Blind

This is just a littl piece of nothing. My version of how Commodus became so afraid of the dark, and perhaps a reason contributing to why he became the man he did


***


Still afraid of the dark, brother?'
Still. Always'


They came in the night - dark shadows that chased each other along the walls, flickering amongst the gossamer hangings of his bed.

Gods, those hangings suddenly seemed so thin and flimsy!
When he was a little younger they had been protection enough against monsters and demons - he would run from the dresser to his bed, catapulting himself inside. Quick! Lift up your feet before the monster under the bed grabs them!

But as soon as he was behind the hangings he was safe - dwarfed in the colossal bed, smothered in the silk blankets and fur throws - but safe.

His mother would come to say goodnight and tuck the sheets tight around his chin, and they would laugh together.

But once she had gone and the brazier's had begun to die down, the shadows came alive. A servant always slept at the bottom of the bed, but that never reassured him very much.

So he would lie there and tell himself that it was alright, because he was in the bed, with the hangings drawn, and no one but his mother, his sister and he could enter there.

If the shadows were particularly frightening, he would imagine that his sister was there with him, and he would immediately feel a little braver.

This night he lay awake for hours before sleep finally took him. It had been almost 2 months since his mother and his unborn sibling had died in childbirth.

He was glad that the baby had died too. It should have, for stealing his mother away from him.

Now there was no one with which to laugh away his fears, no one to tuck the blankets around him at night. Only a nursemaid who slept at the bottom of the bed and resented his bouts of insomnia.

This night he had tried to stay very quiet to not wake the maid, who tended to shout and turn very red when he made a noise in the night.

This night the shadows came when he was sound asleep. They leant over him and reached out dark hands toward him.

At first, his bleary sleep-filled eyes would not focus on the shadows. They were only dark shapes that frightened him. His breath caught in his throat when he tried to cry out, and then strong hands clamped over his mouth, and his chance was gone.

Still he struggled wildly, savagely, like a cornered animal. He was a pale thin child, and small for his age. But his size, if not his lack of muscles, was to his advantage now. His limbs were so small and thrashed so ferociously that the shadows could not keep a hold on them.

Bucking and thrashing, twisting till he heard something crack in his wrist, held by unyielding hands, the small child would not stay still.
Kicking out, he finally connected with something, and heard one of the shadows groan in muffled pain.

The groan was followed by the clang of something metal on the hard marble floor, and then hissed curses.

A shiny object glittered in the dying light of the braziers, and he noticed with shock that it was a knife.

The clang when it hit the floor shivered out through the air, ringing in his ears and echoing off the high roof and alabaster columns.

He was not the only one to hear it. Within seconds of the noise, a Praetorian guard was at the bedside, and then another and another.

Yes, they were stationed outside his room at night, weren't they?

Some of the shadows tried to run, but the big Praetorians had brought torches with them, melting them away to reveal men.

Just men.

Not monsters or demons, not hideous creatures from legend and myth.

Just men.

It wasn't meant to be like this. The things that came in the night to frighten him were meant to be monsters, not ordinary men.
You weren't supposed to be afraid of ordinary men, were you?

Commodus shivered uncontrollably with the sudden realisation that there was another foe to watch out for, to be frightened of. Something else to keep him up at night, unable to sleep for fear of what might come out of the darkness.
No one had ever told him that men could do things like this to each other.

He backed away from the host of Praetorians that had descended on the strange men, crawling across the blankets, his weight resting painfully on his broken wrist.

Commodus never knew what made him turn then. Some incling, niggling little feeling that made the hairs at the back of his neck stand up in absolute terror.

At the end of the bed was the nurse maid, lying with glazed eyes staring blindly into the darkness. Her mouth was hanging open, slack-jawed, and a look of alarm frozen on her face.
There was blood. A lot of it. So very, very much.

Screaming now, Commodus tried to run. But the hangings, precious shields against childhood fears, now seemed to reach out to ensnare him. Twisting and turning, the young boy became completely entangled in the fabric, wrapping himself up so tightly he couldn't move at all. All the while he could not stop screaming.

He couldn't move, but the sight before his eyes simply wouldn't disappear, no matter how hard he willed it away.

He prayed to the Gods then to strike him blind.

He stopped screaming a little while later, when he had ascertained that the arms untangling him from the hangings, wrapped around him, stroking his hair, were not those of the strange men.

But no one, not even his sister, could get the little eight year old boy to open his eyes for the next two days.

***

Please review? Pretty Please? Will you review if I do a little dance!?!?