The Modern Prometheus

by Nicole Mello

  Eliza had rented the apartment across the hall from Glo’s, becoming her neighbor, and she allowed Henry and I to move in with her for the time being. It took me a while to come back to myself. Henry worked tirelessly with me, as did Eliza, though she also still had a career as a nurse. Henry took odd jobs. I was useless to them. Not only that, but I was also dangerous. Just having me there was painting a target on their backs, but I could hardly leave them, could I? That, I expected, would only put them in more danger. No, I couldn’t leave; it only made sense that I stay.

  When everyone went to work during the day, I stayed at home with the children. Gloria stayed with me for the first week or so, and then she went back to work. I know that she had cameras in her apartment, watching me, and I don’t blame her in the least for that. I would have done the same thing. I played games with the children. I helped Lewis with his elementary school homework. I fed them lunch. It was surreal to me. This was what I was meant to do, I thought, very briefly. This was creating life. I had been so wrong; I had not created the life I had wanted, though I had created a life. I created a demon, a monster.

  I created something, but what I created was not my intention; it was not this. I had so many regrets.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After my release, my family and I spent a lot of time together. Of course, I wanted to spend time with them, and that was most of the reason why we stayed so close. A big part of it for me, however, was keeping them safe. As long as I could see them, as long as they were close, I knew they were okay. I had to protect them. I couldn’t find Adam, though I searched whenever I found the rare opportunity to do so. Eventually, however, Eliza grew suspicious; she always was perceptive, just like Henry.

  Eliza confronted Henry about it before she confronted me, and Henry came to me to discuss it. He told me Eliza was having suspicions about me, but she didn’t know what to make of it. She was worried, he told me. She was afraid for me. She didn’t want to lose any more of her family. He urged me to tell her what was happening. She would believe us, he told me. She would understand. Maybe, he said, she would even be able to help.

  It took a lot of coaxing on Henry’s part. I was not at all willing to tell Eliza anything; I avoided her for a while after Henry told me she was suspicious. He broke me down, though. He really did make it seem as though I should I tell her. She was, after all, my sister, and one of my closest friends for a long time. She was brilliant. She was strong. If anyone could help, why wouldn’t it be Eliza?

  It was late at night when we told her, I remember. Henry made tea. He always did, for big discussions like that. Calmed him down. I let him. Whatever he needed, he had. It was late, and it took the both of us to get the whole way through the story. Henry told a good portion of it, with me filling in the blanks where his knowledge was lacking or his memory had fallen through. Eliza accepted it all in silence, until the end. Then, she peppered us with questions, particularly me. She asked how I did it, the exact science of it. She always was curious, and she was still a nurse; I wasn’t surprised she wanted to know more. I told her what I could.

  That was a late night. Eliza said we would discuss what we would do in the morning. At the time, I was bewildered. Do? What was there to do, except wait for him to show himself? It had become clear to me that he wasn’t coming out of hiding anytime soon; he was waiting, hiding in the shadows, biding his time. We had to wait, I thought. Just wait and take him down when he came to us, which he inevitably would.

  My dear Eliza. The next morning, as soon as I came to the kitchen to fix breakfast, her and Henry were already seated and waiting for me. They had begun making plans while they waited for me to wake up, and had already created a bunch of blueprints, as they were, ready for me to look over. Neither of them was content to sit around and wait. I respect them fiercely for that. They did what I couldn’t; where I was frightened by action, they were only spurred into it. But, of course, I was afraid, and rejected their attempts to discuss a plan with me. I retreated from them, but not for very long.

  Henry confronted me, again; he told me of his fears, that he would lose me, that my tentative plan — to wait until Adam came, and then kill him, as vague and unsure as that was — would only fall apart when it came time for it. He was afraid. Henry, though he wore his heart on his sleeve, was never so openly fearful as he was then, and I gave in. I began helping them with their plans. We had a map of the neighborhood, and the areas surrounding it. We would break into teams, two of us going out and searching — always together — and the other one staying behind to keep an eye on the apartments. This continued for several weeks with no hint of him before he came. When he finally showed himself, that day… That was one of the worst days of my life. I can never forgive myself for what happened that day.

