Salvation

IX

              I was stuck in that house for who knows how long, sitting against the wall as the scenes were replaying in my mind repeatedly.

I was a murderer.

On the island, you could always tell when someone who came back from a run ran across humans and it went awry. You could always see the far away look in their eyes, the grimace pulled up on their face.

The way they would lock themselves away for days on end.

When I was younger, I was too curious for my own good. I wanted to know why the people who came back were so sad sometimes. I needed to know why.

I tried to rope Mason into going with me, but he wouldn't. He knew what happened on the mainland. I could tell when he had a far away look in his own eyes that he was hiding something from me.

And I wanted to know what it was.

So, I followed someone when they got back one day. He had tears welled up in his eyes and he was shaking. My dad had left to go help mom with Aiden who had a cold at the time.

I easily slipped inside his small house. He was knocking things over as he sunk to the ground sobbing. He was rocking back and forth crying about not wanting to have done it.

I slipped out after that, the blood on his hands were shown when his cloth gloves were pulled off. Even as a young child, I knew what it meant.

He had killed someone, and later that night he had killed himself.

His wife and their young child came back from the ocean and were nearly bitten when his animated form attacked them.

Anyone who took a human life after that, was placed under strict observation. They were to talk about what happened when they took that life. They would understand that it wasn't their fault for what happened.

They would come to terms with what had happened.

And I don't understand how they could ever come to terms with the way I felt right now. It made absolutely no sense how they could be perfectly fine with this hallowing emptiness inside their bodies.

Because I couldn't. How was I supposed to go back to the island and deal with the questions of where Easton was? He had most likely told Joelle he was going with me. They would see the answer in my eyes.

I had killed Easton.

Someone was dead, because of me. I had watched four people die today.

I sat in that house and I wanted to die. I wanted to be like that man who was shaking on the ground sobbing, I wanted to fall to the ground and sob. But I couldn't.

I was stuck. Stuck in my own mind.

And when I finally did get off my feet, they dragged behind me as I sluggishly left the house. Taking Easton's bag and my own. I didn't rummage through the house, it would just add to the guilt already piled onto my shoulders.

My bat was securely hooked onto my bag, I felt extremely lethargic as I walked. I didn't know where I was going, I was just walking. My lips were blistering and burned, my skin darker than it had ever been in my entire life.

The sun was beaming even though the air was cold.

It was odd to get used to, on the island the sun was usually always covered by the clouds.

The lobster red skin slowly turning into the tan that now covered my body. I had always found it odd that Mason was always so much darker than Aiden and me.

Now, it seemed as if I were the same shade as him though, making Aiden the odd one out with his extremely pale skin.

My heart hurt as I thought about Mason, I had killed his wife's little brother. His children's uncle.

I could never go home.

The small notebook in my back pocket was my lifeline at this moment, the two lines were the only thing on the front page.

'I killed a man today. After watching him slaughter a child and his father.'

If that's the only way I could live with the guilt.

I walked away from the road and to the trees, my boots dragging through the fallen leaves.

This is why my father didn't want me to come to the mainland. The difficulties that you face, the trauma you come across, the pain you inflict.

It haunts your soul.

But I couldn't help but look around in wonder. Everything was magnificent and it stole my breath away. The rushing water didn't meet my ears until my foot was soaking wet.

My brow furrowed as the frozen water cleared my senses as I stepped back. The river was wide in berth and the surface was still.

It was nothing like the crashing waves of the ocean.

But it still looked incredibly inviting.

I dropped my bags to the ground as I sunk to my knees. I dunked my hands into the river, cupping the water into my hands as I splashed my face. My hands came away red, I was frozen as I looked down at the red stained hands.

I dunked them in the water, scrubbing furiously at my face and hands as I tried to wash away the evidence of the deaths.

I was peeling away layers and furiously peeling the layers of blood from living and undead and dirt from my body.

My heart was beating furiously in my chest as the tears fell from my eyes, the pale green eyes burned into the back of my eyelids when even they flutter shut.

Quickly wading into the water, I submerged myself into the water, scrubbing my hair as the water slowly became dirty around me before rushing down the stream.

I was gasping and my teeth chattering as I left the river, sitting on a rock with my arms wrapping around my legs that were drawn to my chest.

The fact that I was alone was finally hitting me.

I was absolutely, 100% alone.

My family wasn't here the way they have been my entire life. And while it was freeing, it was also scary. My family was a part of who I am, and now that I don't see them every day it's like I was missing a piece of myself.

The hole in my chest spread as my teeth chattered from the cold nipping my skin as I dried off. My dark hair began to curl as it dried, wild spirals forming around my head.

I shook off the negative thoughts, taking deep breaths to clear my head. Thinking like that was going to do nothing but make me paranoid, I had to focus on the positive. I was in this beautiful place finding the truth in who I am.

I was here to find out who I was.

Not to wallow in self-pity.

As I stood up and got my clothes on, I finally came to my senses, I remembered that my mother didn't raise a weak woman. She raised a daughter who shouts and screams and holds their head high, even when the world around them is spitting at them.

She raised me before the community could shame me into being silent. My mother didn't allow me to wear their shame on my skin the leathers did. She let me taste rebellion from the moment I came from her womb. She watched the flames surround me grow before I started my own revolution. She is why I will not allow myself to give up.