Death Over Guilt

Death over Guilt

Five seconds. She sprints down Main Street, her heart beating outside her chest. Four seconds. She hits her Father’s study and swings inside the door. Three seconds. She lands in his lab research room to see her sister, Margot, holding a skinny vial of purple fluorescent liquid. Two seconds. She wipes the perspiration off of her forehead and begins to beg her sister to put the vial down. One second. Margot laughs at Eloise and lifts the vial to her mouth.

Margot clears her throat , and toasts the vial. “To new things, sister.”

Before Eloise can scream to stop the outbreak, she awakes with a burning sensation in her lungs. She sits up on the cold, dust-ridden ground and wipes her forehead.

I can’t get rid of it, she thinks to herself. I can’t get rid of it.

Of all the years she's lived in Creper, Eloise somehow knew that this year would undoubtedly be her last. For, no one outlives the virus. Not her sister Margot, or her unruly, strong parents. Not even Lucy, the dog that had beat Leukemia three times. As much as her stubbornness told her not to give in, Eloise knew what was to come. She wouldn’t beat the Cancer she created, let alone find a cure.

She would always be one hair, one second too late.

Eloise takes a deep breath and stands. As she does so, a tingling sensation floods down to her raw, calloused feet. She does her best to ignore it. Knowing that fixing herself up was futile, Eloise walks to the left room of the Safe House and ruffles her matted blond hair. As she stares at the broken, dirty mirror secured onto the barren wall, she doesn’t recognize the person staring at her.

Two years ago, Eloise would have died to see herself like this. Margot would draw a bath immediately, and her mother would have fainted at the mere sight. No Higher in Creper looks as shabby as a servant of the Lowers. Yet, in the mirror, Eloise sees a girl with blocked pores, dirty, ripped clothes, and shoes with holes. Her mother would send her straight to the fitters for another dress.

Now, Eloise has no fitter to see, no family to tell her to do so. She stares at her collarbone, which shows more vividly than ever. And she glances at the gold chain necklace that skims over it. Light material, cool. The chain leads to a small heart locket with intricate designs. Eloise remembers when she got it as if it were yesterday.

As Margot and Eloise went shopping through the Market, she met eyes with a jewelry stand. And on a white necklace stand was a beautiful necklace. It called to her like a siren’s song, and like a magnet, she floated towards it.

She traced her skinny fingers over the chain, loving the sensation it gave her.

“That would look lovely on you, my sister,” Eloise turned around to see Margot, smiling from ear to ear. Margot’s brown hair shone brightly that day, as if it were light glistening off of the blue ocean. Margot removed the elegant white gloves from her hands and traced the necklace herself.

“Father would be proud for you to wear such a beauty, El.” With the jewelry salesman's help, the golden beauty was around Eloise’s small, slender neck. The gold chain reflected the light from the burning sun.

Eloise smiled. “He would, wouldn’t he?”

As the memory fades, Eloise sighs. She holds the locket in her hand, reminiscing about her life before the outbreak. She takes five seconds to gather herself, and after putting on gloves and a mask, she leaves her home.

The streets of Central Creper used to be grand. Her street, the grandest of all, was decorated with various flowers of the Higher regimen, the streets were painted gold. The air aroused wildlife of every kind, and the buildings attracted visitors from everywhere possible. Now, the streets golden paint is all but gone, the air is scented with death, and wildlife isn’t to be found.

Not here, not anywhere.

After walking for over thirty minutes, Eloise is met with a man. She sees him when she rounds the corner of Flower Street. She sinks against the nearest brick wall. He stands hunched, coughing. Blood spews from his mouth, and he falls against the brick road.

Help him, Help him! Her insides cry, yet, her body refuses to respond. Eloise stares at the man until he searches for air, and one second later, his body no longer moves. She walks towards him. His eyes are swollen shut, his face is covered in cysts.

And before Eloise can run away from it, the memory bursts into her mind.

“Eloise, my dear,” Eloise’s mother, Grace, shook her awake.

She rises from her bed in a haze. “M-mother?” As Eloise’s vision cleared, she was met with her mothers face. On any normal day, her mother’s face was clothed with makeup and a smile. Yet then, it was quite the opposite. Instead of a clear face, she was met with wrinkles, and instead of a drop dead gorgeous smile, her mothers mouth quivered.

Her mother tried to lift up the edges of her near perfect mouth, but she was unsuccessful. “It’s Margot.”

Margot had always been a free spirit. She left her fathers household at thirteen, searching for adventure. And not once, not once, had her parents shown concern for her. Her mother kept her posture high, her father continued the work in his lab.

