u/???
longish
~
It started with the dogs.
Arthritic dogs, unable to move, lay in vet's offices around the world, needles filled with pentobarbital empty and shaking in the doctor's hands. Dogs with mangled legs dragged themselves alongside the highway. News reports showed video after video. One dog- a German Shepard I think, missing half of his head after being hit by a semi threw himself over and over again against his owners door. The video cut out soon after, but you could see a little girl through the window. She couldn't have been older than five, with curly hair and chubby, tear-streaked cheeks. When the dog saw her he began hurling himself even more fervently and you could see the girls father pull her away from the window and close the curtains. I stopped watching the news after that.
These dogs should have been dead and technically I guess they were. Their hearts stopped beating, their skin rotted around them, but they were still there. They still whimpered and barked. The ones that were able would wag their tails.
Before long, this phenomenon spread to birds, bugs, animals, anything alive. Unfortunately this included humans.
In Mexican culture it is believed that the souls of the deceased will be with us until they are forgotten, after which they will pass on to the afterlife. Turns out they didn't know how right they were.
Being dead is painful. The more lucid ones were able to describe it. The more painful and messy your death is, the more desperate you'll be to move on. So desperate that you'll do whatever it takes to be forgotten.
There are footsteps coming from overhead and a voice calls down, melodic and rough,
"Honey? Baby doll, it's me! You can come upstairs, it's safe, I promise."
I shudder at the sound of my mother's voice.
"I promise I won't hurt you."
There's a pause before an animalistic scream rips through the house.
"Please! Please. It hurts it hurts it hur-"
I plug my ears.
That's not my mother. She isn't my mother.
I saw her. Once. By the time my father turned, the government had given up on finding a cure and instead focused on survival- well their own survival at least.
My father came back from a food run one day and by then he was too far gone. Crescent shape indents were scattered around his face and chunks of flesh hung down like streamers at the worlds most fucked up party. He sobbed and begged for us to kill him, and when he realized we couldn't he begged us to forget him. I stood silent and shaking. Blood caked his fingernails and stretched up his forearms.
Jesus Christ, he did that to himself.
He begged us to forget, but of course we couldn't. It's hard to forget when your father is standing in front of you dead and screaming. Blood leaked from his eyes but there were no tears.
He can't cry anymore.
It was the smallest detail but I couldn't help but notice.
A flash of silver caught my eye.
Mom.
He raised his arm.
The world seemed to go in slow motion while all of reality came crashing down on me.
