Fragments

Then

She's coming.

I hear her footsteps and the way they drag on the linoleum. Her movements are heavy, slow, and yet terrifyingly deliberate. Like every second was stretched to prolong my fear.

The sound of metal against metal startles me. My head whips back, towards the door, where the knob is twisting side to side. It's locked - when I first came into the kitchen, that was the first thing I did.

I thought I would wait it out. Hide until it was over.

But this has been going on for three days now. Three - I'm tempted to call the Medics. But I won't to do that, even though the phone's right next to me. She wouldn't want me to. Whatever's waiting when she's sent to the Medics will be a thousand times worse than what she's experiencing now.

We've heard the stories whispered in the streets - Medic centres are just labs in disguise. They test out drugs, methods, anything from shots of arsenic to shock therapy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The survival rate is 51%. Most people believe that the official statistic had been tampered with. They say they bump the rate up only 1 or 2 percent, high enough to be accepted, low enough to make it 'believable'.

But the evidence is in the vacant houses, the abandoned shops, the missing man or woman or child - all around, we see the proof. Empty voids were left behind in the wake of their disappearance; human-sized, human-shaped holes cut out cruelly from the fabric of society no amount of lies and pretense could ever stitch back together.

No. I musn't send her to the Medics.

She's still struggling with the doorknob. I begin to pile what little furniture we have - a chair, a table, a chest of drawers - in front of the door.

When I'm done, I back away. There's nothing between us two but a few pieces of flimsy furniture. I almost cry.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

She's starting to pound her way in. I look at the door; cracks have begun to appear down the grain of the wood. It's going to splinter into pieces soon, and then there's no stopping her.

My legs start to move and my feet continue their hurried, desperate steps back. When I feel the edge of the metal counter bite into the skin of my back, I whimper.

I look back, even though I know what's waiting for me on the other side of the window.

A twenty-storey drop. That's my only escape.

Suddenly the door crashes in. My head snaps back. I feel the splinters embedded in my cheek. A nail has flown out of the window.

I don't even scream; I can't process my mother lunging towards me, her hands intent on finding themselves around my neck.

No. Not Mom.

Her Inhabitant.

My hands scrabble blindly across the counter, searching its surface for a weapon.

But it's too late.

I start to choke.

I feel her fingers - hard and thin, they're only skin-covered bones - around my neck. She's strong after years of working, and now that strength is strangling me.

She's lifting me off the floor. My hands fly to hers, trying to pry her vice-like fingers off my neck. I can't breathe.

I can't breathe.

I think I said that aloud; I don't know. I can only feel the fire tearing through my burning lungs. My neck feels like it's about to break. Blood's rushing to my head, past my ears, and I am drowning in the sensations, in the lightheadedness I feel overwhelming me, in the black swirls of non-colour that skulk the edge of my vision.

The world begins to darken.

I gasp. One last dying breath.

My arms fall to my sides and rest on the counter-top. They stay still.

I see almost nothing now; my vision is reduced to a single pinpoint of blurred colours.

I'm falling deeper into unconsciousness. Light and life seem far, far away.

Then - I feel something. My fingers; they've brushed metal. I don't even know what it is, but when I grip it tighter pain cuts into my palm.

I lift it up.

A piercing cry slices through the haze in my head. "No!"

I choke out a strangled scream, then let it drop unto her neck.

The pressure is alleviated almost immediately. I drop to my knees, choking, gasping, breathing in sweet, sweet air. Clarity returns. The blood recedes from my ears, from my head, and I begin to hear small, shallow breaths. Taken quick, as if stolen.

I blink away the black edging my vision, still gasping, then bring my hands to my neck and find the skin there tender. Definitely bruised.

I'm surprised the blood wasn't wrung out of it.

I look up. She's lying in a heap, arranged as though she's asleep. It looks that way, if it wasn't for the knife sticking out from her neck.

Knife.

Oh God. I've stuck a knife in my mother's neck.

Vivid red blood trails down the fair skin of her neck and pools in careless puddles on the floor. Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she tries to take in air.

"No." I go on all fours and crawl towards her. "Mom?"

She is breathing, staring blankly at the wall. I check her eyes for the soulless black irises they show in Fragmentation vids, but they aren't there. Hers are brown. Warm, but dull, like the life was snuffed out of it.

This isn't her Inhabitant. Mom managed to fight her off after all, but it's too late.

Too late.

I begin to sob.

"Mom?"

Her fingers move towards mine. She takes my hand, and gives it a faint squeeze.

"Run," she whispers.

"We have to call the medics. We can still save you. I'll tell them what happened - they'll understand. Please - "

"Eva." She shakes her head slightly. "You have to go. Now. You know they won't listen, you know - "

She pauses, then coughs. Red drops splatter the floor.

"Mom?"

"Just run."

"I won't leave you - "

"Run."

"Mom!"

She kisses my hand with her blood-coated lips, leaving a crimson mark on my knuckles.

"I love you."

A smile lights up her dying face, then fades. Her eyelids flutter, before resting shut.

"No," I say. I check her pulse; it's weak, like the beating of broken wings.

"Mom?"

She doesn't answer.