That’s how Elosie knew that she was dead.

Fifteen minutes later, Eloise stood in the morgue of the local hospital, staring at her sister's limp body. It had only been a day since she’d seen her last. Margot was beautiful, used to be. But then, her face was covered in bleeding cysts, tumors lay everywhere in her insides.

Her father didn’t weep as her mother did. He stared at his eldest daughter and hate filled his face. “Asphyxiation, Grace. She died from the tumors crushing her.”

At that moment Eloise remembered what they had done yesterday in their father’s oncology lab.

And she ran from her sister, from her parents. She gathered her things from their mansion and left, knowing what was to come.

Eloise stands over the dead man numbly. Though tears spread along her bony face, her facial expression is blank. Her knees wobble uncontrollably, and she runs to a wall for support. She blinks hard, trying to stop the darkness from coming in. But she can’t stop it, can’t refuse the guilt.

Not anymore.

You did this, and you can’t outrun it, Eloise, she could almost hear her father say. That’s what he had said a year ago. When her mother had passed, their dog had passed, and the father soon to come.

He had pushed her against the wall of a vacant shop. His eyes were bloodshot, his legs were covered in tumors. “You did this, YOU DID THIS!”

Her father slapped her, his senses drifting from his body. And as he coughed up blood, he spoke to her one last time. “H-H- how did you do this?”

Then he fell against the ground, and with shaky knees, Eloise left him.

How had she done it? That was something she refused to cross over.

Now, she stood away from the wall and resumed her walk through town, holding her locket in her hands.

Eloise isn’t sure how she has made it the past three years. Was it her savage behavior, or -somehow- that she had the will to live? For, as she walks the barren streets now, trying not to let her memories flood her reality, she can’t find why. Why, after all she had done, still have humanity, even if it is in the slightest sliver?

She stops to stare at herself on Pecan Street, where the unique buildings still show their beauty. She looks into the mirror-like windows, and sees her willow figure, and she lets go of the locket. Eloise inhales once, and then she knows. When she looks at her blackened eyes, she realizes that she must let go. It is what everyone else did in Creper, anyway.

If she weren’t to die from natural causes, she would be taken from the virus.

“I have to let go,” Eloise begins to say as she backs away from the mirror. “I have to let go, I have to let go.”

At this moment, Eloise knows that she won’t make it past this year. No, she won’t. So she runs. Just like she did from her mother, just like she did from her father. Just like she had from everything.

She doesn’t stop until she faces a building. The structure of red brick, built into a small square. On the sign in front, it says in faded letters, “Morris’s Oncology Lab.” She takes a deep breath, takes off her gloves and mask, and saunters in.

Her fathers lab looks the same inside as it did that day. On the day Margot-

Margot pushed the door open, and slid off her designer dress. Underneath, she wore a pair of coveralls.

Eloise filled with laughter. “Margot, mother surely would strangle you if she laid eyes on you.” Eloise lifted the bottom of her dress as she entered her father’s lab.

Margot spinned, her hands flailing fluently in the air. “D-do you think I have the slightest worry, El?” She stopped and bowed to Eloise as if she were a man. “This- this is freeing!”

Eloise didn’t understand her sister. “M-Margot, dresses are freeing, too.”

Margot moved towards one of the tables in her fathers lab, and with her large green eyes, she glanced over all of the vials. “You simply don’t understand.” She traced over her fathers newest creation, vibrant in color. She raised it in the air. “This, Eloise, is father’s freedom. Grandfather did this, too. So, where is ours?”

Eloise didn’t have an answer. Margot continued, “So, sister, if I drank this, everything father aspired to, he wouldn’t have freedom. And, he would be just like me.”

“But, Margot, you haven’t an idea of what’s in that.”

Margot laughed at her sister. “And I don’t need to.” She raised the glass up to her mouth.

Eloise would never forget the smile that came over her face. “To new things, sister.”

Now, as Eloise stood over the broken vials along her fathers long forgotten lab, she took off her necklace. She felt the cool, light texture of the chain one last time, and ran her fingers over the delicate heart. Then she threw it across the broken room with all her weak might and watched it hit the broken, vein wall.

And she let go. Let go of the emotion that held back her sanity, let go of the necklace that held her together.

She takes a single vial, blue in color, that lay on the floor. She takes the cap off with care, and thinks of her sister before raising it to her lips. Knowing that she didn’t know what this was or if it would cause her harm.

“To new things.”