Memories Fade

Like Doctors

"How do you do this?" Gia's emotions were fluctuating from despair to anger, "how can you go into someone else's mind, feel what they feel, experience their lives with them, and then kill them in the end?" Her heart broke a little as she said the words.

"It is hard at first," Asher was calculated in his response, "You aren't like them anymore though, and it is easy to separate yourself from them in just about every case. It gets hard if you fall for someone. You don't want them to die, but you know that they must. If we fail in taking your memories..." Asher trailed off and looked away from her.

"You know, Asher, you know everything about me. You know you won't convince me to do this." Gia finally got the words out, she had been wanting to tell him this since the porch swing.

"You should know, that I'm a lot like you, and I'm going to do my absolute best to make sure you do forget." Asher sounded just as determined as Gia, "I refuse to watch him devour you, Gia. I refuse to lose someone like you to death."

"What do you mean?" Gia gulped down her new confusion, "Aren't I dead either way?"

"Well, there is dead-dead and then there is my dead," Asher started to explain, "See, with my dead, you do what we do. You help others either greet death or become a guide. You basically live for as long as you want and get to help others in the process. Yeah, you only live in the subconsciousness of the person you are helping, but there is always someone in a coma." Asher's statement took Gia aback for a minute, it was probably true that someone was constantly on the verge of death with someone like Asher guiding them closer and closer to the end.

"You kill people, basically."

"No, we help them find the most painless way to realize their ultimate fate."

"You lead them to their death and then forget about them, Asher."

"No, we never forget those we've helped. I told you, I don't know how many I've guided, but I know all their names and all their faces. I know the ones who went on to become a guide and I know the ones who were not qualified. I remember every single one of them." Asher sounded like he was getting irritated so Gia decided to stop pressuring him. She felt like that wouldn't get them anywhere really.

"If you don't help us find them, you'll die painfully in two days." Asher's statement floated on the air around them. Two days, two days. All Gia had left was two days. She didn't have anyone there to help her stop "the inevitable" from happening and she didn't know how to get back to her real world.

"You said," she started slowly, "You said before, that you lost track of me. Has that ever happened before? In all the people you remember, have you ever 'last track' of someone?" She held her breath for an answer, the wolf had given her permission to ask anything and given Asher permission to answer honestly.

"Honestly?" His eyebrows furrowed as he thought, "No." She exhaled and felt a twinge of hope spread across her body. There was a chance that she could get out of this if she could figure out what happened.

"I don't expect it to happen again," Asher patted her head, "please, just let me help you."

"Why?" she looked him in the eyes when she asked, and he looked away while the blood rushed to his cheeks. He liked her. She knew that look and the feeling of being caught in a crush. She let it go, unsure about how she felt towards him since he seemed to want to lead her to death.

"What if I wake up?" She asked, "what if that's why it happened?" Gia was stretching.

"You can't, Gia." Asher was starting to get irritated, she heard it in his voice. 

"I want you to be one of us. Most of the teams have four people, the guide animal, and three humans. I'm just on a team with Shin and she can be a little spontaneous and clingy." Gia remembered the desperation in Shin's eyes when they spoke for the last time, "Don't worry, Shin is still alive-ish. She got canceled from this assignment. We get three cancellations and then we die for good." Gia couldn't believe how easy it was for Asher to talk about this. It was like a normal, every-day job for him. 

Gia stormed into the house and made her way to the ground floor bathroom. She turned on the cold water and splashed her face. While staring at the sink, Gia tried to think of the flower field again, she tried picturing the different shades of yellow and white on the deep green of the grass. She hoped she would transport once again. Opening her eyes was a disappointment, she stared into the face of a girl who had not slept in days and had just found out she was dying.

After taking in the pathetic sight of her hollow cheeks and pale, tired skin, she opened the door to find Do-No staring at the door, his paws spread out like he was about to leap. She didn't think about whether he was about to leap away from or toward her.