Freebie Mondays: Owen-Marius (Prompt Novel Chapter 20)

For 2024, I decided to devote my prompt writing time to a novel. The twist is that the novel plot will be generated entirely by the writing prompts I chose to use for the project – which were rolled randomly using my trusty dice and a few online prompt lists. You can find the Table of Contents here.

For Chapter 20, the prompt was: “a man asks his twin to fill in for him for a relationship he’s gotten tired of.”

This was one of the first prompts I rolled when I set out to do this project. And from the start I knew it would be one of the hardest to fit in. There were a lot of places I considered using it, and a lot of twists it could have thrown into the mix.

But in the end, this was the moment it fit best – in the build toward the climax of the novel. As part of the mystery Ira needs to solve.

I’ve never been a huge horror fan. I don’t like to feel scared, so I can’t really watch a lot of horror movies. But I do have a fascination with the horror adjacent, and I do think it creeps into my work from time to time. This chapter is certainly an example of how a story can grow a bit darker than you expect at the drop of a hat – but I’m not sad about it. I think it works perfectly for how this story has formed.

If you’d like to see this chapter come together, you can watch the VoD on Youtube!
. . .

Owen loomed over her, a monster in man’s clothing.

Suddenly, Ira was fifteen again. Her body was gangly and awkward, and she feared she might trip over her own legs if she tried to run.

Now she was ten years old, and staring up at her best friend’s father as if he were one of the marvels of the universe as she accepted the bowl of popcorn he handed into her care.

She was five years old, waddling across the lawn to present Owen with her latest discovery – some flower or leaf she had claimed off the ground beneath the nearby trees. But he accepted it as though it was an entire bouquet of roses and cooed over how thoughtful she was for offering it to him to have all his own.

A shudder tore through Ira’s body, and she was an adult again, standing across the small kitchen of the cabin from her worst nightmare made manifest. She was tempted to grab the kettle and spray the hot water at the man whose eyes were rapidly growing wide, but her arms were shaking too much to ensure none of it ended up scalding her.

So she turned and bolted.

Owen must have anticipated it was what she would do. He threw up both of his arms in front of him as if in surrender and called, “No, wait!”

But she was already in motion. The cabin’s living room wasn’t so big that she couldn’t reach the door and open air within a dozen paces. She didn’t even care if she left her purse behind. As soon as she returned to her car, she could reach civilization and put this whole sorry affair to rest.

But Owen was faster than her. He darted sideways, taking advantage of the layout of the space he knew so well so that he could block her path through the door.

“Ira, wait, please,” he insisted, his voice loud but his tone calm.

She did not wait. Her heart pounded in her ears and breath fled as rapidly from her chest as she could fill her lungs with each new desperate inhale. But she did not hesitate to react to the blocking of her path to freedom.

She lifted her knee and aimed at the one place every man was vulnerable.

She had taken every manner of self-defense class after her run-in with the Mawor. She didn’t have any fancy martial arts credits to her name, but she knew how to strike to cause pain. The primary goal of most self-defense classes, after all, was to gain freedom so one could run.

Her blow landed. Either she moved more quickly than Owen anticipated or he didn’t expect her to react with violence.

Either way he bent double as her knee found the sensitive flesh of his crotch and a sharp, pained exhale escaped his lips.

He was easy to push aside at that point, and Ira squeezed through the remaining opening into the living room.

She had just enough presence of mind to reach for her purse as she passed – but then the floor shifted out from under her. She teetered precariously, thrown off balance by movement where the ground should have been steady.

Ira twisted, relying on her training to fall in a way that wouldn’t cause her damage. But still, the impact knocked the breath out of her lungs long enough for Owen to leap like a tiger and pin her shoulder to the floor beneath him.

It was the rug, she realized belatedly. The tattered and threadbare rug that adorned the space in front of the couch. He had yanked it out from under her to halt her mad flight.

“Please, listen to me, Ira!” he panted, his voice choked with desperation. “I’m not the Mawor. But I know who is.”

She stared at him. Most of her mind was busy calculating how to slam her palm into the base of his nose with enough force to drive him off of her. But she didn’t think she could cock her elbow back enough to gain the required momentum.

It turned out she didn’t need to strike to gain her freedom, however, because once Owen spoke this revelation, he released the pressure from her shoulder and slid to his feet. He stepped back and to the side, taking up a position that would allow him to dart in front of the door if Ira tried to run again. Yet he gave her the space she needed to stand.

Chest still heaving and heart still pounding in her throat and ears, Ira rolled so that she could leverage off of the couch into a standing position. She still clutched the strap of her purse, and she settled it over her shoulder in hopes it would offer her time to regain her composure.

Her limbs still shook. She thought at first it was adrenaline, but she quickly realized that the motion originated deep within her core and radiated outward in waves of reaction. Her stomach twisted with nausea and her throat tightened as she struggled to contain it all within her battered form.

She wasn’t entirely sure how she managed not to throw up. Maybe it was the sheer disgust that welled within her when she turned to regard the man she had once worshiped as a hero among the community. Her eyes narrowed, and she spat, “You look just like him.”

