by Nunn, Alexis
The werebie Feliks was close behind me, the gun helped him target back to where I was. With a new accuracy, he bounded just spaces behind me. The hill was close to my feet and I ran up it as soon as I could. Our shielding canopy tree had leaves blossoming forth from its branches and vast a long shadow down towards me. The claws were covered by new life and reached still towards the sky with a sense of hope, something dwindling by the ounce from within me.
I knew exactly what had to be done now. In my gun, I had one bullet left. Only one sliver of hope to make the right decision. When I reached the top of the hill, my leg turned inwards and I collapsed once more. I tried breathing regularly, but there might as well been no more oxygen on Earth. Nothing was coming into my begging lungs and my tears stung my face with the passion of a million killer wasps.
I couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted to succumb to the earth and become a rock. I used my elbows, one of the only stable things left on my body, to crawl forward and prop myself against the tree. I saw Feliks slowly perusing towards me, sniffing the air and letting his mouth open, ready to swallow his victim up. I stared into the face, holding my breath. I wanted to tear off my own skin to escape the heat swelling in my body but I couldn’t escape anymore. I was stuck there, body unresponsive. My hand was a ghost, aimed the gun towards Feliks but there was no will behind it. I saw my reflection in the mirrors of his eyes but I could not see myself. I could not see my brother either. This was all my fault to begin with and now I had to kill him. Kill him. I had to murder him. I had to remove the life from his body. Oh, god. I can’t do this. I can’t do this, but I have to.
He was approaching me much too fast for me to dwell on the thought for much longer. I have lived my entire life with him by my side. He was my unsung hero, my anchor. I needed him to live. I needed him to go on. There was not a chance I could kill him and go on living. I’m going to die out here in the forest, under a tree. Starvation. Blood loss. Accident. Attack. All possibilities, I was not leaving this hill and I had to kill Feliks.
Every time I looked down the barrel and into his face, I saw a monster in both the sight of him and in the reflection of his eyes. There wasn't a chance everything he knew could just be lost like that, right? Could he not remember me? Did he not remember running around the Indiana spring fields and catching lightning bugs under crescent moons? I saw an innocent, lonely boy sitting by my hospital bed and beside me in a rocking truck. I saw a man confidently holding up his high school diploma, waving at our Grandma Adler-Stern as she took a photo before she died later that month. We, I, have lost all our family. The only living family I had was Grandma Hanne and Grandpa Albin Svensson in Sweden. Were they aware of the tragedy striking their only grandchildren? Did they know the children they sent letters to each year were going to be murdered by their own blood? Could they have saved us? Could a single thing have gone different and none of this happen? Yes. Can it? No. We were dead. We are joining the lost before us. In my mind I saw Fadiyah Hafsa Schocke. Lilyan Kiara Schocke flashed by next. Robert Schocke fleeted by afterwards. Then I saw Mae Monika Stern and Nikolai Anton Stern intermix my vision, looking so disappointed in me. Ulf Fredrik Johan Svensson smiled a whimsical grin before subsiding to the darkness of my fear. Then it was the smaller memories. I saw Grandma Eva, old Eva Agathe Adler-Stern in her plush chair, handing me caramel candy. I saw the image of all the dead in my life trying to welcome us in. Were we both or just one joining them? Were Hanne Laura Svensson and Albin Alf Svensson already there too? I should’ve wrote them more. I have too many regrets in my heart. I can’t live with the knowing I killed and added more to the list.
I can’t do this. I can’t kill him.
There was not a single reason for me to abstain from crying. My sobs racked my entire body with each breath. I thought of killing him but there was something impossible with the thought. I was willing to die for him. I am willing to die for him. This was still the man I would sacrifice my life for and hand over my own heart on a silver platter if it meant he would live. He was not inside that body anymore, but it was still him to me and it always would. Yet, I needed to free him from this trapped cage and free his burdened soul.
In a perfect world, in which I was in this scenario, I would have two bullets. I wish the second to last had not pierced my skin earlier, or the fleeting plan of my desperate mind would have worked.
Feliks was close enough I could reach out to touch him, even closer to the end of my gun. He lowered his hind legs, prepared to unleash a pent-up animalistic rage, the coveted kill. He opened his mouth and I made my permanent decision to end this madness. Me or him.
Me or him.
Me or him.
I took aim at my chosen target, with trepidations shivering my arms, myself fearing I would waste the bullet, and tried to mask the agony of fear in my hollowed, hopeless soul. Death awaited one of us, finally holding out her arms to take the chosen one away. I decided.
I lifted up my gun and moved the direction of the barrel. My shaking hands slowed and stiffened around the gun as I re-aimed with a calm determination. I took a deep breath that was near impossible to take in before now. Judgement day was upon me. The silhouette of Feliks through my doomed, sorrow-soaked tears was a smudge of black upon the greying world around us. As Feliks lunged, I pulled the heavy trigger to end my story.
Bang.
