Elementals

9

Taylor

It takes almost a day of driving to go from Georgia to Vermont. The entire time, my mind is empty. It's a welcome feeling after the turmoil of the last few days. Staring out at an endless road with nothing in my head except the roaring of wind is like therapy.

When I reach my hometown, it's night. I stop at the high school first. It was one week after my graduation when we had the accident, and it appears the administration hasn't forgotten me. On the digital school sign, the one meant to advertise events and spirit days, there's a dedication to me and my brother, who graduated two years ago.

Rest in peace, Taylor and Andrew Novak, it says. Accompanying the words is each of our senior portraits. Same eyes, same nose, same hair. Same face, essentially. I'm never going to be able to look in a mirror again, because I won't ever see me. I'll see him.

The sign eventually switches to a career day advertisement, and every few minutes, the dedication comes back. I stand there watching for three cycles before I'm able to look away from it. The school, dark and empty in the night, watches me, the remains of a student who once walked its halls. What I wouldn't give to rewind the clock by a year, to live in this town again and complain about having to sit in those classrooms every weekday.

I drive to my house next. A For Sale sign is propped up on the lawn, and I glare at it as is I go up to the porch. The lock melts with a few seconds of burning, and I push open the door gently. The soft creak of its hinges echoes through the empty house.

There's no sign that we ever lived here. Mom's favorite doormat is gone. The hook that Dad hung his keys on is gone. Andrew's soccer bag, which used to sit right there, at the foot of the stairs, even after he stopped playing, is gone. All I see are empty walls and shadows.

I walk upstairs and open the door to my room. It's a sickening feeling I'm hit with—when I left for the last time, I didn't know it was the last time. The big details stick: where the furniture was, what I had up on my walls, those sorts of things, but the little memories are gone. I don't remember what was on my desk when I left, or if my bookshelf was organized or not. It's been four months since I step foot in here, but with all this emptiness and sorrow, it may as well have been four years.

I lean against the wall and sink to the floor. Just as I tilt my head back and close my eyes, I hear it.

Relax.

His voice is clear as day, ringing in my ears. He would say relax every time it seemed like I was waking up to fight back. I never knew what exactly I was going to fight back against—I only knew that something hurt. This was the first memory that returned, and I just about jumped out of my skin when I first heard it.

What follows is the bone saw. I was awake for that, mostly. All he did was shave a little off the sternum, right before he jabbed a needle into my heart. I run a finger down that scar, face twisting into a scowl.

The memories are just that—memories. Sometimes they pop into the forefront, and I have no choice but to think about them. They work like all other memories do, like all the other random things you think about at the most random moments. It's not an attack, not an in-your-face hallucination, but it feels as violent as one.

I don't know why we forgot what happened in the first place; I assume that we blocked things out due to the horror. Or maybe the drugs Jansen pumped us with had something to do with it, and after it stopped, it took a little time for what we experienced to return. I don't know. I never will. It doesn't really matter.

The front door is opening.

The sound of it snaps me out of my misery, and I shoot to my feet and creep against the wall. A single footstep echoes through the house, and then another.