Page 1 of The Unraveling

Chapter 1

There’s something wrong with my heart.

I press my hand against my chest as the blurry room swims into focus. A small glass chandelier blinds me from above. My heart hammers against my palm, each impossible, steady beat demanding my attention.

I squint against the light, then lift my bloody hand to shield my eyes. It’s not enough, so I let my head loll to the side, cheek pressing against the cold hardwood. My vision follows the sprawling lines toward the body of a man staring back with hollow blue eyes. Two fresh pairs of bleeding incisions are on each side of his pale neck. A pool of blood circles his head. There’s a fist-sized tear in his shirt and a crater in his chest. I know his once undying heart is missing.

But I can’t recognize him and don’t know if I should.

Lightning pain shoots through my skull. I gasp, a grimace warping my face. The slight movement has me settling harder against the floor as the ache in my body floods my senses.

A nauseous chill rolls through me, and I groan as I try to lift my head. Flashes of the room strike me—shelves of old notebooks, the glint of medical instruments, jars of wet specimens—all blurring into a dizzying circle. An unidentifiable, odd flavor coats my tongue despite the hint of blood.

The gagging cough of a man on the opposite side of the study has my heart jolting against my ribs, and my hand flies back to press against the beat.

His voice—raspy and pained, yet threaded with an elegant English cadence—comes from beyond my feet, somewhere past the large wooden desk in the center of the room. “A poison! What should be pure was poison. Poison!”

My head pounds as I twist onto my side. With wobbly arms, I plant my palms on the floor and push myself upright, then drag my body far enough to peer past the desk.

The man sits slumped against the maroon wallpaper beside a bookshelf stuffed with old medical books and glossy twenty-first century textbooks. Blood trails in smeared streaks from his brown eyes, nose, and lips. It runs in rivers down his neck and from beneath the wavy brown hair falling past his ears. His glassy gaze meets mine, and though his name sits on the tip of my tongue, I can’t be sure I really know it.

“Are you—” I cough against the rawness of my throat and shiver as goosebumps sharpen on my bare, bloodied arms. “Are you okay?”

His chest heaves beneath his white linen dress shirt, untucked and blood-stained. “Everything is poison,” he chokes out. Tears cut through the red on his cheeks. He threads his trembling, crimson-soaked fingers through his hair. “The air, even! C-can you believe it, Dr. Smith? Is n-nothing pure?”

The distressed man stares through me as I turn my heavy head toward the corpse. Is the body Dr. Smith? I know I’m not.

The man coughs deeply, and my attention snaps back to him in time to see his eyelids fluttering as he leans to the side and slowly slides toward the floor.

Heart leaping, I scramble to my hands and knees and scuttle—slowly, painfully—across the twisting room until I’m at his side. My hand catches his head before it collides with the floor.

His name is a stone on my tongue. I sniffle and wipe my eyes, the heel of my hand coming away wet with fresh blood.

His words escape twisted through his gasping. “Could you imagine, Dr. Smith, a-an antidote?” His faraway gaze pierces through me, and he gasps again before a cry strangles his laugh. “If y-you could breathe the toxins and suffer not? A-an antidote th-that worked for all and forever?”

Dark tears blur my sight of him as I stroke his face, blood smearing across his cheeks. I want to ask him what happened, but I don’t think he’s in any state to give a proper response.

The chill of the room presses the nausea tighter, and a shiver ripples through me.

With the amount of blood coating us, my mind travels to the idea of a hot bath. “Are you cold?” I ask, brushing wavy hair behind his ear. “A h-hot bath and full belly, and we’ll feel better⁠—”

His eyes widen. “Did you see it? Dr. Smith!” he hollers, voice cracking. “All so desperate to be clean, and he was boiled alive! They asked if I could help him, b-but I’m a vampire, not a necromancer!” His head rocks out of my hand, thumping against the hardwood. “Tried to get clean, and his skin boiled right off his bones. Even the baths are dangerous!”

With a heavy sigh, I press my palm against the wall to help me stand. The room warps before settling. Whatever ails him, he’ll swiftly heal with a bit of blood. Though I can’t picture the bathroom, my feet still carry me there. Out of the study, left down the hall past the dining room and kitchen doorways on the right. The fridge buzzes, unusually quiet.

A photo on the wall halfway down makes me pause. I plant my palm against the beige floral wallpaper to stop the room from rocking so I can take it in.

The delirious man—still rambling from the study, his name so much heavier on my tongue—and myself fill the frame. The grins on our pale faces reach our glittering eyes. Mine, green, are filled with such joy that a brief smile flickers across my lips. With his black suit, my crimson gown, and the dark veil pinned in my long, curly black hair, I know it was our wedding day.

Yet I can’t draw the memory forward.

Should I feel panicked that I can’t remember? Terrified? I should remember my wedding, should I not? I try to prompt the emotions, but my chest remains hollow in their absence.

I continue on as I ponder, passing the closed door to our bedroom before hesitating at the bathroom door cracked open at the end of the hall. The hinges creak as I push the door open with my palm, leaving a bloody handprint against the white paint. Shadows drape across the fixtures, so heavy that I rub my eyes to dispel them. It’s an unnatural darkness, considering my sensitive eyes can usually see through shadows that humans cannot. With a slow inhale, I inch forward and flip the light on.

It’s a regular bathroom despite the fleeing shadows and the blood splattered in the sink and filling the toilet, though the bulb is dim enough that I suspect it’ll need to be changed. I swear the light was much brighter only yesterday.

I give the bloody mess a long stare, knowing its presence makes sense but unable to recall how.