Like a monk holding prayer beads, her absentminded fingers rolled the tiny links of the small silver chain. Wrapped around her palm the necklace had become a fixture to her hand since she’d last set eyes on her. The soles of her boots shifted inky ash and dust as she took a seat beside a blown out window, high above the hollow city.
How long had it been since they sat together? How long had she ventured forth alone, how much longer would her water sustain her? None of these, could she answer. The chain ran on and on through the folds of her fingers. She thought of her still and their matching heart lockets. She thought of their shared disbelief, the turns they took in comforting each other, the warmth they shared under those cold nights where they swore stars sat just out of sight. She remembered the lifeless look her cold icy eyes had, staring into the heavens when she woke beside her. Her head resting on her chest, the halt of her soothing rhythmic breathing a screaming subconscious alarm.
She hadn’t needed to look at the opened locket, or search for the missing arsenic to know the choice that had been made. The choice chosen after their first night of true safety and security after an uncountable amount of time. Resting by a clean stream they had prayed for and sought since the End had happened. No, she knew. After they had bathed, after they had rejoiced, and fallen asleep hopeful, she made her choice. And now, she was left alone.
It wasn’t an act of cowardice or surrender, she knew that, rather a misguided choice to savor a small victory against the months of hell that had followed since the change. A finale on a high note. They’d spoken of doing such. Sparing themselves from never ending days of haunting, endless questions. Why? Why them, what happened, and worst of all, what now?
She sat with the body for days, until the stink of rotting skin became too repulsive, too overbearing. There wasn’t any sentiment in the choice to stay so much as slow reluctance to move away from the promises of the stream. The corpse had attracted flies and maggots before any animals to potentially catch- if there were still any animals. She wondered how long she could go on fasting, it had been so long since the desperation to eat had passed, it was hard to imagine a flavour beyond stale water.
The stream had tasted like hope the first night. That morning it had tasted as foul as the found water above toilet tanks, a bleak survival technique she had remembered from elementary school. Her back ached from carrying the excess bottles and gear, now that she roamed alone. Each sip made the load lighter and her anxiety stronger.
There was as much hope ahead as there were people left, and that last person was decomposing in the unwavering heat. Yet that faint melody, that call to adventure still echoed across the plains, reverberating between buildings, and sparse suburbs.
She raised her goggles and tried to rub the dust outlines away from her eyes, trying to place where they’d found the poison those months ago. She could remember the conversation, the uncertainty with what exactly they had found, aside from that it was toxic. The memory of old spy movies and their emergency pilled rings and false teeth. She remembered the thrill of a real, quick, painless exit. But something always nagged. She wished they’d spoken more. No, she wished she’d spoken more. How she knew that that certainty was an inevitability. However, despite the darkness, despite the pain, the unknown still called to her. She thought they felt the same. She missed the way her fingers threaded through her’s like the chain did now.
She brushed at the sweaty ash painting her skin, and wondered what she looked like. The count of days since she’d seen herself had been fruitless ages ago and more irrelevant now. Curling in a ball she focused on remembering her reflection, their blurred reflection, in that fabled slow stream. Her head raised to the sherbet orange sky, as blurred and hazy as her mind and memory, and stood leaning out the impossibly high window. Her soiled, burnt arm reached to the wind, the locket swinging like a pendulum.
Back and forth just like her indecision, she was beyond the exhaustion of wearing her heart on sleeve. Hand reaching back behind her head she went to swing her artifact away, toss her only chance of a quick escape. But held fast as her arm started to launch.
No.
She pulled back and broke her heart open, ready to finally abandon the poison sitting inside. The locket unlocked with a click to reveal nothing. Save for the first glimpse of her green determined eyes since there were mirrors. Their reflection cutting back from the polished empty insides of the shining case. She’d made a choice she’d never really had, and skipped down to the floor. Her bag was no lighter, but her heart was.
“Always forwards, never backwards,” she spoke out loud, surprising herself with the sound of her own voice. “Always forwards, never backwards,” she repeated the new mantra, speaking up if only for her ears and self. She repeated, and stepped with conviction, knowing she would until she could not.
Thanks for reading!
-Mr. Write