The End

Hey everyone!

Thanks for reading my short story Vermillion.

If it seemed disjointed it was because I was literally making it up week to week, sitting down on my laptop on my day off and spending an hour or two on continuing the story, not over anylizing it, just writing what I felt and then publishing it straight away so that I didn't change my mind.

It's a great way for me to practice. Aspiring writers are so hard on themselves, sometimes it's just nice to write for fun, trying to develop a story from an idea ( in this case it was the ending) and see how you can build it with not much preparation at all.

I am full of ideas, every day I wake up and I have some strange idea for a story that dreamt up in some nightmare. Then I ruin it by over thinking it or not having enough confidence, thinking that I can't do it justice.

So this was me writing the way I like to write, without restraint and not writing with anyone in mind but me. There may only be three of you sharing this with me but that is still an audience. Thank you.

There is an audience for everything and someday I would love to publish something I can share with the world. This was a great practice for me and I hope to share some more as well.

Tomorrow is the day when we can say  "I won't hold back"
 

Vermillion Part 6

6.

I weep for all the things that could have been. The waves that crash all around us were from an ocean so full of promise. I took my place swimming alongside the desperate humans gasping for air, even though I could breathe I drowned with them.

She hit the water and broke the silence with her weight. She sent the energy of her sorrow across the bay, I felt it, I held it and I created it. Is this what my family wanted from me? Every cell that is alive in me is burning with their absence. Like a man who can still feel the hand that he lost, they are ghosts within me. The only way I could keep living is by trying to destroy the memory of them, by expelling their essence the only way I knew how. We are all of one blood, we are made from the same being, so if I murder this world they too have the guilt, the guilt they didn’t feel before. I’m writing to you for the last time my friend. You, the only human that I ever truly saved, I fulfilled my obligation with you, you were meant to go on to do great things but instead the instrument of your redemption became the ultimate distraction from your destiny. Did I get it wrong? Were you meant to die for the world to be saved? That’s why I am still here. I am here because I didn’t let you die and they are gone because I stayed. 

Cairo sent all three letters to me at the same time. They all arrived on the Tuesday before it all happened. He was sitting in his arm chair when it happened; I know this because when I close my eyes I can see him. I see all his memories and I hear all his thoughts. They play like a film that I already saw, disjointed and out of focus, in a constant loop in my subconscious. I already knew what the letters said but reading them physically brought a finality to it. 

I could see his apartment curtains fly in the breeze, I could see the broken mirror in the bathroom and I could see him look down to his tired old hands as they trembled secretly. I heard the door open behind him and the footsteps enter the room. I heard the faint mutter of excuses and apologies, “thank yous” and empty promises. 

You’re going to help make the world a better place

We both smile and start laughing, manically. I was standing in the middle of a  crowded street and I couldn’t stop, even when I found it hard to breathe. I could see his long blonde hair fall over my eyes and I went to brush it away. I touched his face with my hand and we were connected. For that moment in time I knew everything. I knew about my destiny, I knew about his mission and how it went wrong. I reached out my hand to grab him and then.. 

BANG.

Everything went dark and I couldn’t see at all. All joy fell from me and I lost balance. I felt like a part me was ripped out violently. I touched the back of my head and felt a gaping wound that wasn’t really there. The blood was falling all over me and I wept, I wept for what could have been. 

It was instantaneous. I heard screaming, blood curdling terror everywhere. I was finally regaining my sight and I kept seeing flashes of horrible violence. I started to run toward the bridge. 

I saw men and women tearing each other apart, I saw a man rip off his own arm and start eating it. I saw horrors that sent every cell in my body mad. The images started to slow down and change direction, they were guiding me somewhere.

201a Flynn Street. 

I stood at the door too afraid to go in. My mind wouldn’t let me hide and I saw it all. It sent me back another ten minutes to before the sound. 

Stacey was lying almost comatose on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, dreaming someone else’s dreams. While a sluggish man fell all over her, dripping his sweat on her unassuming body. She was somewhere beautiful in the moment, the horrors that he put her through were never going to touch her. Suddenly her body shudders underneath him and her back arches to the roof. The Man pushes her away and off the bed and her body falls to the ground with a thud. He inspects the body after she stops convulsing. No pulse. He seems freaked out at first and then frustrated. 

Damn junkie!

Hey! I want my monies worth!

 He shouts to the other room. 

