romeo remeemed

chapter 5

juliet

The afterlife is a nightmare. Hell is knowing that you might never wake up. The stone beneath me bruises my spine; my fingertips pulse from where I've ripped my nails trying to claw the lid of the sarcophagus away. I draw in stale air, pungent with the stink of Tybalt's body rotting in his own deathbed a few paces away, but I lack even the luxury of gagging at the stench. I'm back in my sarcophagus, buried alive, trapped and dying in the dark. Again. Again. I tell myself it's only a dream, but I can't open my eyes. I can't move, can't lift a hand to push against the marble slab that covers my face, can't part my lips to cry out for help. I feel the poison the friar gave me to help me fake my death pulsing wickedly through my veins, writhing into my brain like a maggot feeding, leaving madness in its wake. I'm dimly aware of my heart beating, of my skin sweating feverishly despite the cold in the tomb, but my soul remains separate from my body, lost and wandering in a terror-filled world from which I may never return. Maybe this is Nurse's work. Maybe she cursed me to this hell for refusing to rejoin the Ambassador cause. Perhaps I will remain here-believing myself buried alive and dreaming darkly-until the end of time. I fight my way through dreamscapes peopled by feral corpses with black teeth bared, a hundred dead Romeos, each more rotted and wrong than the last, all hungry for a taste of my heart. He lunges at me from the shadows, rises from the mud beneath my feet, eyes burning red like a demon sent to pull me into the flames. His clawed hands grab my ankle and drag me down, drowning me in liquid earth. Mud flows into my nose and rushes down my throat, cutting off any hope of breath. My heart slows, my fear-sharpened thoughts go fuzzy, and something deeper than sleep draws me close. For a moment, I believe I am truly gone, at peace, beyond the reach of Romeo and the Mercenaries and my nurse, who betrayed me, and the pain of knowing that Ben is dead. Ben. The memory of his face at the end-battered and bruised by Romeo's fists-threatens to shatter what's left of my heart. My Ben, my beautiful, sad boy whom I believed for one breathless moment I could make happy and whole. But there is no happiness in the world, and soon I won't know the meaning of whole. My heart sputters to life and the nightmares begin again, even more horrible this time. I watch Romeo's corpse transform, becoming beautiful and filled with light. I watch him take the Ambassador vows and move on to find peace in service while I remain here, lost and alone, and somehow I know that it's real. I have been punished for my refusal to serve the Ambassadors any longer, while Romeo-the most wicked being I have ever known-is rewarded. Will be rewarded. It hasn't happened yet. But it will. I know it will. This is a vision, not a dream, and it makes me want to scream until blood flows down my throat. Life was never fair. I don't know why I thought the afterlife would be any different-but I did. God help me, I did. But it isn't, and I am proven the most tragic, tortured breed of fool. I try to close my eyes, to open them, to force my dreaming self to turn away from the vision of Romeo's golden beauty, or force my sleeping self to wake. But I can do nothing. I am nothing. I am more lost and powerless than I was before. Even as an Ambassador. Even in the mist. Something breaks inside me, a fissure up the center of my being that allows the nightmares to sink their claws in deeper. The monster Romeos return, accompanied by every horror mankind has ever imagined, crawling on blood-soaked claws, dragging bodies bloated with evil through fields of death and decay. I run, bare feet squishing in the rot, howls of pain from the living dead becoming a roar that rushes inside, emptying me of everything but pure, unadulterated fear. There are whispers in the air. They drift from the bleeding sky, floating down to feather against my skin. It's Nurse's voice, trying to soothe away my terror, but I'm too far gone. Lost. Mindless. Her promise to come for me, her insistence that time is a circle, not a line, her assurance that my fate is entwined with Romeo's but I can escape and find salvation, make little sense to me. Words are only sound, drumbeats inside my skull that confound me with their irregular rhythm. I run until my dream self pitches forward in exhaustion, and then I fall. And fall and fall, through seemingly endless inky space until I land with a jolt inside my body. My real body, not some borrowed shell, not the body of Ariel Dragland. Mine. I am thirsty and shivering and sweating out poison, and am weaker than I can remember being in my life or afterlife, but I am myself. And I feel ... alive. My sticky eyelids fight their way open. There is still only blackness, but I know it's not the twisted dark of my dreams. This is real. I am truly in the tomb. God ... how is this possible? How? Have I traveled back in time? And if so, how far back? How long have I been here? And most important-how long do I have until Romeo and the friar come for me, the way they did the first time I lay in this pit? I don't know. But it isn't long enough. I have to get out. I run my swollen, aching tongue over dry lips. I pull in a gulp of air to scream, and then I hear it-a voice. Calling my name from a distance. The Capulet tomb is large, with twenty steps leading underground and room for generations of Capulets to lie side by side in their giant stone beds, but I can still make out the words the man speaks, and I know that voice. "Juliet! Are you there?" He's doing his best to sound kind, but I'm not fooled for a moment. It's the friar, the Mercenary in possession of Friar Lawrence's body. He's come for me, and I am so very weak. I'm no longer an Ambassador, and even if I were, I wouldn't have the strength to fight one of the high ones and win. He is one of the strongest, most ancient Mercenaries. And he will kill me. Now. I shiver, bite my lip, feel my tongue cramp at the back of my throat as my empty body tries to be sick and fails. No, he will do something worse than kill me. Much worse. Even Romeo knew that, and pitied me enough to attempt to make my death a swift one. But he failed to grant me even that small mercy. The friar will have his torture, my slow death to relish, and I can do nothing but lie here and wait for him to do it. Wait. Helpless. Helpless. Helpless. Fury, blinding in its intensity, burns in my chest. My eyes roll back and my lids close and I slip gratefully back into the world of nightmare. It's better. It's better to sleep and dream of horror than to stay awake to greet the real-life evil creeping into the tomb, hungry for blood and pain.