  That particular day was one where Henry and I were the search team. It was growing late, and Henry and I both were growing tired and disappointed, as happened every day. We decided to return home. Henry texted Eliza, letting her know we were on our way, but got no reply. While not alarming, as she would sometimes be taking care of the children or having dinner when we texted, I still felt as though I had swallowed a stone. I knew something was wrong, and I shared the feeling with Henry. Instead of walking home, he insisted that we take a taxi, and we did, before the traffic near our apartment stopped us. I threw bills at the taxi driver. I didn’t care. I don’t know if it was more than enough, not enough. I don’t know what he looked like. But, I do remember the scene outside of my apartment building exactly. As soon as I got close enough, and Gloria saw me, she threw herself at me, nearly tackling me to the pavement. I tried to soothe her enough to understand what had happened.

  Glo told me that she had been in the apartment with Robin, Lewis, Lavender, and Eliza, who was making them dinner in the kitchen while Robin and Gloria played with the children in the front room. She didn’t know what was going on; she heard clattering in the kitchen, and Eliza shouted something incoherent. Glo told Robin and the children to hide; she was always quick on her feet, always responsive, always a good thinker. She went into the kitchen, she said, to find Eliza trying to fight off a man that Gloria described as “gigantic and horrible,” and my stomach turned inside out. I backed away from my sister, not wanting to hear anymore. I vomited in a gutter. Glo sat beside me, but I already knew.

  Gloria continued anyways. She told me that the man saw her, and tried to attack her, as well. Eliza removed a gun from the cabinet under the sink while the man was distracted, and she shot him in the shoulder. The man turned on her and crushed her neck, Glo said, right in front of her. Glo could barely breathe through her sobs; neither of us could calm down for a time. My Eliza, dead. Because of me. I was out of my mind.

  Will was only a child. I could not understand that. My father was a caring and considerate man who meant so much to so many. I could not understand that. If those were hard to understand, then Eliza… Eliza’s death was unfathomable to me. Eliza, a light in our lives, extinguished? How could our Eliza just not exist anymore? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. To be honest, I still can’t. How do you understand something like that? I just… I don’t know, Doctor. I don’t know.

  And it was all my fault. My mother’s death, though regrettable, had become a thing of the past. That, at least, was nature; that was disease, that was something I could understand. These murders? It was like a bad dream. Actually, you know what, that exactly describes it — it was like a bad dream, and I still haven’t woken up. I keep expecting to.

  We had to identify the body, though I will never understand why. I won’t recount that in detail for you, Doctor, but let me assure you of how truly horrific it was. No human being should ever witness such a thing. It truly was evidence of Adam’s incredible, inhuman strength. Her neck and shoulders were completely crushed. Glo, who had seen the whole thing happen, nearly passed out when she saw the body, and I don’t blame her. She left almost immediately after that. Henry and I stayed behind, and Henry said what he had to t
o the corpse of our friend, a sister to us both, and then stepped back.

  I stayed there until they forced me to leave. I couldn’t process the death, and I just kept staring at that slab she was lying on. It was a sick sense of parallelism, I think, being in that morgue. It was very like the morgues which I took body pieces from; it all came full circle, in the end. I stared at her for so long. The image of her lifeless body is burnt onto the backs of my eyelids. I will never get over her death, and how can I? It is too absurd for me to even begin to comprehend.

  It didn’t take long for me to become consumed with rage. At the time, I was very easily able to pass the blame off of myself and onto Adam, who had begun to kill in earnest and without discretion. He killed Eliza; my dearest, most incredible Eliza. He would have killed Glo, Robin, and my niece and nephew who I loved so dearly, if Eliza had not shot him, and Gloria had not forced him out of the window and the house. He had not been captured; of course he had not been.

