Destroyer (Vol.II) - Epitaph
Weeks after their departure, when the somatic fever finally began to clear, Paris sat upright in his boyfriend’s bed. Carefully, he disentangled himself from the nest of blankets that had been arranged so thoughtfully around him. He came forth from the imaginary nightmares and tried to grasp at the real one. That was what they were doing, wasn’t it? In the space of uncertainty you could account for innumerable horrors. Right now, he could pick only one.
In eerie coincidence, he’d been dreaming of that same building.
That had to come later. The living did their best to shake him out of it. Jay had forced water into his hands, insisted that he break his fast now, whether he wanted to or not. Anna needed a ride to the movies, pretended she needed him to practice her forehand. Vi texted to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself. Others drifted in and out of the house, brought a kind of airiness with them and this passed for real relief.
But even with the screen door open and the whole day occupied, some things just stuck in his mind.
Paris took himself out for the drive. He hated to be alone for it, but it was a night where he couldn’t bear a witness.
What a challenge to retrace the steps. He parked the ship in its usual spot, the east most point right where the woods began. It gave him good cover, and a reliable anchor point as he let the spatial memory guide him. He moved without thinking about which steps he would take next, and he wondered how it might have been for her. Was it calculated out ahead of time, or was it just an alien pull towards the end line?
It was the latter guiding him. It was so fucking dark out here.
“The violets are sprouting again,” he said aloud. “They’re perennials. If the weather keeps, they’ll come back each year.”
His hand graced over the budding sprouts, deep in thought.
“You should’ve seen the flowers in the house I grew up in. I don’t think I could grow something like that if I tried. They were all trophies. He swore he had to take something back from every world he conquered. It was grotesque. But the garden was beautiful. I understand him sometimes.”
Paris inhaled shakily before he went on.
“They went out to see the school. You were already on us at that point, weren’t you? It freaks me out to think about. I don’t…I don’t think you followed us there. I just get the feeling. I don’t blame you. I hope they can fix it somehow. I don’t know. Delta’s good, he takes it seriously. But at least with the labs there were still lives to save. I mean, I think even recovering the dead ones meant something to him. It’s important that someone knows the story.”
“Lorelai said she’d pick up some stuff from my aunt’s house. Anything from my mom that they’re okay parting with. I don’t know how I ever got as callous as I did. I can’t blame anyone else for that kind of sentimentality. I know how badly she must miss her family. And for him it has to be something else entirely. I can’t imagine.”
“How old were you when it happened?” he asked the silent grave. “Do you have any memories of before? Do you remember what it was like?”
The soil was undisturbed, and soft grass had begun to sprout over the place where the body was buried.
Paris watched the ground. Shivers ran through him, up his spine and all the way down through his fingertips. The night was quiet and without reply.
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