Other Side of Raichenbach

The room was dark. The only light was from the offices across the street and the computer screen that had long gone into hibernation. The room was still, there was no life, there was no movement. Koren was still as well. How could she bear to move? Just an hour ago she had gotten word that her brother, her other half, her love, had just died.

She couldn't move, she couldn't process anything. The messenger who had brought the news simply said it in a cold, clinical way and closed the door behind him when she made no move to acknowledge him, before or after his devastating news. She hadn't needed anyone to tell her, she already knew; they were twins. They knew everything about each other.

But the unchangeable fact of the matter was, he died. On a rooftop, in obscurity. By his own hand.

She didn't know what was worse, the fact that he was dead or the fact that he thought that man was worth more to him than her. That the game he was playing would be worth more to him than her.

Suddenly, in the stillness of the room that echoed of death, the sound of a door clicking shut was heard and it was like the walls of a dam breaking. At first it was only a sharp, sobbing breath in the quiet, but then it grew and multiplied. Sobs resounded in Koren's chest. She wept; her body shook with each shuddering breath and her lungs constricted inside her chest

"Why! You idiot, why!" She screamed, her agony distorting her voice into something that was more animal than human. Her pain gave her new life and she stood with such force her chair flew back, knocking into a bookshelf and upturning it. Sweeping her arms across her desk she cleared it in a violent passion, computer and books and pencils and pens and papers flying 'cross the room.

Her rampage unfinished she stomped to the couch and ripped the much-too-happy-looking pillows into shreds, this time dainty, down feathers went flying. The cushions were thrown, dashed against the floor and across the room only to collide pact with stolen vases worth more than a person's life.

The breaking and the crashing soothed her, slightly, but more than anything each crack and shatter reminded her acutely of her loss which only enraged her further. Soon, however, there was nothing left to break and Koren was left standing in the midst of her destruction. White feathers, some stained with her blood from cuts gained from the shattered glass and porcelain that lay strewn about, cushions and deflated pillows every which way, her desk scratched and mutilated beyond repair and even the couch had been dismantled in her rage.

Her heaving breaths were all that could be heard in the sudden stillness, the only movement was her shoulders as she gulped for breath and the feathers still slowly falling through the air to settle on the ground.

She collapsed, her anger dissipated now that there was no focus, and with it the only energy she had. Crying, sobbing, weeping. Koren laid on the floor, curled into a ball as if such a position might protect her from additional pain like it had in the past.

Broken words could be heard from her broken form as she cried the life out of her body, "J-jim, I'm so so-orry, I loved yo-ou so-o much!" A dull hum of the traffic below drifted through the cracked window and a heart-stopping revelation occurred to her. The world is still turning. And that very well could have been what truly broke her heart the most. No one knew who he was, actually, most people in the underworld didn't know just who ruled over them all. He's dead, and no one will know. Because The Five would keep his empire running, and no one would be the wiser.

And in the moment, Koren could feel her heart dry up and crumble into small, unforgiving pieces. She stood, with strength borrowed from hysterics, and turned to flee the room.
*
Running on the streets people avoided her, not only because she was running quite fast and any collision with her person would undoubtedly hurt, but because she looked, in a word, crazy. Her hair was a mess, her feet were bare and her suit was mussed and streaked with blood that so obviously came from her hands. Not to mention, her eyes were wild in a sort of way that can only be achieved by overwhelming grief and sorrow.

She ran until she reached her mansion, the one she had shared with him. She couldn't even bare to think his name! It would rip her to pieces. And then, it stopped. Something inside her just stopped. Because, you see, going crazy isn't like people would like you to believe. Nothing snaps, nothing breaks, nothing is destroyed. Society would like you to believe that something inside you must be broken somehow to reach that level. It isn't true. Something only has to stop functioning, your heart, your mind, or even something more obscure, your will. All it has to do is stop working, not break, just... stop.

Koren fell to her knees, bruising them on the unforgiving tile, as it all stopped, just for a moment. And while everything was rebooting, something didn't it stayed stopped. Koren stood once more, but this time, she wasn't Koren Moriarty anymore. She was Janet Turion. A widow. Her husband had died, the love of her life was dead! And she knew no more. Not until the maid found her in the morning, laying in a heap on the parlor floor.

The next month or so was a blur, the maids took care of her as if she were an invalid, gossiping on the other side of the door. She grew angry at them; what did they know?! How could they possibly know how empty she felt, how absolutely lost she was. How worthless and useless she was without him? Her dear husband, dead. She would never see him again. She was happy that she had at least told him she loved him that morning, she couldn't imagine how it might have been if they had a fight and he left angry. That terrible train crash that took her husband's life.

"Why? I... I don't understand." She whispered and curled in on herself beneath the heavy covers of their elegant bed. She wanted to cry, but her tears had dried out long ago, and she just didn't understand anymore.