  I never saw Eliza’s body again after that. I hardly wanted to relive it for you now, even in my memory, but if I had to recount it for any reason, your record of my life is the best reason, I suppose. My rage consumed me, and I left. Henry followed. Henry always followed. I was hell-bent on revenge; I could focus on nothing else.

  I went to Glo first. I told her that she had to leave at once, that she had to flee and hide her family if she wanted them all to live. I told her I couldn’t explain; I told her she might hear about it later, but I couldn’t tell her myself. She believed me. Who wouldn’t, after losing so much of their family in such a horrific way? She was none too pleased with me, of course. She wanted to stay and help, even though she had no idea what we were doing. But I reminded her of her duty to her family, and to our deceased family: to our siblings, our father. She accepted this. I said goodbye to them, and I haven’t seen them since. I hope that they’re safe. I think about it almost constantly. If you can, Doctor, please, will you find them? Please? That’s all I ask, make sure my sister is okay. That’s all I need. I need someone to have made it out of this whole.

  As soon as Glo and her family were gone, Henry, who was just as incensed if I was, began to develop a plan. Neither of us had any care for our own safety at this point. We wanted revenge, and we wanted it as soon as possible. Adam had to die at my hand, immediately. I needed it like I needed air to breathe, like I needed water to drink. My sister would not go unavenged; my brother would rest peacefully. My father, rest his soul, would not die in vain.

  I would find their murderer, and, I swore to it, I would kill him myself.

  Chapter Seventeen

  We laid out a trap for Adam. We made it seem as though Glo and Robin would be home with the children, when, really, even we didn’t know where they were. Hopefully, by then, they were far away; we waited several days before starting on the plan, just to be sure. I wasn’t taking any risks, not with the only family I had left. Henry and I left, and not at all subtly. We made it seem as though we were leaving for the night to search for Adam, but we backtracked quickly. It was risky, sure: other people did live in the building. But Adam didn’t want to hurt other people; he only wanted to hurt me.

  We were right, of course; Adam couldn’t resist. It was too perfect. This only confirmed my theory that he was inside the building somewhere, always keeping an eye on us, which still makes my skin crawl. I can barely think of it without wanting to tear my hair out. But we returned to the apartment and found him prowling around. He was surprised to see us, when we revealed ourselves. We were fairly evenly matched; he was strong, powerful. Henry and I had numbers on our side, and we carried weapons. The scale was a bit tipped in Adam’s favor, though, I think; he was huge, even in comparison to my height, and he was fearless in a way a human could never be.

  The battle was a blur to me, a nonsensical mess of flying limbs and hacking knives and grasping hands. I had been pinned to the floor by Adam at one point, and I bit his forearm to get him off of me. He tasted like rotting flesh. He was dead; he may have been reanimated, but he was still the living dead. He disgusted me, that revolting beast, that demon that called himself my son.

  I wish we had left. I still consider that night to be the worst night of my life. I wish I had shoved him away and told Henry to run, to leave. I wish I had fought harder. I wish I had done more. I wish, I wish, I wish. I am weak, Doctor; I can’t protect my family, I can’t save my friends. I can’t change the past, though that’s all I want anymore, and I would give my life a hundred, a thousand, a million times over, if it meant that I could go back and change what happened. But I can’t, Doctor. I can’t, and I’m the only one left to live with it.

  At one point in our battle, Adam knocked me backwards. I rebounded off the wall and fell to the ground, and Adam snapped my leg. It was horrible; I could see my own bones, and I passed out momentarily from the pain, though I did come back to myself remarkably quickly, likely because of the adrenaline coursing through my veins. I couldn’t move; any inch of movement sent hot, unbearable pain through me, licking up my leg, scratching at my spine. I couldn’t do anything. I could only struggle to grab at him when he came near. I could only watch.

  Henry firmly and steadfastly did not look at me, likely afraid he would lose his resolve if he did, though I’ll never know for sure. He was incredible. He never liked real fighting, but he had been a recreational boxer, and it showed in his movements. He had a knife in each hand; I had had the gun, and it was across the floor now, dropped when I fell. I started inching towards it, and it was then that it happened.

