| |
“You did this.”
Her house had been brightly lit on the day she left. The day she became this. But Naren wasn’t at the back door.
He was now.
His hair was a mess; dark rings hung beneath his eyes. He was the controversial biomedical scientist who pushed the barriers, the kind of innovator she sought out. She’d met him at a conference where he gave a talk on his promise of expanding synthetic flesh beyond organ transplant.
Print the entire body.
“I knew you would survive what happened,” he said. “I knew what you lost.”
She didn’t ask how he found the island. There were always ways to locate someone, she knew that. Even when he found her, he was too clever to reach out to her. He had moved to Alaska with his daughter after he experimented on himself. He’d isolated himself from the world, but he made himself available to her. He knew she’d be looking for assistance.
She took the bait.
“You can forget,” he said, “but the past never goes away. The holes never fill up. Parts of you want to remember, Heather.”
Her gut clenched. “You don’t understand.”
“No. But I’m here. I’m listening.”
“I can’t remember, Naren. I just can’t.” Her words came out sharp and pointed. “People will get hurt.”
“I know.”
He looked at the bedroom. The door was wide open. Gail was gone. The bed was still propped up. Sonny appeared to be sleeping. The house was silent.
She went to his bedside.
His lips fluttered, eyes dancing in a dream. He had been such a healthy baby. The day he was born, she was the luckiest person in the world, privileged to be his mother. She would give him every opportunity the world had to offer. He could be creative, unique, discerning, scientific, adventurous... whatever he wanted.
It had started when he was three.
The disease turned him into a sleepless fireball. She bolted down the furniture to keep him from pulling over bookshelves, watched cartoons through the night, hired Gail to be there when she went to work.
He didn’t deserve this.
She had saved so many people in the world. But not him. She could only watch him succumb.
His hair was stuck to his forehead. She pushed it away, feeling the fever on her palm. She had wished for him to calm down, to be normal. And now that he was sleeping like an angel, guilt took a seat next to her.
She just wanted him to stop hurting.
“I’m sorry.”
She kissed his forehead. The fever moved inside her, trickled down her arms and lit a fire. She kept her lips pressed to his head, let the emotional gates open—the gates she’d put a lock on so long ago, a vault that contained the memories and pain she’d forgotten so many years ago. It flooded out.
It engulfed her.
Flames licked her arms and spilled down her legs. A fire spread across the floor and climbed the walls. It ate the furniture, the ceiling fan, the curtains... the bed.
It burned in great gulping sobs.
As her grief flowed, the flames grew brighter and bigger. They bubbled up from an endless well that consumed everything in their path. The house was gone; Naren had turned to ashes. The sky was on fire. The world was burning.
This was what she feared the most. If the gates were opened, nothing would be spared. And now she was lost in the heat of her grief and everything was burning. Nothing would survive. Yet she was still there. Still alive.
She silently wept.
Beneath the inferno’s rage, silent tears turned to steam. They hissed as they fell. She was powerless to stop the flames, helpless to plug the sadness. It flowed from her and never seemed to stop. Time was nonexistent.
The depth of her grief unending.
Gray snowflakes appeared. They wafted out of the flames, circling in a tight column. She followed their ascent as they floated through a hole. The sky was above. It had survived her anguish. The stars were out and the moon alight.
The snowflakes turned into thick ashes. They drifted down and piled around her, insulating her from the dying fire. The house was gone; the field and mountains had vanished. Perhaps it was another illusion; she was still on the first floor.
She only appeared to be in a deep hole. The one she’d been trying to fill all her life. Water seeped from the walls. The ocean found its way through the earth and began to swirl at her feet. Everything had been devoured.
Naren was still there.
He had survived the flames. His body was made of the same synthetic cells that had allowed her to survive the first incident. His synthetic flesh was indestructible. But his clothes were not.
Her robe was gone.
She turned away, fully exposed and vulnerable. It wasn’t her nudity that caused her to turn suddenly, to hide from him—it was the embarrassment of what she’d become. The red flesh, the sharp eyes and wild hair. She’d covered herself to protect others.
And to hide.
The robes from her closet floated near her. The water had reached her knees. She heard it slosh toward her, felt a hand on her shoulder. Naren’s fingers didn’t sizzle when they made contact, his flesh didn’t char when he touched her.
She looked over her shoulder, saw the man who had forced her to remember. And he saw her. He saw all of her. And when she faced him, he didn’t run, didn’t turn away or fake a smile.
He was still there.
“I see you,” he said.
She ran her fingers down his arm, across his chest. They didn’t leave smoldering tracks. When he put his arms around her, he didn’t yelp with pain. He didn’t leave.
She laid her cheek against his chest.
The grief returned. Without flame, she sobbed. And he held her tightly. She didn’t crawl out of the hole this time. The water washed over them.
Together, it raised them up.