The Mercy of Birds

CHAPTER 41: RESUSCITATE

CHAPTER 41
RESUSCITATE

+

The frigid water nipped at his skin as he cupped them with his hands and splashed it on his face. The cold sensation electrified his nerves, resuscitating him as though he had just been a walking dead all day while he worked at his studio. He repeated the process once again before turning off the faucet and grabbed the towel at the bar next to the sink, rubbing his face roughly with it. As he straightened his stature and stared forward, the opalescent eyes that gazed back at him in the mirror, he almost didn't recognize.

Two weeks had passed since he made yet another escape from South Dakota, but this time was different, this time the ghost that haunted him managed to latch itself on his spirit, like a possession, he no longer have the liberty to think for himself, all that was on his mind commanded him to fixate on this source of misery, which most appropriately the one that he was trying to run away from: Clementine.

There was no respite in his apartment, in his bed, in the night where he was supposed to be able to sleep without having to be eased by some pills that now began to become his routine again after he confided in Dr. Mantashe about everything that had gone down with his family, except for the part that he decided to leave out, the one that had become the most detrimental, the scream that just kept reverberating in his mind and kept pushing him off of the brink of sanity.

"I can't do this anymore, dad!" she screamed and he wanted to die.

Oh, God, was it bad? How he wanted to die.

He sighed and folded the towel over the bar again as he exited the bathroom. He walked up into his adjoining bedroom. Warm light emanated from the table lamp on one of his nightstands, highlighting the presence of the orange tube with his name written on the piece of paper that was plastered around it. He picked it up as he took a seat on the edge of the bed.

Victor Crane, 25 years old.

Was that what would also be found in his identification paper in the morgue tomorrow morning? Would they discover his body that soon?

Maybe, maybe. If he kept listening to the sounds.

...

"I can't do this anymore, dad!"

...

"I'm sorry, Victor. I–I had to do it... I can't stand it anymore... but I will never hurt you, I promise."

...

His mouth gaping wide open, breath escaping from it, ragged and bated. He trusted his eyes were going to pop from their sockets the longer he took in the macabre sight and they only enlarged when she began to limp his way to him.

She was drenched in red from head to toe, everywhere that she touched left an imprint of blood. She attempted a smile, thinking that it would calm him down, but no, the magnitude of a nightmare that was her only aggravated. No longer was she his freckle-faced CC with a big, toothy grin and plump cheeks that swelled when she laughed. In his eyes, she had been reduced into this monstrous thing... the thing that would forever haunt his dream.

He staggered, willing his voice to work just so he could tell her to stop advancing for him. He fumbled his hand behind him when he sensed the walls closing in and came up to touch a wet surface that when he brought up to inspect, was yet another site of blood, tainting his small hands and making his skin crawl. Sickness ensued and he whimpered at the bile that rose on his throat.

Fortunately, as if reading his mind, she halted in the middle of the room and dropped down to the floor to his level. "Victor—"

The force that discharged out of his mouth caused his body to bend forward as vomit escaped him violently. Tears leaked out of his eyes and his figure trembled from fear and queasiness.