Because she could see clearly now the figure that pursued her through the forest. She could see through the darkness and the shadow to the moon glint off of smooth skin at the top of the head. She could even see the familiar eyes through the slits in the mask – not red or black, like she first assumed. Just the warm shade of amber that stared at her now.

“Because the Mawor is my brother,” Owen declared with a soft, defeated sigh. “My twin brother, as a matter of fact. Marius.”

Ira snorted. “That is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard,” she scoffed without hesitation. “Why don’t I just invent a twin so that I can get away with whatever the hell I want and never have to take any responsibility for it?”

Owen hung his head, absorbing each of her verbal blows with nary a flinch. Perhaps he’d heard it all before. Or perhaps he realized how terrible he was and had simply grown numb to being forced to address it.

After a moment, he lifted his head to meet her gaze, and she found sorrow there. The kind of deep, tormented sorrow that occupied her face when she first talked to Wendell after his return – and it gave her pause.

“I’m not surprised you don’t believe me,” Owen said softly. “I wouldn’t believe me either. But Marius is real.” He reached into a pocket. He held up his other hand with his fingers spread to show that he wasn’t drawing a weapon – a wise precaution since Ira tensed.

Owen pulled his wallet out of his pocket, shuffled through one of the side pouches and pulled out a photo. It was old and faded slightly around the edges. But in the center were two young boys with their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders – clearly trying to drag each other into some kind of wrestling hold.

It only took a single glance to note that the two boys were as identical as it was possible to be. So identical, in fact, that Ira might have thought it was the same boy repeated if they had been standing apart from each other.

“This is us,” Owen declared softly with a grim sense of humor. “Back when we still had hair.” He barked a single bitter chuckle and rubbed his free hand across his bald scalp. “We were about fifteen at the time. That was right before Marius…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, and he didn’t need to. There was something about that age, right around puberty. That was when all the weird stuff started to happen – like seeing witches on isolated mountain paths and dreaming about impossible futures.

Ira reached out and brushed her fingers along the base of the photo, but she thought better of taking it. Instead she stepped back until her legs brushed against the couch and glared at her host. “How do I know it’s him and not you?” she pressed. “You could be blaming it on him just to save your own skin.” Then the second she walked out the door, the second she crossed the bridge into the old spit of forest near the windmill, he would attack her like he had before and drag her off like he’d done to Wendell and dozens of other teenagers throughout the years.

Owen’s first response was merely a sigh. But it was such a profound sound that it nearly froze Ira’s heart in her chest.

She thought of the day she used the out of the way payphone to make an impossible phone call. She felt entirely backwards and inside out in the lead up to the strange conversation that resulted – and she really didn’t feel any better afterward.

And it felt like all of that emotion, all of her experience trying to live life sideways was encapsulated in that simple sound.

Abruptly, Ira sat on the couch and clutched the straps of her purse as if that thin strip of leather could protect or comfort her.

“It’s funny you say that,” Owen said at last, though the words were spoken without a hint of humor. “Because I am actually Marius. But I’ve been Owen for a long time. So long, I sometimes wonder if I didn’t dream of being Marius in my youth.”

He shook his head, perhaps realizing he was waxing eloquent in a way he shouldn’t. He reached for the armchair nearest him, and Ira noted that his hand shook.

He had the presence of mind to yank the chair farther away from her before he sat. And when he did, he flopped onto the cushion and melted deep into the frame of the chair.

“My brother is sick,” he said, the statement simple and direct. “I don’t know if he was always sick, or if something happened when we came of age that made him that way. I only know that, by this point, most of my brother is gone.” He squeezed his eyes closed as if bracing against the pain of the confession, but there was no hint of dampness when he opened them again.

“My brother was the one who married and started a family. You met him a few times when you were younger. Though I suppose you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two of us, considering how blurry memories tend to be at that age.

“You were maybe six when he first asked me to fill in for him. He said he needed time to himself, time away from the hustle and bustle of family life. But he didn’t want to hurt any of the people he cared about by vanishing. Since we were indistinguishable, he argued that we should be able to pass as each other for brief periods of time.”

“This sounds insane,” Ira interjected. “You know that right? You sound like you have absolutely lost your mind.”

“Some days, I think I have,” Owen admitted with a bitter smile. “I know how it sounds. I still can’t even believe I actually agreed to it. I mean… this was his wife and daughter. The people who loved and relied on him. But if I’m honest, I was kind of a deadbeat back then. My life hadn’t gone the way I wanted it to and, instead of doing something about it, I sulked. I didn’t really have any better prospects, and I thought a taste of my brother’s idyllic life would motivate me to jumpstart my own. So I did it.

“It was only a month that first time,” he added and folded his hands together in front of him. “I had no idea at the time where my brother went or what he did. And I was shocked that I was able to emulate him so perfectly that even his wife didn’t suspect. I didn’t sleep with her, of course. I made excuses to sleep elsewhere or work nights for awhile. But I admit, I was a little disappointed when the real Owen came back happy and refreshed and ready to live his life again.”