 

Stacey’s eyes burst open with fire. She starts to scream like an animal that has gone rabid. She thrashes around and smacks herself against the wall. She turns slowly toward the man who is trying to put his pants back on. Blood and drool pour from her mouth and the terrified look on the man’s face doesn’t register. Every cell in her body is dead. She ingested Cairo’s blood and she became him for those few blissful hours each day. Now that he is gone she is literally dead inside, the rage her body feels without her soul creates a hunger. 

A hunger that is only satisfied one way, with violence. 

A thousand soulless creatures now roam the city, crying out with the same voice, crying out in pain for their loss. Cairo burns in their eyes and pours from them into their hands. The sound of a distant world dying echoes in my ears constantly. Millions of people crying in despair as a part of them falls away. 

This was meant to be the longest suicide note ever written but I finally understand. I am meant to fight. I am meant to fight for the souls they lost. I have barricaded myself in Cairo’s apartment with a few survivors I find each day. We are trying to keep our humanity amongst the insanity. What we are able to do and the strength we can find once we trust each other and hold each other is amazing. There is still hope for us.

Only after we have lost everything and confronted our own weakness can we truly rebuild ourselves. We can make him proud of us.

His mission was to save us, he failed.

Now we must save ourselves.

The End.

Vermillion part 5

He lights a cigarette and walks back to his “office” under the bridge. The line has grown longer and the patrons are growing restless. This is his life now. No longer interested in saving anyone, Cairo appears to be facilitating their self-destruction. He notices the sadness that dwells deep inside, the darkest self-loathing that builds like mucus in their tear ducts and pools in the corner of their eye. It affects them like a poison, makes them do terrible things, just to stop the pain. He inhales the putrid substance into his lungs and leans against the wall.

Is that what I am doing?

 

Am I trying to stop the pain of my own loneliness by taking advantage of these people? I don’t care about their money, I just want to get rid of as much of this stuff inside my veins that won’t let me forget, won’t let me block out every single face that was so eager to never see me again.

Alone amongst over seven billion people.

They are empty, every single one of them, they can hold my burden for a little while. They can carry it on their shoulders until the weight becomes too much for them and they come crashing to the floor. I’ll pile them all on top of one another and when there is enough, I will climb that mountain all the way to the heavens and demand my way in again.

I will bleed myself dry before I accept myself as one of them.

His cigarette rips and he realizes that a tear has fallen from his eyes. This is not truly where he wants to be. He needs to be alone with his thoughts. He disregards the two men in suits parked in a nearby car; they have been following him since he got to the house.

Your experiment is going fine boys, by the numbers and off the books.

He heads to the erotic district to find himself a couple of able bodied humans. Maybe witnessing a moment of passion will ignite some compassion inside him again. It’s hard to find love amongst all of this filth but passion is always there. How much can fifty dollars buy? Can it buy humanity some dignity? I doubt it.

The fittest man he could fine and the prettiest girl he could get without a bruise on her face, was the best he could do for now. They walked in silence back to his apartment. They asked him what he wanted, did he want to watch or participate? He just sat at his writing desk and pulled out the top drawer, inside were three sheets of paper and a pen. They shrugged and found a comfortable spot on the window and started their display of passion. He started to write the final letter that I ever received. He told me about a young woman who he supplied the drug with and how she took her own life. He seemed to envy her because he knew that at the moment she leapt she was at peace and it was through a memory of his, a peace that he could never obtain with the same pictures in his mind. He hated them all so much but he hated himself more.

It becomes clear to me now that he never meant to hurt anyone. He watched over us for so long and then became so disgusted with our behavior, he gave up. Like a father who is eternally disappointed with his children, he gave up on us. More than that, he knew that his entire world gave up on him and left him here knowing that he would never succeed. He tried to force them out of himself and even then we found a way to use this as an opportunity for ourselves.

The prostitutes left the room and the men in suits were already there waiting for him to be alone. They found a way to synthesize his blood into a controlled substance that they code named “vermillion”. They devised a clever way to dilute it in drinking water and use it to immobilize their enemies in mass to make a hostile takeover less messy.

I have followed Cairo since he landed twelve years ago. Just outside Perth, Western Australia. He saved my life and I told the government about him. I thought it was too important to keep to myself, I can’t blame it on the head wound I received after the crash; I wanted to be the man who discovered Earth’s first alien visitor. They pushed me into a car, then onto a plane and then dumped me in Texas. I’ve been looking for him ever since. He always knew how to find me, he never hated me. He knew I was the only one who knew who he really was.

He was the hero we never deserved.

Now we are at the abyss we dug for ourselves, looking over at the end.

It started with a bang.