SMG4:// Exodus

Part 4: Epithelium[v2.0]

Ch 1: "In thy orisons, be all my sins remembered..."

NOTE: ALL CHAPTERS FROM THIS POINT ON WILL BE WITH TARI'S POV UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED

[FLASHBACK]

The night Melony came home, a storm blew in, uncannily like the one that came tonight. The wind blew, the rain fell. The sky pummeled and crushed us all on the ground. I was lying on a guest bed in a darkened room in the castle, the blinds drawn closed. I can't remember what I was thinking about that night. Maybe I was just staring at the door. The lights that were all on in the hallway enveloped it's frame like a big square halo. It hypnotized me, like a campfire of sorts. It distracted me enough to not think about my gut.

Then, that door opened slightly, silently, without a creak. Melony stood there, engulfed by the artificial light in the hallway, her head hung low. The way she stood there startled me a little. My abdomen flexed and the scar on my stomach began to stir. I lie still as she came over and sat on my bed.

"...Did I really...," she stammers, " sl-... was it really cut in two?"

Her eyes are the softest I've ever seen them. She doesn't look at me; she's deep in thought. I don't know how to feel either.

"Livers grow back." I blurt, "The doctors told me that. No other part of the body does it either."

She let out a short sharp little breath and turned to look at me. The light from the doorway shined over her face, revealing her ruby red eyes to me. Looking at them, so many emotions erupted in me. The image of her, of those eyes in a half-darkened room is all I've come to know of her. It fills me with adrenaline, with a little panic, I guess. First it was me at her place, checking up on her, staring into the eyes of a wounded girl. Then, it was me at home in Onett, staring into those same eyes calloused over as my own vision fades away. It's funny, because now I'm the wounded one and she's the caretaker.

She stared around at my living arrangements. The room is unkempt, I couldn't bother to pick anything up now that every slight movement felt like it cost me half my lifespan. A few boxes and bags of my stuff had come in days after I woke up in the hospital. The boxes sat unopened, almost clinging to the corner of my room to avoid the light. She turned and looked at my nightstand, sitting in the middle of the room. A bottle of pain medication sat lazily tipped over on the table. Remorse fills her face, staring at me.

"How do you feel?" it almost looks like she's vomiting up the question, "Does it still hurt?"

I lay back in bed. How could I tell her about any of it? How could I tell her about the feeling of that huge blade piercing me, ripping me apart, crushing my ribs and setting my whole body aflame? How could I tell her about the feeling of vomiting and choking on my own blood, of trying desperately to breathe when the sword cut my lung? How could I tell her about that panic, that maddening prickling feeling of pins and needles bearing down over me as I struggled to move, as I lied there gasping for air in a pool of my blood? How could I tell her that I truly believed I was dying, that my only unfulfilled experience of life was fading away before my eyes? How could I tell her that this overwhelming pain I'm in now still reminds me of that moment, that even after I'd healed I still felt like I was going to fall over and pass out from it every time I overexerted myself? How could I tell her that a part of me wished I could have died then and there to avoid it?

Then again, maybe she knew... all that pain she caused.

"Please, I wanna know," Melony begged, "I want to face this head-on."

I looked up at her. She looked so sincere. It was that look she used to give Axol all the time, back before she knew how to kill. I hate what that battle did to her, what Zero did to her. Now, after all that, she got over Axol, and reconciled her feelings. And yet, I'm still here. I'm the reason no one talks to each other anymore; not Meggy, nor Melony, or Saiko. I'm the collateral damage, the shackle that still holds Melony to all that grief, Meggy and Saiko too. I'm their shining beacon of guilt.