“At what point did the switch become permanent?” Ira demanded. “When did you start being Owen full-time?”

“After Amber graduated,” Owen admitted, his tone and expression both pained. “I didn’t realize that was going to be what happened but, by then, I was in too deep to back out. My brother had become… erratic, I suppose is the best word for it. His disappearances grew longer and the space between them shorter. Sometimes I didn’t even have warning until I’d get a call from his wife demanding to know where I was.

“But I fell into the role with a little more ease every time. I fell in love with his family and started to treat it like it was my own. So I felt like I needed to protect them if he wasn’t going to.

“It was actually you girls that turned me onto the cabin.” A bittersweet smile took up residence on Owen’s face when he said this.  “That was how I caught him. But it still took most of a decade to realize what he was actually doing.”

“So it was him that attacked me?” she demanded and shot to her feet. “And nearly killed Wendell?”

Owen – or Marius, it was hard to tell how she was supposed to think of him now – bit his lip for a long moment before he nodded. Then he pushed up into a straighter sitting position and held both of his arms in front of him as if in supplication. “At first I thought he was just screwing with the teenagers in the woods, scaring them because he got a kick out of it. I didn’t recognize the matching pattern of his disappearances and the people vanishing in the woods until far too late.

“Once I did realize what he was doing, I tried to put a stop to it. I locked him up in the basement. I thought if I could keep him penned during whatever madness claimed him, I could keep it contained. I even hoped that going back to his family would help him hold onto normal for longer. But instead he… deteriorated.”

“You locked him in the basement?” Ira growled between clenched teeth. “You didn’t call the police? Or tell the FBI?”

“I stole his life, Ira,” Owen-Marius replied and lifted both his hands in hopeless surrender. “If it came out what my brother was doing, his family might also realize that they’d been spending most of their lives with the wrong twin. I couldn’t hurt them like that.”

“Or you didn’t want to go to jail,” Ira retorted coldly.

“I’m not sure I can really be accused of stealing the life of someone who basically handed it over to me-” Owen started, but Ira cut him off.

“I would ask your brother’s wife how she feels about that.”

Cold silence ruled the cabin for a moment as tension surrounded the two occupants and grew thick as the fog that often surrounded these woods in the evenings.

“Is he in the basement right now?” Ira demanded.

All this time the FBI had been looking for him, and he had been right under their noses.

Owen bowed his head. “I don’t know where else I’m supposed to keep him.”

Ira vibrated with the effort required to maintain her composure. She wanted to scream. She wanted to tear down the stairs into the basement with a knife from the kitchen. She wanted to tell the man sitting in the chair exactly how she felt about him – and how dare he ruin her childhood with this revelation he wasn’t even who she thought he was supposed to be!

Poor Amber! What would she even do if she knew?

Thinking of her old friend, even with so much distance between the closeness of their relationship made her understand for just the barest hint of a moment why her false father had spent all this time hiding the truth.

But that didn’t excuse the pain and suffering caused to others.

“How?” she spat, dumbfounded. “How did you keep him hidden from the FBI if he was somehow able to attack Wendell?”

She had a million other questions she wanted to ask, but she accepted in that moment that most of them would never have answers. Because she knew where this had to end – and it seemed Owen-Marius did too.

“At the moment, I have him chained to the wall.” The man almost choked when he spoke the admission, and bile rose up the back of Ira’s throat. “I didn’t know what else to do!” he exclaimed. “He kept getting out. Every time I thought I had him contained, he would find a new way free and attack another person. I managed to intervene with Wendell – thank god. But at this point, I don’t know what else to do with him. His current situation can barely be considered a life-“

Ira had heard enough. She turned on her heel as if she was a soldier about to march to war and she made her way numbly to the door. She opened it without a word and closed it behind her.

As she walked down the stairs outside and made her way swiftly back toward the bridge that led to this section of forest, the back of her neck prickled. She expected at any moment Owen-Marius would burst out of the cabin and dart after her with his hands waving in the air.

No amount of protests would shake her resolve to do what must be done, but she didn’t expect that to stop the man. Not after what he’d just confessed.

She made it all the way back to her car without so much as a dry twig snapping in her wake, but she made sure she was locked snugly inside the vehicle before she glanced around. It occurred to her when she saw no sign of pursuit that Owen-Marius was probably attempting to move his brother to some other hiding place before she could blow the whistle on what had been happening here for the last several decades.

Either that or he was going to leave his brother to his fate and get the hell out of dodge.

Ira started her car and drove until she had cell signal. It occurred to her when she dialed 911 that the story she would have to relate to the feds was every kind of crazy, so she’d best strap in for a wild ride.

But at least the story of the Mawor could finally be put to rest. The children of this town could continue to venture through the shady old woods at night if they really wanted to, but they should stop disappearing every few years.

What came of the men behind the myth – that wasn’t really her problem. She had other worries and other mysteries to solve. When she was finished with this one, she would simply have to move on to the next and hope another didn’t spring up in its wake.