short fic

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VIGNETTE

The blood was black. Tar-like as it oozed from the shallow cut on his arm rather than the smooth up-welling of red from before.

It had been a gradual change. Painful at first until nerves became numb and dead.

Dead like me, he thought.

His vision had grown dim and narrow, as though a vignette filter had been snapped over his view of the world. His ears felt muffled, sound distant and directionless. His brain had become slow, his thoughts anchorless yet deep.

He’d thought that dying was terrifying and final. Instead, for him and others like him, it was a gradual transition from vibrancy to distant echoes.

There was an ache in his chest where his heart had once beat–thump thump–but had fallen to silence and stillness. It wasn’t pain, but loss. The realization that something that had always been had now ceased to be.

He was still moving. Still realizing. Still existing in some semblance of self.

But it was only a matter of time before he began to rot. When his skin would begin to slough off and the collagen between his bones would congeal and his flesh would fester and bugs would burrow into him.

He was dead, but he was still moving. He was a living soul trapped in a decaying flesh prison.

There was no treatment, no cure, no vaccine. Survivors out there, huddling in their hideaways, they could maybe be saved by some future medical science. But for those like him that had already been bitten–infected, killed–there was no turning back. No chance to return to normal.

There was only waiting for the inevitable loss of self that would culminate in mindlessness and the instinctive drive to consume human flesh.

He could already feel it. Not hunger as he once knew it, but something like it. The closest concept he could imagine.

Hunger had always been centered in the belly, but this was a whole body need for warmth and filling. A sense that if he didn’t fill himself, he would collapse empty and deflated after his body ate itself to nothing.

He was dead, but he was still dying. If he ate, he would taste warmth and life. He would be able to move and exist for a little while longer.

His mouth wouldn’t be so dry and shriveled. So tasteless and empty.

He walked toward the front door. Worked the locks and pulled the door open. And went out into the world.

To eat.

=END=

0 comments on "12 Days of Xmas: Eleanor"

ELEANOR

“🎶 Driving. Driving all night ’til the mornin’ come. Wanna see my bed, but first I’mma see the sun. Wishin’ you were here to whisper sweet things. Gonna close my eyes and visit you in my dreams.🎶”

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he sang to fill the silence. The radio had been broken since before he bought the car.

He’d been driving since he left work. Had barely taken the time to change his clothes and wash the makeup off his face.

His eyes felt gritty and dry. He would stop for something to eat and drink but he barely had money for gas. There would be food when he got there, hopefully.

He’d gotten the call late and hadn’t hesitated to tell his boss he had to go. She’d been angry but understanding. He was grateful. It would have been hard finding a new job.

Things were hard all around. People were struggling. It made it hard to be kind even when kindness was the most necessary thing.

The car went over a bumpy spot in the road and he blinked hard to make sure his vision was clear.

It was a long dark stretch of road out there. An endless expanse of highway that seemed to go on forever, his headlights the only illumination.

There were tiny shiny eyes on the side of the road. Small animals darted here and there. Occasionally one would attempt to pass in front of the car.

He hoped he didn’t run any over. But there wasn’t time to stop. And there wasn’t anything he could do for them anyway. He was passing through their lives at close to 80 miles an hour.

“🎶I promise I’ll be there before you close the door. Hold on for me, my sweet Eleanor. Ohhh. Elea-nor. Ohhh oh oh-h ohhhh. Sweet Eleanor.

“🎶I’m drivin’ all night until the morning comes. All to see your face and hold you in my arms. My dreams are so sweet since I fell in love. With Elea-nor. Sweet, sweet, Eleanor.🎶”

eleanor.m4a

=END=

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ANYTHING

Snow Blossom had been sick for days. His fever had burned for nearly a week and finally he had stopped talking. He lay still on the bed, his skin hot to the touch.

Snow Lily mopped the sweat from her son’s forehead and neck. She had been caring for him since he had first fallen ill.

There was no medicine. The recent drought had caused more than food crops to wither. All pharmacies had been ordered to maintain their stocks for the wealthy and government officials.

Even if she’d had the coin to spend, Snow Lily had been unable to buy fever reducing herbs. No one would sell them to a peasant.

Her son was dying and there was nothing she could do other than wiping him down with wet rags and trying to get him to eat porridge. After five days he had become too weak to respond and not even rubbing his throat would get him to swallow.

He’s dying, she thought in despair.

“Don’t leave me, Snow Blossom,” she begged, pressing her face against his small chest as she wept. “I will give anything for your body to be healed. Anything.”

