Sicarius

23. fear of the water

The sudden silence and darkness of the house fills in the void in my chest. The hallow spot that was filled before i set foot in here. i step through the hallway, only light coming from the second floor's window makes its way up. i walk slowly, listening to my own footsteps. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. i reach the room then, where Elizabeth lies cold on the floor. Where the only person i have ever loved sits, dead. As if readying himself for coffee, head high, feet apart, his torso slouched forward, the way he sits in all chairs. The way he sits when he drives. i can hear my own breaths when i run a hand over his bloody fingers, the blood is fresh. 

I feel a tingle up my leg and it gives up, it gives up on offering support, it plummets, with my body. And i hold his hand. His stupid, stupid, motionless hand. My jaw begins to shake as i look at him and my vision blurs. it shakes. it shakes. it shakes. My teeth clash against each other and i don't feel anger anymore. i don't feel hunger, i don't feel coldness, i don't feel anything. Nothing. But rather something that goes far deeper, something harder to reach. Grief. 

a greif so great, so pure i choke. So engulfing that my inside feel like they'll be thrown up. like they're dissolving in acid. i feel the desperation i felt in that white cube and the horror it brings breaks me. i think then, of the Altar. The altar, i realized then was nothing compared to this. And i hold his hand now but he won't calm me down. It won't hold me together so i don't break into millions of worthless pieces. It won't save me. Not this time and then i realize.... Not ever again.

i can hear my own sobs. The way i fight it off but it consumes me. in the altar i knew there was a way out. there had to be. and i could just say the words and an extraction team could come inside and take me out. here... here i could scream... i could kick, i could fire my guns but in here... here nothing will make it go away. it's the sadness van gogh described and i never understood. it will last forever. and i'm willing to stay here until my body starts to eat away at itself. 

In one moment of blankness i stand up from the floor and unstrap the duct tape from his hands. Noting how it won't hurt. i take it off and throw it away. i rip it off his mouth too. His lips still bloody. 

i shut down completely. i stop all thinking, all feeling and just shut down. it served a purpose at the altar and in some desperate attempt to save what little sanity i have my brain decides it's a good idea to bury down all this feeling, more from experience than from logic. i take the bulky jacket off him and he falls back on his chair. the bloody shirt marks his torso with perfection. i run my hand down it, over the cold blood. i lift his shirt and spot the shot. my breathing gets heavier. 

i look at the skin around it, all the blood. All the blood. all... the blood. There is one single shot on him. And i should know that wound, i stitched it up twice. All the blood... it's... it didn't come from a fresh wound. it came form the old one. The one that lies there in front of me, stitches ripped. Bleeding still.

in a rush i  check everywhere else on his body, his back, his head. Not a single shot, no cuts. my breathing intensifies at the possibility, the tiny possibility that... that he.... that he might not have died. "it just ripped" i speak quickly. "ok baby?" i put my hand on his cheek. "it's ok you just... you just bled too much" i feel my mind spiraling into the darkness, the grief ,the doubt, the thought that i'm dreaming, that i missed a wound on his head. so i check again and there is nothing. "it's ok baby" i say again, starting to sob again now, crying again now. "hey... hey i'm right here ok? you just...you've lost a lot of blood. and.... and i'm calling the ambulance now" i grab the phone on th nightstand and dial 112. when the woman answers i hear sirens outside the house and hang up. 

"SKYLAR PROWSE AND KADEN RYAN, THE HOUSE IS SURROUNDED, PLEASE, COME OUT PEACEFULLY" I hear a megaphone and crawl back to where he is. Not being able to walk, or more like not being able to handle the pain of walking, i crawl to get Elizabeth's ringing phone. It says Medina on the screen and my chest falls from relief.