Thomas Sharpe knew he deserved this… this cage-like existence. Prison would have been too kind for him. No – he deserved this eternal night as penance for his deeds. Or lack thereof. Blind as he was, he saw his past clearer than ever. He had let his sister get away with murder, because... well, that was the one thing that was unclear to him. He should have stopped her but somehow he couldn't. She had been in so much pain all her life, at the hands of their parents. She had always protected him... taken care of him. It had never occurred to him to question her actions, or go against her will, even though her deeds had been gruesome and made his stomach turn, far before Edith ever helped him realise this. He had been weak, and this had led to the death of more innocent people than he liked to think about, including in the end, Lucille's. If he had forced her to get help, somewhere safe, somewhere that was not like the institution their heartless father had sent her, then maybe she could have, in time, become happy, rather than the hateful creature she had become.

This blind prison had put his life in a new light, and it was filled with regret for what could have been. So much harm had been done... harm that he could have stopped if had just stood up... If he was sure of one thing, it was that he deserved this punishment. When the village children called him a monster and threw stones at him, he knew it was but a small price for the hurt he had inflicted on others. He knew not what he looked like, but he was sure that, whatever it was, it was less frightening than the man who lived within.

The doctors had said it had been a miracle that he had survived the attack, but it was not. He simply had not deserved to die. He deserved to suffer. He deserved this black emptiness. Even though only one eye had been destroyed, the nerve of the other had been damaged, making him lose his sight completely. He had not fought it. He did not have it in him to fight. He never had. Maybe if had been stronger, all of this would never have happened. But he only had himself to blame.

Lucille... Poor Lucille. She had always protected him from harm, whether it was the corporal punishments of their father or the mental torture of their mother. Their parents had hated each other and, since they could not hurt each other without fearing retribution, they had redirected their anger towards their children, who were powerless against them. Lucille had gotten the brunt of it – unlike him, she had never backed down, no matter how much they punished her. He was the one who had been the weakling, hiding in cupboards for hours until the worst of their anger was over. Hiding, being unobtrusive, trying not to be offensive or noticed in any way... his childhood had been one of invisibility, until his parents had sent him away when Lucille went to the asylum.

He missed her, even though he knew it was wrong. But for all those years, they had only had each other to love. He now knew they had gone too far... Part of him had always known, but he had been so hungry for love, just like Lucille had been. He should have stopped her. But when the only other touch you knew was pain, a touch that was pleasurable was quite intoxicating. All she had done was try to protect him and love him – but somehow it had all gotten perverted.

He had not fought her when she first revealed her plans... it hadn't sounded too bad. Marriage often was not much more than a mutually beneficial arrangement this day and age, so to find a rich heiress that could help them save the house and fund his inventions sounded like a plan. The girl had been nice enough, not at all like their mother. The fonder he became of her though, the more jealous his sister became. Lucille started poisoning his mind: according to her, his wife had taken lovers to her bed and they had given her syphilis. He saw his wife growing weaker and more ill, but by then he no longer cared for her. Her death had been a relief. Soon he had found a new wife. It had no been until his second marriage started falling apart and his wife started to show the same symptoms as his first that he realised that his sister had been poisoning his wives as well as his mind.

At that point, he had confronted her, but somehow she had convinced him that this was the only way and they could not turn back now. From there on... well... he only had himself to blame. He could have saved them all, but instead he had stood back and did nothing. Like always.

The blindness had given him much time to think. There was little else to do, now that he had lost sight in both eyes. Edith had been very generous. She had wanted a divorce, which he had granted without question. Who could be married to someone weak like him? The marriage had been unbound on the grounds that it was never consumed, which was untrue; but, as they both swore to it, who was ever going to check? He hoped she had found happiness now, perhaps with Alan. She deserved it. He had not heard from her in five years now.

Edith had taken care of him though. As he had been unconscious for a month, she had kept him free from prosecution. By the time he had woken up, it had all been arranged and he was free to go. It seemed unfair to pin it all on his sister – he wanted to do his penance – but Edith had said he had suffered enough. Again, he had been weak. He should have insisted.

That was why he was in his own prison now. He had asked Edith to take care of Allerdale Hall – sell it, burn it to the ground – he did not care – he could not imagine anyone wanting to live in that house of horrors. She had turned it into a quarry that was being mined by the machine he had invented. It had made a pretty sum of money. At first, he had insisted that she take it all. He did not care for the money and he certainly did not feel like he deserved it. To be a blind beggar on the streets, living in the gutter, seemed much more befitting.

Edith wouldn't hear of it, though. She had bought him a small cottage in a rural area and found him a nurse who could see to his everyday needs. Solitude, that was to be his confinement. Edith had meant well, though. The scandal of what happened had reached all the papers – everyone knew of the terrible Sharpes. There really weren't many places left where his name would be unrecognised and, after that, his scars would confirm the rest of the story.

So that was it – he was cast to the edge of society, where no one would pester him, except the young lads from the village; every now and again, they would challenge each other to sneak into the house of the weird man that lived atop the hill. Dark stories were told at night by the fire about what had happened to the lone man to land him in such a position, but none were darker than the truth.

Although, he was not completely alone the nurse, Mrs Allsop, lived with him. She was a taciturn woman. He suspected she knew his history and despised him for it, for there was something rough in her treatment, but he was fine with that. It added to his punishment. His days consisted of sitting in darkness, one day sliding into the next. She would feed him and clothe him but otherwise leave him alone. He did not venture out; the yard was as far as he came for his exercise, just so he would not completely lose his mobility. He could not wait till the day he wasted away into oblivion, just like he had never had been. Maybe by then, all would be right with the world again.