Kill Your Darlings

"I know this looks bad,” she said, “but I can explain.”

He took a moment to catch his breath, his legs sore from scaling the mountain. He observed the Boschian scene surrounding her. It did look bad.

He shrugged. It was a pathetic gesture, which would have been hilarious if there was any humour left in the world. Above him and above her, the sky was turning an odd shade of crimson. Alizarine, his old visual arts teacher might have called it, before art lost all meaning.

She giggled. That had always annoyed him, ever since they were children. Even when she was a tiny pony-tailed freckly thing and he was a chubby spotty turd in rags, her giggles seemed to set his instincts on edge.

“Fuck you,” he said, and turned his back to her. He should never have come. He didn't have long left – no one did – and he was wasting his time on someone that never even mattered to him in the past, and wouldn't be around in the future. No one would.

“You know, when they announced the news, I laughed,” she said to his back. She had always liked talking to his back.

He didn't have to ask her what she meant. She could only have been referring to The News, which had changed his world, along with everyone else's. Except for hers, it would seem.

“I laughed, and I actually looked forward to it,” she said. Something in her voice changed when she spoke those last four words. Something he had never noticed before. Could it be that she was..

He hesitated, for a brief moment. It was all she needed, of course. He could feel the ground trembling beneath his feet, a soft rumbling that he knew was just the beginning.

“What's the matter? Can't bear to leave me here to rot with my friends?” she said. The last word was laced with so much venom that he could taste it in his mouth, his swollen tongue cutting off his voice. Not that he had much left to say in this life.

It began to rain. Soon, streams of water were pouring down from the heavens, as if the angels were trying to exorcise their demons by drowning them. He was pretty sure her demons could swim. As for his demons, well...

He sat down on the sloping path, still facing away from her, and tried to let the rain wash out all his emotions. It only partly worked.
“I have no regrets, you know? None. I bet you do,” she said. He could tell her confidence was starting to crack. So was the earth. The newly created schisms thirstily drank up the muddy water, which seemed to tumble all the way to the core of the planet. To hell, probably. In the distance a horn sounded, or a scream, or both.

“Oh, I do,” he said. He lay down in the mud, which was mixing with the blood of her friends. He closed his eyes, and thought of the last time he had truly been happy.

The hour before she was born: he was licking a strawberry ice cream cone in the maternity ward. His world consisted of him, his parents, and the simple taste of cold dessert. And then the wailing started.

He opened his eyes. She was kneeling above him, and smiled that grin.

For the first and last time, he smiled back.

“Goodbye,” they both said.

He licked his lips, and thought of strawberries, before the stars went out.