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.