(IM)MORTAL

04

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THE FOURTH CHAPTER
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༶•┈┈୨ SHE DROPPED THE PHONE. Plastic crashing kitchen tile went unheard; her heart throbbed, deafening her. Only Ivo heard the sound, flinching before repeating her name.

"Maria? Maria! Maria, dear, are you there?!"

She was unaware she had fallen to her knees, gripping her skirt with all her strength.

"Maria!"

         It took everything to grab the phone, hold it, swallow, breathe.

(Exist.)

         "I'm here." It barely left her lips.

"I found him," he repeated. "I found him. Buried deep, so deep; forgotten—!"

The words came out fast and hot, like vomit: "Bring him home."

Fifty-one years of being dead—and now she felt alive. Even if this was just for a moment. A minute. A second.

Maria felt a new life surge through her being.

But . . .

. . . Silence on the other end.

Maria felt death eat her heart and frost line her soul—again.

"Soon," Ivo said, a half-ass promise, and he hung up.

Maria knew it would not be soon.

She did not see or hear from Ivo again, not for a long time. Centuries, in her eyes, she waited once more, for him to call, to come home—to be with her instead of without her.

         She did not see or hear from Ivo until days

(and days and days)

         later, when he was on the television.

The screen glitched, twitched; grain and static. Her show—whatever it was; she only had it on to pass the time and hardly paid attention—was abruptly interrupted. Five seconds of grain and static, five seconds to comprehend what happened, what went wrong, to wonder if it was just her or everybody else.

Five seconds, and then she saw him, her cousin, her flesh and blood, resplendent in red.

. . . Yet it was not him, her cousin, her flesh and blood. Him . . . but not him.

Her heart frosted over and her bones turned to stone. Maria could not move, could not blink, as she listened to his words.

         Threats. Fury. Words she never thought her cousin would think, let alone say

(say to the entire world)

         with reckless abandon. With such devotion.

And then—
         And then—
               AND THEN—!

HE DESTROYED
HALF THE MOON!