Chapter Thirty Four

Toate cele frumoase, poartă și ponoase. (All that is fair must fade)

My walk turns into a jog when I hear more screams from behind me. Screams that sound more animal than human, awful ragged screaming. I won’t look. The shadows of the trees stretch around me, clinging to the darkness and reaching for me. I keep walking.

That’s all I have to do. Keep walking. Get away. Survive, because they won’t, because Coral didn’t. I don’t think about turning around. 

The forest gives way to a subdivision. It doesn’t make me feel safer. It makes me feel dangerous. Like a shark in a fish tank. Surrounded by such normalcy, I take a moment to wonder just how much better life would’ve been if my father hadn’t met my mother. If he hadn't fallen for a demon and Fabian Lupei didn’t exist, if no one had met me, no one had suffered because of me. 

Coral wouldn't have sacrificed herself if I didn't exist, That's what it comes down to. There had to have been a moment where Coral saw something in me, something that made her throw herself onto a blade in my stead. I don't know what she saw, I just know that that part of me is gone. Or maybe it was never there, and Coral just saw a brother that she could finally protect. 

The 'what ifs' circulate through my brain. I want to tear them out with my fingernails and crack them open until the regret falls away and fate becomes real again.

I don’t know where I’m going. The houses flash by with time and my eyes are watering with the effort it takes not to blink, to escape the darkness for just a few more moments. My heartbeat is a pulsing rhythm, dancing to the echoes of Coral's last words to me. 

A car screams ahead of me, the blue and red dance over my skin. The headlights burn my eyes. It’s only then that I notice the blood on my skin. Is it mine? Coral’s? The newly risen sun paints me in vivid colours. Red, brown, green, red, red, red. The dirt in my hair comes off on my hand when I pull at it, but the blood stains.

A light shines into my eyes, “Hello? Are you hurt?”

I can distantly hear myself over the noise, ‘I’m sorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry-” My voice is hoarse and I begin to cough violently. Blood seeps into the pavement from my mouth, my throat feels torn and raw. I can't tell if the blood is real. I press my hand to my mouth, feeling the thick wetness and tasting the copper. But when I bring my hand to my eyes there is only dried stains and dirt.

“It’s okay, son, we’re going to get you help.” I can’t tell if it’s a police officer or my father. But I nod, my eyes close automatically when exhaustion hits me, darkness falls and I see Coral’s limp body, slick blood on her abdomen. Giving her life away for mine, pleading for help. 

I scream until my voice is hoarse.

~

When I wake up, it’s to darkness. Coral is throwing herself on a blade for me, I’m so close I can smell her blood.

I try to open my eyes, but I can’t. My eyelids are heavy, and wetness is dripping from the corner of my eyes down my cheeks. It feels as dense as blood. I can’t open my eyes- I can’t f*****g see anything other than her ripped stomach, stained pale face and my back as I turn away. Darkness is everywhere. None of this makes any sense. I want to scratch my eyes out from my scull and scream until the darkness subsides to my sister alive and well. Just like the last time I saw her.  

Questions rush through me: Did that already happen? If so, why can't I remember it? Is it going to happen? Why aren’t I dead?

My surroundings can only be seen through sound. There’s a cacophony of hushed voices and footsteps, only confusing me further.

“Why can't I open my eyes!? F**k!” The rest of my body is numb but I try to flail, I want to rip my eyelids off. Let the sun burn the light into my eyes and keep the darkness away. Keep the blood away.

But I can’t. And the thick scent of blood and death is still fresh in my head. It doesn’t make any sense. Coral’s not dead. I just saw her. She was fine, and I was too.   

“F**k! STOP! STOP!” I scream, trying to overcome the taste of unfamiliar memories.

“Shhh, calm down. It’s okay.” It’s a woman’s voice. For a moment, it sounds like Blaze. But it can’t be her. For a moment, the picture of Blaze in my mind calms me. Blaze and Coral side by side. I violently hope that the both of them are okay, and that my brain is lying to me.

I call Coral’s name. Sure that if I just keep calling it, she’ll appear. I see her hair curled over her shoulder, her smirk and her rare smile. Her eyes, so similar to mine. She doesn’t, the girl keeps trying to calm me down, but I keep yelling. Every part of me aches in grief I don't understand.

My yelling picks up static, I can’t physically see the objects in the room but I can feel them. I strain but only a single crash is heard, one man curses. A block sits in my head like a bolder, they had to have given me something. Clenching my teeth, I wonder if I’m being arrested, or detained, and if the taint of murder is painted on my skin like a tattoo.

Vision-Coral’s last words to me grow louder in my ears and I lose more time to screaming her name.

“He’s unstable, will someone put him out already?” The voice is unfamiliar and deep.

Eventually, a prick in my side makes me hiss, and my consciousness fades. 

My last thought is, death would be better than this.