Downfallers: Marcia Skirvin's Melancholy

Epilogue

''SARA! SARAAAAAA! NO!''

I could scream whatever I wanted; she was gone. Again. Killed by me, this time for self-defence. I yelled for mercy at the sky. I yelled out of anger and cried my life out of my body. My legs hurt so much and my arm was dangling by my side. I knew what was going to happen next. My body was now completely immaterial. I hated that part of the process. I felt like I was a ghost that could just fly away and spy on people.

My life, from the moment Sara died to when I kicked out Niobe, played backwards in front of my eyes. My fight with Sara, the one with Niobe, when Sara, controlled by Aicram, had taken my spear, when we had visited Allie, when I had prepared my boat, when I did my violin gig at the music festival, when I was at the Point with Sara, when we were at the library, when I fought with Niobe in the park, when I showed Sara her first firefly, when we were at the park, when I showed her sister the music class, when I saw her at the Point and finally to the day I had met her. Those scenes, I would see them all the time. 

Each time I time-travelled, I would see them again and again. Was it in this timeline that Sara brought her stupid boyfriend to the island? Or that I didn't kick Niobe out of town? I didn't know anymore. I was just a cold soul that was travelling in the space-continuum all over again. I felt sick inside. I had failed to save Sara again. I couldn't even feel my tears anymore. My own Sara was long gone by now. Everybody I knew was just the replicas of the ones I once loved, even myself. I saw the sun set and rise and set and rise again. I saw all the activity on the harbour backwards, I saw the rain get sucked back in the sky, the wind dragged away with the cloud, the sunshine and slowly but surely, the snow fall.

I was near my stopping point, in spring, a week after my sister became insane. My body regained its natural form, and I got up, my wounds healed up and my clothes replaced by those I was wearing that day, timelines ago. I looked in my pocket saw my black notebook.

That was where I wrote all that would happen. In the last timeline, I wrote that Allie's health had changed. That Niobe used another technique than usual to attack me. That the previous Sara had arrived a week earlier.

I took the pencil I had in my pocket and wrote the last thing I saw in the previous timeline.

I killed Sara with the scythe I hid under the ferry quay. Self-defence. Aicram was using her.

I turned the page and wrote a new header:

Sixth timeline. Return of spring, Niobe is the next thing to deal with.

I looked up at the sky. It was black and white clouds were lazily floating in the air, snow lightly falling all around me. I started crying again. I dropped to my knees and sobbed, my body shaking and my breath moving through my lungs fast, my face in my hands. It was always a traumatic moment when I arrived in a new timeline. Like everything I had done was for nothing. Sara still died, and she never loved me. It was a cruel loop of fate in which I was stuck in.

I clutched my coat and got up, still shaking. I wiped my tears away and took a breath. Everything was to re-do, now. Hide my weapons, kill the fireflies I had already killed, say the same things to my dad and my friends. And then, Niobe. I had to decide what to do with her. And then with Sara. I began to walk away from the quay, towards my house.

''I'm coming for all of you. I won't mess up this time. I promise.''

I began to run up the street. There was nobody there, as usual. The streetlamps were lit up and were weakly lighting up my path. I was going to save them all. I knew what I had to do now. I smiled and ran forward.

''Wait for me. I'm coming for you, Sara."

THE END