  Both of them had been making a great deal of noise, in the heat of their one-on-one battle. Suddenly, the noises ceased entirely, and I almost snapped my neck turning towards them. I looked, and Henry was looking down at me. He was pressed against the wall by Adam, who had his gigantic hands around Henry’s throat. He seemed so impossibly thin and small in comparison. Henry stared at me, with those wide green eyes which I loved so dearly. Tears fell. Adam paid them no heed. I struggled to get to the gun, but I was too late.

  The sound was something I will never forget. I hear it daily. I hear it at night. I hear it in my dreams. I hear it even now, Doctor, as we sit here together, and as I speak, seemingly endlessly. I talk, but I can barely hear what I’m saying; all I can hear, playing over and over again in my ears, is Henry’s body as it was broken. The snap of the bones of his neck, the choked noises as he stopped breathing, the scraping half-shouts of pain. The sounds of Henry’s death.

  Adam dropped Henry right there, slumped against the wall, out of my reach. I stopped going for the gun. I stopped moving entirely. My entire being was focused on Henry. Part of me thought this was like Adam’s last attack, and Henry was merely unconscious; surely, he had just passed out, or sustained a concussion. Anything made more sense than death. Anything at all.

  Adam came to me, and he stood over me, his hands wet in the blood that had surged from Henry’s mouth and throat. I could only look up at him and wait for the inevitable blow, where he would crack my skull or step through my chest or simply bash my face in. I welcomed it. I wanted death so desperately. I wanted to die so badly, Doctor, I can’t describe the feeling to you. It is the feeling of dying while your heart is still beating; it is the feeling that you experience when everything you lived for, the only reasons you were alive, are gone from this earth. It is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. It is a waking hell. Adam may have been a walking corpse, but I truly was the living dead. I was nothing. I still am nothing.

  “We are even,” Adam spat at me. He didn’t kill me. I begged him for it. I had no pride. He had no mercy. “This was my goal, you insignificant man, you human, my Father. This was all I wanted. You killed my mate. I killed yours. You killed my family. I killed yours. I have to live alone; and, now, so do you. We are equals, you and I. Bloodthirsty, ruthless, and alone. Monsters, the both of us.”

  Doctor. Doctor, I’m sorry, please, just- Hold on a second. I’m so sorry. My Henry; I can’t describe
it to you. No words can come to me, nothing comes to mind. Adam stepped over me, and he left me there on the floor, my leg in pieces, my life shattered. I dragged myself to Henry, ignoring the pain that made me want to tear my hair out. I bit my lip completely in half trying not to scream. I had to get to Henry. I had to. I pulled myself all the way across that floor, and I hauled him to me. He was in pieces. His head lolled disgustingly, twisting towards me in such an unnatural way. He had been so beautiful and wonderful in life; how could he be this thing in death? How could this corpse be Henry?

  The emotions I felt over Eliza’s death were increased tenfold over Henry’s, if not more. Henry, who had been everything to me. Henry, who would been by my side since we met as children. Henry, who argued with me, who made me breakfast, who held me like I was precious and who fought with me like I was a soldier. Henry was more myself than I was. Henry was my life, Doctor. How can one keep living when one’s life has gone from them? My heart did still beat in my chest, but I felt as though it was really outside my body, there on the floor, dead in my arms. When Henry’s heart stopped, my heart stopped. I don’t understand how I still keep living when Henry is dead. He was the best of us, better than me by an exponential amount. He was worth a thousand of me and more.

  I’m sorry, Doctor; I know you want to hear more of my story, but, I’m afraid, I have never been able to talk of Henry’s death, and I feel a sort of release now that I can. It will never soothe these feelings I have, but it is something. I need him to be written down, do you understand? If nothing else comes of me telling you this story, let that one thing be Henry Clerval. Let it be him, who I killed for my own curiosity’s sake, for my obsession with death. He should have been immortal, and I killed him. I killed Henry. It was my fault, even if it wasn’t at my hands.