“ANYTHING?”

It resounded through her. Not sound. Deeper than sound. It pierced her through to the bone then stirred her marrow until she fell away from the bed and huddled on the floor, clutching at her chest and the heart that pounded within.

“YOU WILL GIVE ANYTHING FOR YOUR CHILD’S BODY TO BE HEALED?“

Snow Lily frantically looked around, but there was no one else in the room. Just her and the so still Snow Blossom. She couldn’t see if he was still breathing. Feared that he had stopped.

Tears flowed down her cheeks. She didn’t know what was speaking to her, but her desperation was stronger than her fear of the unknown. “Anything!” she screamed. “I will give anything for his body to be healed. Please. Give him to me.”

“WILL YOU GIVE YOUR LIFE?”

To die so her son could live? How could she hesitate? “Yes.”

It tore through her. Flooded through her veins and organs and overwhelmed her brain. And then it, whatever it was, rushed out of her.

And the empty husk of Snow Lily collapsed to the ground. Dead.

. *. *. *.

Snow Blossom weakly opened his eyes and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling.

His mouth was dry and his body ached as though he’d been sick for a long time. He felt tired and weak. He blinked a few times, then was unable to hold his eyelids up.

He didn’t know where he was or why he was here. The last thing he remembered was drinking the cup of tea offered by the “kind” old woman at the boarding house.

The poisoned cup of tea, he thought.

He and his friends had gone on vacation together and pooled their money to stay at the boarding house. One by one, the others had disappeared until he was alone.

He hadn’t believed the ghost stories the locals had fed them, but at the end he’d begun to fear that they were true. And so he’d run back to the boarding house and begged the nice old lady to go away with him before they were both murdered.

She’d patted his arm and told him to sit down. Have a cup of tea and calm down. He was hysterical. Nothing was happening. His friends would turn up, maybe they had simply lost their way?

Snow Blossom hadn’t wanted any tea, but he’d trusted the old woman that had been so helpful. So kind. So generous. So reminiscent of the grandmother he had loved.

He’d accepted the cup of tea after she had promised to go with him once they finished drinking.

And he hadn’t noticed anything strange with the taste, not with the amount of sugar that had been added. But then the room had begun to sway around him, only it was him that fell down.

And the pain that started in his belly and burned his throat consumed him.

And she stood over him, and her face wasn’t kind. And she didn’t make him think of his grandmother anymore.

And he died.

She killed me, he thought. She killed me and she killed the others. She killed us all.

There was no ghost, but there was an evil spirit. And she’d lived in that town and she’d killed the people that passed through.

But how am I here? he thought. Is this the local hospital?

The town wasn’t rich, but he would have thought a hospital or clinic would be better than this rough pallet and thin blanket.

He tried to open his eyes, but he was too weak. Against his will he fell back asleep.

And he didn’t know that a mother named Snow Lily had traded her life for her son’s body to be healed, but that her son’s soul had already fled. And that into that empty shell a recently murdered soul with the same name had been snatched from another world and pressed into place.

He didn’t and would never know why he lived again as someone else. He would simply be found by an aunt and taken away after his mother was buried.

He would never know Snow Lily. She would simply be another name mentioned to him. Yet another stranger that the original host had known and loved.

He would live in the body of her son and never know of the sacrifice she had made.

And the world would know of the great deeds of Snow Blossom and never think of poor Snow Lily.

=END=

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POMODORO

25 minutes. That’s all there was. One pomodoro’s worth of time.

Until the end of the world.

He glanced at the timer counting down and wanted to scream. The only thing that stopped him was the self-awareness that if he started screaming he wouldn’t be able to stop.

There was a whole world’s worth of people out there that didn’t know they were about to die. He envied them their ignorance.

No last goodbyes, but no last regrets either. Just going about their everyday lives with no awareness that the end was most definitely nigh.

24:35. 24:34. 24:33. 24:32.

He forced himself to look away. There was nothing useful about counting down the minutes and seconds. It would only add to the heavy sense of doom bearing down on him.

There were so many other things he could do like…

He scratched his head. His mind was a screaming miasma of different urges and desires. It was enough to choke him into immobility.

Finally he cursed and got out a notebook and pen. He began trying to plan out what he could do with his last 20 minutes.

Things that wouldn’t be worthless and a waste of his last little bit of time.

He glanced at the timer. Winced away.

22:45. 22:44.

