The Shattered Genesis (Eternity)

by Rudacille, T.

  Elijah would tell me later that my eyes had turned white and even from a few feet away, he could see that my pupils had elongated vertically to resemble the eyes of a snake or a cat, he was not sure. He reminded me of something I had already known whilst in the heat of that fight with the native; I was suddenly gifted with sharp, pointed fangs that allowed me to rip into the man's skin wherever I could do the most damage.

  What he could not tell me was what he could not possibly know, unless he was reading my mind the way I could read his. As the man flipped over and landed gracefully on his hands and feet before standing up to charge me, my mind remained blank except for one basic thought. It was the last, most vital instinct of them all: Protect.

  When he had flipped, he had sent me hurtling through the air to land painlessly on my back. I pushed myself up with a strength I had never before exhibited and charged right at him. Though he was clearly used to such power and skill, I was the one that took him down. I pinned his arms to the ground and slammed my head down into his, drawing in raspy, hissing breaths.

  Elijah would tell me later that I made an odd noise resembling a roar that I was attempting to stifle.

  “It was so freaking awesome!” He would rave later, though I will admit, that the fourth word in his thrilled exclamation has been revised in order to cater to my profane hatred of profanity.

  The man tried to free his arms but my grip on him was tight enough to shatter his wrists. His fight to throw me off enraged me even further and I slammed my head down into his again, only this time with even more brutal force. Whoever said that one cannot win with a headbutt was wrong. Though I will admit that I felt a slight sting, my mind remained clear. I was still able to fight with reckless and violent efficiency.

  “Don't kill him!” Violet exclaimed and I looked up just as I went to sink my teeth down into the pulsing vein of the stranger's throat. I would not drink his blood. I would simply kill him. I would kill him so that he was no longer a threat.

  “Listen to your sister.” My father's voice said behind me. Though I was not looking, several others were with him, approaching us from behind. Half the campsite was coming to witness the strange event. “Don't kill him. We need him.”

  Just because my father told me not to, I inched down closer to the man's throat, feeling an overpowering urge to rip into his skin. I couldn't deny it. I needed to kill him. He had been after Elijah. He was a threat to him. I needed to ensure my brother's safety by ending that man's life.

  But Violet had been the first to order me not to kill him. In fact, it had barely been an order. It was more of an imploring plea. I looked up at her, the rain casting a moving gray sheet between us. Still, I could see her clearly. What was happening to me frightened her and to see me kill another living being, human or not, would only worsen her new fear. So I released the man's arms, jumped up and ran my fingers through my mud and rain drenched hair, all the while loathing the fact that I had to turn my target over to my father when I so desperately needed to dispatch him violently from this realm myself.

  Of course, I knew letting go of him was the worst thing I could do. I was right, as usual; he jumped up and turned to run. I could not be sure whether he was attempting to get away or if he was going after Elijah again. For my brother's sake, I had to believe the latter. Without even turning around, I swung my fist back and hit the man hard in the face; the force sent him hurtling backwards to land sprawled out on his back.

  Several of the men in our camp grabbed hold of him. I watched in slight amusement as ten of them hauled him off. It took ten fully grown men to subdue one. It was as a small smile pulled at my lips that I noticed the remaining spectators spectating me. Some looked downright horrified by my very existence. Others were bemused. Others were expressionless though their screaming minds betrayed their fear and curiosity.

  My father was the only one whose mind shouted the livid thoughts of a confused and betrayed man. He felt that I had lied to him, though why he expected honesty after so many years of hatred between us, I was not sure. He felt that I had kept a dangerous secret from him, though he could not determine the exact nature of what it was I had been hiding. I was one of them, he believed. I had always been one of them. But no, he had seen my birth. He knew that I was human.

  The last word through his mind was one even he tried to push away:

  Infected.

  The alarm I felt at hearing that word spoken, even in his thoughts, was so sudden that it stole my breath away. I was not afraid of how he would handle my “infection”, though I should have been. I was more worried about being thought of as dangerously ill in the first place.

  Elijah stood up, grasped my hand, and pulled me away from the gawking, silent crowd. The rain had ceased suddenly, so my brother, sisters and I walked to the edge of the campsite that had been abandoned in the fight.

  “Penny, did you see anything?” I asked her softly. They were odd words to speak after such a brutal occurrence but truly, Penny emerging without any scars, physical or emotional, was my chief concern.

  Penny shook her head and reached her arms out to me. I felt that she was trembling with cold and potent fear. I knew that I could remedy both. I stood up with her as she clung to me with every last bit of her young strength. I reached into a tent and pulled out a blanket; I would repay the owner with my own later. After prying Penny from me in order to wrap her up, I swaddled her like a baby, even going so far as to tuck her arms inside the confines of the blanket. Then, I cradled her close to my chest, feeling my eyes dissolve back into their normal blue as they met her wide, fearful eyes.

  Her fear was not of me, God bless her. Her fear was of what had just happened. Her fear was of the natives.

  I shushed her when she started to cry softly. I rested my cheek against her forehead and rocked her back and forth, back and forth. My only thought was to warm and calm her. Though my muscles were beginning to ache and an angry cut on my forehead was dripping blood into my left eye, I thought of nothing but my sweet little sister.

  It was strange, how I could switch from feeling nothing but a need to kill a living creature to a need to comfort one I held so very dear to me.

