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SOTC: Arsonist's Lullabye by Hozier
• Don't you ever tame your demons •
"Ron's trying.... Trying to kill you," I reiterated. "Weren't you two best friends?"
He scoffed. "Remember when my dad killed his?"
I shook my head. Maybe at that point I was a little too wrapped up in my worries of becoming a walker. Then I took a breath. "Do you want to hear something that you're going to hate?"
"What... What do you mean?" There was a tremor to his voice.
"You're going to hate it. You're going to hate me and the fact that I lied."
Carl's eyes remained on me. A scarce, sullen glint twinkled in them. "Tell me," he gulped.
I sucked in some air through my teeth. Telling Carl this will break him. He will cry. He will beat himself up about it, and there will be nothing I can do to stop it.
The words launched out like cannon balls before I could stop them. "I'm dying in two days."
Carl's mouth hung open for a second as if he were a fish. His jaw clenched and unclenched. I saw the gears twirling in his mind. The ice chipping in his eyes as they bored into me. Then his lips parted and he said a singular word: "Why?"
And then my story spilled out.
I remembered the time when I was ten and I heard my parents fighting downstairs. Mom grunted in anger and told him to leave soon, leave now, pack your things and leave. I remember scrambling into my room when footsteps pounded up the stairs, and when Dad passed by my door, I peeked at him moping down the hallway, a forlorn daze in his steps. I've lost it all, I heard him mumbling in waking sleep, and I was crying too.
I remembered the time when I visited Dad's house in the suburbs while Marshal was on a sports trip with Mom. I couldn't sleep, so I decided to poke around the house, and I found the paper with red marker along the bottom, three more weeks three more weeks three more weeks
I remembered the time when Mom had told us that we were leaving the next day, she gave me her police badge to pin on my shirt. My brother and I were leaving our neighborhood, the place we'd known forever, to escape something we didn't know the magnitude of. We lost our home, we lost our childhoods, we lost our mom.
We lost our mom. She's gone. She's never coming back. Tears found my cheeks but I kept going, I remembered the streets. I remembered how we'd walked for days, running whenever a thing found us. I recall how, someday in the bowels of summer, my legs were burning and I collapsed on the asphalt. Marshal told me we needed to go, I needed to get up, but I stayed there, curled up in a ball, as my inner demons twisted around me and squeezed.
Marshal made me keep going. We found a railroad. We found a sign for Terminus. Marshal thought it was done for, that it wasn't worth it to try, but I was stupid. I was so stupid. I messed up, I was messed up in the head, I dragged him there. I killed him.
I remembered when we were in the train car. I propped my feet on the wall and cried while Marshal tried to analyze the cracks, the screws and bolts and the door latch that grunted when they took him.
They took him. They took my dog. I did not eat the food they gave me, because I couldn't stop imagining marshal's head on my plate.
I remembered that I was alone.
I remembered how I was saved. Bullets pounding metal. Glenn opened the door, I followed him into heaven. I followed him to you, somebody so compassionate and caring that, yes Carl, I fell in love with you.
"I was bit, Carl. There are many occasions in which I would've kissed you. Stop looking at me like that. Saliva with open contact to the body, that's what does it. If I kiss you I bite you."
Carl's mouth hung open again. Then he swallowed. "Well, then bite me."
I knit my eyebrows. "What?"
"Bite me. Two days, we can be together. Imagine how great that will be!"
"No..." I shook my head, narrowing my eyes. "No, Carl, I can't hurt anybody else. If I take you down with me, then it just proves that on the inside, I'm already a monster."
"Besides," I sighed. "Have you taken a look outside? Have you seen all of those things out there? I'm not even sure if I have two days now. I may just die the next time I go outside, and—" I sniffled and slumped my shoulders. "My death will mean nothing."
"Your death will mean everything!" Carl yells. "Are you listening to yourself right now?! You're a beautiful human being who's life has been ruined. I remember when we were standing out in front of the hospital, Beth had just died and we were crying into each other's shoulders. But you know what you said to me? You said it'll all be okay. I wanted to believe you, but now my best friend is about to die and I don't know how I can live with myself without her."
I huffed. "Carl, I'm dead already. The best thing that you can do for me is stay alive."
And with that, I flung open the door and walked out, painting on a smile that hurt more than my bite.
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A/N: I planned out the end of this book and it's gonna rock your world. Good luck not getting feels :)
If it all goes to plan, this will end before June. That's about six, seven more chapters. This story ain't over yet.
But I'm going to say it again: OMG GUYS, WE MADE IT TO 10K!!!!! What the fuck happened? I remember when this book was just a little fetus with four reads, and how flabbergasted I was when it hit 400. I still can't believe it. You guys are so encouraging and sweet too, I just can't thank y'all enough ❤️
QOTD: If you had to describe this chapter in one or two words, what would you say?
AOTD: Tense
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Word count:
1086
Created 4-15-16