He didn’t have anyone to call. His parents had died from COVID and his brother lived on the opposite side of the planet. Guy had met his wife online and moved away when he was 28 years old. They hadn’t seen each other in close to 6 years.

Guy was the kind of stickler for bedtimes that refused to answer the phone if it was past 9 o’clock at night. He was likely already in his pajamas cuddling with his pregnant wife.

There was no reason to call him, upset him, let him know what was to come.

It was better to let him enjoy this little bit of peace. It was a last bit of kindness that he could afford to give a brother he had never been particularly close to.

He thought about calling his friends, but decided against it.

How was he supposed to explain that the world was about to end? They would think he was delusional! Their last few minutes would be spent wondering if he was about to off himself or something.

It was better to let them continue on in their blissful ignorance.

20:29. 20:28.

There were 20 minutes left. He’d wasted 5 minutes mentally flailing and doing nothing.

He tapped his pen against the paper of the notebook. He’d made a checklist of things he could do, but nothing really called out to him as being something to spend his last minutes doing.

He didn’t even know why he’d added “Vacuum the carpet.”

Finally he shrugged and got up to head into the bathroom. One last orgasm to send off all life on Earth. Why not.

14:12. 14:11. 14.10.

He glared at the timer. It kept counting down. Even though it was digital, some part of him thought he could hear it working–click, click, click.

There wasn’t even time enough to order his favorite food from his favorite restaurant. Not that he felt particularly hungry.

There was a good chance that if he ate something now, he would throw it back up.

And how terrible would that be? To spend his last moments vomiting in the same toilet he’d just ejaculated into?

It would be some kind of metaphor. What kind of metaphor he didn’t know, but it would be something. Like life and death and defecation all being tied together, one unable to exist without the other or something heavily philosophical like that.

“God, I’m facetious,” he said out loud and laughed. It was heavy and joyful. Then suddenly it was tears. And he was crying, and it was the kind of crying that led to his nose leaking over his lips and down his chin to drip all over the front of his shirt in a disgusting stream.

But he couldn’t stop.

He was crying so hard he could barely breathe. He was hitching and gasping and his whole body was shuddering with the overwhelming realization that “I’m going to die!”

5:06. 5:05.

Once the waterworks started, they were hard to stop. His chest was still hitching and hiccuping, but he’d finally stopped crying. He took off his shirt and used it to mop his wet face.

“Ugh, I’m gross,” he said, rubbing the shirt under his nose to get rid of the last bit of mucus.

His upper lip felt sore and his eyes were uncomfortable. He hadn’t cried that hard since his parents died.

It was the kind of uncontrollable crying that didn’t really make anything feel better and maybe made things feel worse. Because it was accompanied by a sense of helplessness, of loss, of realizing that there had never been any sense of control in the first place.

Time was ticking down and there was nothing he could do to stop it. There was no one he could call. No one that he could wrap his arms around and bury himself into as the world came apart around them.

He was the only one that knew the world was about to end. And it was the loneliest of realizations.

Because everyone else got to keep thinking that there was always going to be tomorrow. All the things they didn’t get done today… All the things they wanted to do but weren’t able to do right now… They thought that tomorrow was waiting there for them, a sunset and a sunrise away.

1:21. 1:20.

Should I pray? he thought. Will my soul leave my body and journey to some other, new kind of existence?

He’d never been religious. His parents had been raised in soft-Christianity, which had resulted in them settling into quiet atheism. They’d never been the sort to speak bad about religion, but they’d never said anything good about it either.

He didn’t even know who he was supposed to direct his prayers to.

There were a lot of Christians, sure, but there were a lot of other religions out there too. How was he supposed to know which ones were real? Especially when the clock was ticking down and there was only… 45 seconds left?

Geez, he thought. Why does it feel as though time is going by too fast?

He began to pray without aiming his words toward anyone. He just gave his apologies. Told his parents and grandparents that he loved them. Hoped that if there was an afterlife it wasn’t going to be horrible.

0:09. 0:08. 0:07.

He looked away. There were only a few seconds left. Why spend them counting down like there was about to be a rocket launch?

He tried to think of what he had loved. What he had desired. What he would miss.

His mind was completely blank other than the looming awareness of what was about to happen.

He couldn’t help laughing at his own ridiculousness.

He’d only had 25 minutes to experience the whole rest of his life… and he’d wasted that bit of time counting down the seconds.

“I could have watched the final episode of my show,” he said to himself, chuckling. “I would have been able to know how things turned out between…”

=END=