A Night To Remember

31. living in death

Elliot Salvatore

Good news, we were all going to fucking die anyway. The heart stopped, the skin grayed in color, the body became the temperature of the surrounding environment, and the pooling of blood continued. Death greeted the dying with beautiful wide grin and the grim reaper followed them to hell, leaving everyone else behind.

Not to sound traumatized, but I dreamed of going to the depth end of hell. Because the skin that covered me stained with their blood, and the bones that kept me upright rattled with violent grief. Guilt spread through my veins like poison. It was quite excruciating to be the one who survived.

Fallen nature crunched under my loafers. Their funeral seemed so far behind me. The trees swayed, splashing icy air across my face and shivering the end of my spine. I felt my fingers flexed around nothing, an invisible gun. I was pulling the trigger again. He reached for her cold dead hand and I let their blood coated fingers intertwined. The same bullet that took his life also killed me.

My jaw clenched. I fisted my trembling hands and shoved them into the pockets of my pants. Cold sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I walked faster, focusing on the rough forest road while willing a bottle of scotch whiskey to magically appear in front of me. Perhaps a drug so strong I would stop seeing them died for one fucking bit.

Anything but that same overlapping memory of my grandfather begging me to kill him. Asking me to do something so unforgiving as if I could go on with life. Like I could look in the mirror again and not see a fucking monster staring back at me from the reflection, knowing I betrayed the same blood that was flowing inside my vein.

They were always there, haunting me with the ghost of my consequences. And, yet I was utterly alone. Not exactly dying with them but maybe I was living in death.

I reached for the zippo and the packet of cigarettes inside my tux jacket. Small orange flame ignited as I clicked it open. For a moment, I thought of dropping it to the ground and watched everything underneath my feet burn. Maybe it would even spread far enough to bring the funeral that had came straight from hell into ashes.

I tried to think of the looks on my family's faces, of the pain and grief I knew they would not let anyone see and realized I couldn't remember any of it. I didn't watch them burying the corpses. I hadn't been able to look at my father in the eyes, knowing the fact that I killed his.

A harsh chuckle escaped from the back of my throat as I inhaled chemical fussed with temporary relief, letting it sliced into my lungs. My cheek hallowed while I sucked in the cigarette like it was my next breath.

Something hard smacked into the back of head. Pain struck through my skull, snapping my head forward. I cursed and violently choked on the cancer stick between my lips. My throat burned like it was on fire, sending me into a fit of painful coughs. What the fuck.

"Fuck." I cursed again and literally felt like the whole of my insides were going to come out.

"Are you going to kill me and dump my body here? You miserable prick."

"I'm going to kill you before all the drugs and alcohol." Her voice echoed in my ears. It cut at me like nothing else.

My whole body went rigid and suddenly I was aware of her existence again. She was everywhere all at once, surrounding me while swallowing me whole. She sank her claws so deep inside me I felt it again in my bones. It was overwhelming and my head fucking hurt. I turned around to find my attacker, to her.