EVAN – 1906 – SAN FRANCISCO, CA
I wish I could remember why I was so angry, but in this sea of rubble and flames, I seem to have forgotten. I remember there was danger and rage, but at this very moment, I cannot fathom what could make me do this. What I do know is that I caused this mess, and the longer I look around, the longer I hear the screams of the trapped and dying over the ringing in my ears; the more I know I should let the flames consume me. I feel the souls, so many souls out there, and most of them were good people.
And I killed them all.
My gaze pinpoints on a broken baby doll, the pale china face half gone, crumbled to dust in the melee of toppling buildings and shaking earth. A lone child’s slipper rests in the middle of the cracked street, teetering on the edge of the broken brick, waffling between the coming fire and oblivion.
The flames creep lazily toward me, tip-toeing their way across the buildings as if they have all the time in the world to put me out of my misery. To dole out my punishment.
I deserve this.
I deserve to burn.
I have failed my parents, my race, and for the life of me, I cannot remember why. How could I do this?
Suddenly, it all comes rushing through the fog of shock and the thick ringing in my ears.
Men came in the night.
They came for me - for my head - and the poor souls who called themselves my Guardians lost theirs instead. I can still see the shocked look on Devereux’s face when the blade pierced his neck, his wide eyes are burned into my brain as if with a hot iron.
I don’t think he ever expected them to get this far. To follow us all the way across the country to the bustling port of San Francisco. He thought we were safe in the throng of people coming and going.
He was wrong.
Now, Devereux and Sam are both gone, cut down like wheat against the scythe, and I have no idea what to do. Guilt claws at me. It’s all my fault.
I didn’t mean to lose my mind. I didn’t mean to reap this much death. But I had no idea I was this powerful. I had no idea I could cause so much destruction. The city is in ruins, like a dollhouse thrown by a toddler in a fit of rage. And what is worse is I am so hungry, starving for the stained souls calling for me to send them to hell. My fangs descend, cutting into my lips and bringing the coppery taste of blood to my tongue. It only makes me hungrier, and I fight my body’s urge to travel to them, to glut myself on the souls of the evil.
I can’t do it. I can’t send them to hell when I deserve to go myself. I close my eyes to the mayhem, waiting for the flames to do their duty.
“Are you going to get out of the way or are you planning on burning to death?” a husky female’s voice calls to me. I blink through my haze of shock to see a woman not much bigger than my own meager height eyeing me like I was a bug on her boot. And her eyes… No pupil and such a pale milky green, she shouldn’t be able to see me, but by the expression on her face, she most certainly does. Dressed as a man in trousers and a waistcoat, she has to be the oddest person I’ve ever encountered. And for a Wraith in the middle of a ruined city, that’s saying something.
“No offense, girlie, but Wraiths like you tend to fry when exposed to open flame. You might want to move,” she says matter-of-factly, and that’s when I lose it.
“I-I…did this. C-caused all this,” I stutter as my breaths come in great gasping heaves, and I break right there in the middle of the cracked street.
Then, the bricks start abrading away underneath my feet, and I feel the pull of the silence, the deadness in my own head calling for me to put it all away. The guilt, the fear, the pain of losing my closest friends – all of it.
I don’t see the fist coming for my face until it’s too late, and before I know what hits me, blackness clouds my mind.
I wanted oblivion, I think as the lights fade out. It might not be the death I asked for, but a nice sleep will do.
Yes, it will do just fine.