Sanctuary from agony.
I wasn’t strong enough to live with such soul-crushing torment.
But no matter how hot and flaming my pain became. No matter how delirious and wracked with trembles I was, I couldn’t die.
Irefusedto fucking die.
I can’t. Not while they’re alive.
It was my duty to end them. To end the madness of my heritage that’d gotten away with murder for centuries.
Only once I’d balanced the scales of right and wrong could I relax and let go.
Only once I’d saved the one who’d saved me could I say goodbye and slip into the void.
My heart occasionally stuttered, out of sync, out of power—almost as if it recognised death and wanted to give in. I forced it to do the bare essentials,keeping me from a grave. I was in the coffin ready to be buried, but I wasn’t a corpse just yet.
I squinted in the lacklustre light, following the contours of my brother’s body.
He still hadn’t moved.
Time had an odd context down here. It could’ve been decades since I’d asked if he was alive, or only seconds.
I could turn to face him, expecting to see a blood-flushed body, only to come face-to-face with a dusty skeleton instead.
Anything was possible on the cusp of death.
My dying lungs did their best at working through ash and mildew to speak again. “K—Kes...”
A minute ticked past or maybe it was an hour—but, finally, my brother shifted. His grunt of agony echoed around the walls.
I wasn’t alone.
Not yet.
* * * * *
More time passed.
I had no way to measure it.
I raised my head off the scratchy pillow, staring at the iron bars.
Our coffin was the same catacombs that housed my ancestor’s bones. The same cell where Daniel beat me on Cut’s command. The same dungeon where I’d started the course of drugs to numb me.
Those memories had been sharp and recent. But now they were muddy and distant.
Same as all my memories.
Nila’s voice faded from my heart. Jasmine’s promises disappeared from my ears. My life deleted itself as if I wasn’t allowed to carry any memento from this world to the next.
I didn’t want to forget.
I don’t want to forget!
I willed my dried-up, malnourished brain to remember: how we arrived here. How a night of intimacy and love had transformed into my murder.
But try as I might, I couldn’t.
