klaus exploded angrily. "They SCREAM and they touch me with their rotten, bloodied hands! It's like the zombie apocalypse all the time, unable to escape them! Yes, I can talk to them! But what good is that when all they want to do is scream into my ears that they don't want to be dead?! It's not just scary, it's maddening! It's driving me insane! You try coping with dead people yelling at you all the time!"

Five stared in shock at his brother, his eyes wide and his lips thin. He had never seen Klaus explode like this or even get remotely angry.

"I can't deal with this!" Klaus exclaimed, standing up abruptly and marching out of the attic, leaving a shell-shocked Five behind. He stomped all the way down the stairs, not caring that he was causing a racket, and bolted out the front door without looking back.

He couldn't be in that house and he couldn't be surrounded by his awful siblings and their stupid powers. In that moment, he couldn't control the emotions that were running through him or the horrible thought in his mind that he would much rather not exist than to live at all – but he knew that it didn't work that way. He most certainly did exist and because of that his only choice was to live or to die and neither of those were appealing. He could continue to live and be tormented by the dead, or he could die and be stuck in the dark place forever with no escape.

He couldn't win.