Shadows of Darkness

13. Souls

Wounds were prone to infection, but Cyan had been playing with them since she was little. The first one was the most memorable—an alarming laceration on her finger. In Cyan's hand was a half-peeled granny apple, tainted with her blood. She tossed the apple in a trashcan and made sure nothing else had been contaminated. John wrangled with flour and butter on the other side of the kitchen. She shuffled to the sink, pressing the spot where blood gushed out, and spared him the trouble of juggling between making the crust and fixing her wound. The sting nibbled her shivering finger. The cut was severe—in fact, ghastly she could faint—but Cyan would rather deal with the pain than doughy pie. Her twining hands turned the water pink. It looked like cranberry juice, Cyan thought, but the magic didn't last very long. The water ran clear again, and then there was no more pain. The slit had sealed perfectly, just as John bragged about the world's best piecrust. His accomplishment was worth the pretenses to the love of his apple pie and the denial of Cyan's strangest discovery.

But soon later, in one backyard barbeque, Cyan borrowed her neighbor's skateboard and tried it in his driveway. She tripped and tumbled down onto the concrete floor. The scrapes were awful, and a piece of bone poked out of her elbow. By the time John got to her, the damages were all gone. There wasn't even blood because Cyan had learned to clean up after herself.

Since then, getting hurt was somewhat exciting. Cyan might have intentionally been reckless just to find out if she could cheat death one more time. She was tenacious, invincible, and magical. But the truth was, Cyan had always been a broken thing. She never admitted it, but she was never whole. Nobody, not even Everett, noticed this inner discomfort. Reality wasn't the video games. Nobody got an extra life, another chance, Health Recovery from spending points—nothing was supposed to be unbound. When Cyan healed, something in her weakened. When the magic mended her veins, her soul cracked. Even then, with much enthusiasm, Cyan challenged destruction like her character Guile battled John's M. Bison, and she had always pulled through until this last one...

For more than two weeks, a lump in her chest had been slowly and persistently crawling up her throat. To spare John and the Watts boys the trouble, Cyan said nothing about it. The clot took form the first night away from Colt. The mass swelled up every time she cried, hardened, and grew, inflicting pain all day long. The agony caused hallucination where guilt and sorrow spoke. Sometimes, Everett appeared, crouching above her with his firm grips around her arms. He wouldn't talk—that was guilt and sorrow's job—but shuddered and wept into her eyes. Cyan wished to hold him, but their bodies maintained an absolute void. The mischievous lie never lasted very long. Sooner or later, Cyan always woke up to catch a breath and hoped to rot than heal.

The warm scent of cinnamon and sugar pulled Cyan from the bed. Real butter made John's piecrust the best one in the world. She wrapped a wool jacket over Angelica's silk nightgown, which she couldn't grow to fit, and tiptoed to the hallway. Will was resting. Sometimes, he slept so serenely that it felt as though he was a statue. When Angelica and David's heated discussion shot out the door, Cyan halted and clung to the jacket. Luke's voice thundered from the same direction, and Cyan shrank. Stupidly, she kissed Luke, thinking he could put the bandage in her throat as he did on her arm. Guilt immediately ridiculed her, and sorrow dared her to kiss him one more time. Cowardly, Cyan traced her step back, so she wouldn't have to hear more about the unbudgeable mess. She was like a magnet attracting terror, destroying more than she could clean up. John lost the clock store, and the Watts boys lost Everett and risked Simon. The lump in Cyan's throat crept a little higher. She veered back to her room, scampering into the bathroom only to crash on the floor before the sink. The tear was as clear as water, and the pain remained colorful. She was disgusted by her malicious existence, the evil thing, the bad omen, the destruction magnate.

Cyan filled a tub to wash her invisible wounds which were infected by horrible sickness. The beautiful nightgown couldn't glam up the ugliness. This house couldn't contain the wrecker. Cyan belonged to Colt, to be tortured, butchered, dead again and again, for which she was made. She submerged, held her breath, and stayed under.

Everett is dead because of me. John is going to die. Will, Simon, and Luke will, too, someday. David... Even David. Even Angelica. Even the whole world. And I'll be alone till the end of time.

When Cyan ran out of breath, she couldn't rise. The surface had a promise of the indefinite pain, far from where Everett would perhaps be. The water diluted her tear and hope. Everything faded and dimmed. But that big lump in her throat, though, indurated, shook, and combust—lighting her skin afire. And in the dark, even the flames were shadows, claiming her and pulling her into the inky underneath. Swimming in the darkness was another entity. Its fragility caressed Cyan's arms and cradled her against its remorseless heart. The deeper she went, the better she felt—the more familiar the solace touch was.

Everett?

It held Cyan as Everett did. But something about it was too personal to be him. For starter, its hands were small and soft, unlike his that was whole and firm. In the shadow, that thing smiled—even in the absolute darkness, Cyan knew that it was satisfied. And even when she was blinded, she saw a little white finger above her own lips.

"Shhhh..." it whispered.

***

A breath burned. Darkness emerged in the quiet water. Sharp pain in her throat was delicious, and the chill felt like an embrace. She sang out many harsh coughs—some with water gushing out along with the air—heaving, excited.

Agony ripened, and the weak ran back to the underworld. Darkness was thrilled. She nearly cried, and she would have shredded a drop if the girl didn't drain this vessel so dry.

"Cyan! Cyan!" a boy cried at the door. "Open the door!" He yelled and broke in. "I'm sorry." He turned on his second step. "I... I... didn't realize..." He stuttered above his shoulder. "I called. You didn't respond, and you've been in here for so long."

Angel. Darkness thought, but he was too young then to remember her. Cyan knew him as the Watt boy, the adorable one, the one they all called Puppy. And he had been Darkness's dog.

He craned his towering body to grab a robe and threw it at her. She covered herself, feeling uncomfortable about her bare ankles and feet.

"Can I turn around?" he asked and did so before she granted the permission.

Darkness had less tolerant of misbehavior than Cyan. She grimaced, and fury snapped in her head. He blinked innocently, unaware how she loathed him—the evidence of a great betray, a scar under her chest, a history she wished to erase. But he was hers, and she should nurture him.

Taking a deep breath, she strutted to him and pulled his face to hers, as she did when he was young. She breathed in his pink cheek. "I'm all right now. Is the apple pie ready?"