Dead Lines

39: Come Join the Murder

Unedited.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I couldn't move. I sat, in the dirt, in the blood, with him, my murderer, and held tight to his lifeless body. How had we gotten here? Why did this feel like the end? I cried. I cried a lot. Once the tears started, I couldn't stop them. Sobbing and body shaking joined the party as I tried to hold it together but I failed miserably. I couldn't rally the troops, couldn't piece myself back together.

My very being fractured over this loss.

A loss I knew was coming.

But was too much regardless.

He was gone.

Gone.

Permanently removed from this Earth and the fabric of reality.

His soul tainted, blemished, scorched, wasn't coming back this time. He would finally take that long awaited trip into the afterlife.

Hell would not be a kind place.

Maybe that's why I cried so hard. The boy I'd known didn't deserve this.

But this was what he had.

I don't know how long I sat there but when the crying subsided, my whole body ached. Not in the way you'd expect. It was a bone deep tiredness I knew would linger long after this was over.

And for the second time in my life, I soaked to the skin in blood.

Though this time the blood wasn't all mine.

There was nothing to be done but to let him go. Lay him in the dirt. Leave him alone. The drying blood stuck my hands to his as I tried to release him, causing a fresh batch of tears to brim my eyes. I retrieved the knife from where he hid it and set it aside. I couldn't focus on it right now. This needed to be about him and him alone. I crossed his hands over his stomach, closed his eyelids with my bloody fingers, and sent a silent prayer up to the heavens for him to have a peaceful journey forward.

I couldn't do anything special for him.

But I could take this moment and spend it for him.

When the moment was over, a burning hatred lit me up as I stood. Chris' death and all those Elite was pointless slaughter. Meaningless death. And for what? To end the damn world? Why not light the match and be done with it? Why not sit back and watch as civilization burned to the ground?

Why did Caelus put us through this?

To punish you. The answer whispered on the breeze and I wasn't entirely sure it wasn't in my head.

As I retrieved his sword, I promised Chris a proper burial when this was over. I promised the world would know, after life times of bad choices, he chose correctly in the end this time.

Without looking back, I stalked off in the direction Chris indicated. I let my hatred for what was happening numb me up, move me forward. The wound I took from Cecil became a soft cry in the din of it all, the pain barely registering. Adrenaline kicked around in my veins, driving out my tiredness that got my friend killed.

Gaia wouldn't have to worry about me hesitating. At this point, I would to do whatever it took to end this. Including murder. No matter whose body Caelus was in. Murder would be a mercy.

I came to the furthermost corner of the maze and paused. The path cut cleanly to my left but somehow I knew this was my 'getting off" point. There were no indicators, no flattened or removed cornstalks to guide me. There was only a feeling.