EPILOGUE
I was floating, as if suspended in water. When I breathed in, my lungs did not expand; only the sensation of breathing came through me. I never had to breathe again. My skin was warm, yet cold, and I wasn't sure if I could feel at all. Warmth was just a lingering memory splashed across my body, a projection put forth by confused nerves. A soft buzz of feeling surfaced on my feet as I landed on the ground.
This room, or space, was this perfect shade of white. When I stared forward, I could have sworn I saw the imprints of trees and the blades of grass but the white went through. I felt layered upon the Earth, not quite in a new place, but not there anymore. The Earth was translucent and our world was opaque and my stomach felt so sick just trying to stay on topic.
I wanted to walk forward, even though I was initially daunted as I saw myself pass through the solid bodies of trees. They didn't touch me. The Earth was now almost a hologram.
I stopped when my forest ran out and the opaque, perfect white stopped looking flat. It was a tunnel now. I couldn't see an end, or even a beginning. No shadows touched the white but somehow I could tell the tunnel was there. In the very center, I saw what first seemed to be a column, but the closer I got, the more defined he became. I almost didn't know him. I almost broke into a sprint yelling for Feliks, but it wasn't him.
He came to meet me where I stopped walking. We saw eye to eye now, no longer a stretch to see up at him. His face was smooth and perfected, evened out, a perplexed symmetry. I could tell he was no longer the age he used to be, but instead now the same age as I was, or used to be, on Earth. His hair still curled out on his neck and he still smiled to see me smile back.
"I missed you, you know. You've gotten so tall. It's time to go now," He put his hands on my shoulders and I felt like crying. Feliks did look so much like him. As my face began to burn from holding back tears, the sudden outlines of the trees became sharper and closer. I felt cold, "You can't do that here. The Earth will keep you."
When I looked back, I saw the forest dimming and I almost looked up on the hill to see him but I finally stopped myself.
"You can't go back, or keep your past with you. We've got to go."
I took his offered hand and walked beside him into the end. The white beneath our feet thinned out as the tunnel became a gloomy but hopeful dark. The ground became black and I stepped on the strips of yellow down the middle, "Where are we going?"
"Darylene, we are going home."
His comment triggered the rain to come down. The downpour took me by surprise. The grin I got from him made me cry, but I told myself to stop, and I did.
"I made a promise an
d I am keeping it if it's the last thing I do," He pulled me forward and I ran beside him into the rushing rain. When I felt the white pull away from us, leaving our spirits alone, I couldn't help but think of the brother I left behind.
"Don't worry," He told me in crystal clarity, as if soul to soul, "We will be back soon enough to see him again. And you can come too."
The storm clouds never thundered while we ran down the road. Ulf kept his face to the sky, not looking at the images of our old houses, schools, places I've never seem, and frozen imprints like movie reels as they rolled by on either side of the road. I stopped looking, too, after I saw the family and friends I knew I'd always miss. We, father and daughter, raced down the merge of memories, laughing and screaming into what seemed like the final farewell to the past.
“Dad? There’s so much we need to catch up on, don’t we?” I asked him.
He shook his head, “Not for me. I know it all already.”
“You do?”
“I’ve been waiting on you two, after all.”
“Oh, well, how long is this going to take?” I pointed down at the faded highway under our feet.
Ulf gave me an uneven smile, then looked down to road, “As long as you need it to.”
“So,” I bowed my head and kicked my own foot, “I’ve got time to tell you everything anyway?”
He laughed, “Yes, you do. I think I’d like to hear it from your perspective.”
I smiled, trying to think of stories from Mae to Nikolai, to Feliks to Lilya, to Robert to Fadiyah, “I got it.”
We went back to an easy pace. As I spoke, I saw my words as my personal memory mirror our highway on both sides of us, “The first winter Feliks and I spent alone without our family was when our uprooted lives became even worse. I had left Feliks in charge of setting up our camp fire…”
Alexis K. NUnn
Alexis Nunn is a young adult author from the small town of Connersville, Indiana. Alexis is an avid reader, a thespian, and a poetry lover. Her hobbies include archery, acting, playing the French horn and mellophone, and writing.
Some fun facts:
Darylene Olyver Stern: 5’10”
July 13th, 1983. Class of 2002.
Feliks Kristoph Dalton Stern: 5’5”
May 29th, 1981. Class of 2000.
Fadiyah Hafsa Schocke: 5’4”
December 19th, 1985. Class of 2004.
Lilyan Kiara Schocke: 3’10”
September 2nd, 1993. Class of 2012.
Robert Schocke: 5’8”
March 16th, 1952. Class of 1972.
Ulf Fredrik Johan Svensson: 5’11”
September 11th, 1962. Class of 1980.
Mae Monika Stern: 5’9”
February 15th, 1962. Class of 1980.
Nikolai Anton Stern: 6’0”
June 19th, 1945. Class of 1968.
Contact me at:
https://www.facebook.com/AlexisNunnNovels