  I was thinking only of tranquility as I held her, believing wholeheartedly that I could soothe her not just with my words and my arms around her but also with calming thoughts. I was so lost in them that I was beginning to believe that such peace was actually possible. Even after I lulled her to sleep, I stayed drunk on that fabled serenity. I did not reemerge from its depths until I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  I opened my eyes.

  Penny was still nestled against my chest, fast asleep. I turned to look, expecting to see Elijah or Violet standing there. Instead, I saw my father standing with his burly minions behind him. Instead, I saw the butt of a shotgun being pulled back.

  The last thing I heard was Penny screaming.

  XXX

  The highlights of the previous day played on in my mind like a grimly educational slide-show in a class on the meaning of things. I saw James's handsome face. I felt that striking warmth that absorbed me every time he kissed me. As a quick, crippling terror exploded inside of me at the sight of the earth burning, I clung to that warmth in order to be comforted. Then, the warmth fell to a frigidity that was my need to feel nothing when it came to James. He had lied to me. He had walked away. He was gone forever. Violet's secret was that James had left the campsite. Despite knowing most things, I could not see his path clearly. I could see him scarcely at all. But I did not want to see him. I wanted no parts of James Maxwell.

  James Maxwell. James Maxwell.

  His voice saying his name when he introduced himself to me deepened whatever spell I had fallen under.

  I was repeating his first name as I emerged from its depths.

  “I must be just as stupid as you think I am. I thought that you had let him go. I thought you had been able to reason away whatever ridiculous, immature feelings you had for him.”

  It was my
father talking. I opened my eyes to find that I was in a room lit only by one dim bulb hanging next to the iron door. He was sitting in front of me, tapping my pack of cigarettes on the table. Actually, it was not the pack that I had left in my tent. The one in his hands was unopened.

  “Yeah.” He replied as he held the pack up for me to see. “We knew people would have a fit if they had to quit smoking, so we brought a few hundred packs. Though, when we run out, you'll have no choice but to quit. I brought these specifically for you, Brynna. I know they're your brand. I thought it was the least I could do.”

  “The least you could have done was not hit me in the face, actually.” I replied after lifting my head delicately. “But you have already done that three times since we got here. Just like old times, is it not?”

  He chuckled softly and slid the pack towards me. When in doubt, smoke a cigarette. That had always been my mantra. But when I reached for the pack on the table, I found that my hands were cuffed tightly behind the chair I was sitting in. A jolt of panic went through me that I prayed had not flashed through my eyes. The only way to trump him was the show no weakness.

  “It appeared as though you hadn't realized that you were handcuffed and I just wanted to make sure you were aware. That's only responsible.”

  “Are you going to kill me, Dad?”

  There was not even a slight tremor to my voice. I was not afraid of him. I did not call him “Dad” to soften him into sympathizing with me. I used the term in sarcasm and disdain to the shock of no one, including him.

  “I don't know, Brynna. I talked with several people. You never would have been able to do that. Most of them are just so stupid.” He stood up and started to pace around the room. “They're afraid of you. They don't want you in the camp anymore. After seeing what they saw you do, they think you're one of them. One of the natives, I mean. You'll probably be surprised by this, but I did try to reason with all of them. I tried to tell them that you are my daughter and I know that you're not one of them. I don't know what's come over you but I know you're not a native.”

  “This conversation is fascinating. Really, it is. But let me stop you right there. If they don't want me in the camp, then I'll pack my things and leave. I am not afraid of the natives. I can live in the woods.”

  “That was originally going to be my first course of action. Banishment, exile, whatever you want to call it.” He told me after sitting back down again.

  “Quarantine.” I added breezily in a play on his earlier theory regarding infection that I had so rudely heard while invading his mind. He ignored me.

  “But then, I realized that I could use you. Did you notice how...” He looked up, searching for the right word. I read into his mind to root out what exactly it was he was trying to say. I wanted the little powwow to be over as soon as possible. The sooner I was able to start my attempt at surviving independently, the better. I wanted to know immediately how apt I was to make my own way.

  “Did I notice how entranced the man was with me?”

  “Well, did you?”

  “I would not call it entrancement. I would not call it anything because it did not exist. You are wrong.”

  I knew that he was right.

  “I'm not, though. We talked to the man that you attacked. He says that you're changing over. He says it's happening to a lot of us. Not all, just some. Special, is what he called you. Freaks, is what I call you.”

  “You would.” I nodded and smiled in quiet triumph. He was afraid of me, of us, whoever or whatever we were.

  “Now, the reason why I bring up the man from the first night is because he's their leader. There are so many of them, Brynna. There are too many. They'll overpower us. Do you remember what I said that day behind the ship? About trading you?”

  “Sure do.”

  My heart was beginning to hammer roughly against its cage of bone. He could hear it. He could feel my tension rising. I would not show it outwardly to him. I would never allow him to see such weakness when I knew of the sadistic delight it would bring him.

  “Well, I must have had a freakish moment of my own because I predicted that would be what he wanted. He wants you.”

  I panicked internally. I had felt hunted before. I had felt preyed upon in my youth, though certainly not by my father. His best friend, my godfather... He had been so very bad. He was Maura's husband, too, I remembered... She had covered her ears when he dragged me downstairs...

  Now I was going to face the same awful horror. I was going to be the prey again, this time to a man whose origin I did not even know.

  My father saw the fear in my eyes. I did not look at him but his thoughts betrayed an equal mix of satisfaction, justification and surprisingly, regret. The three contrasts rolled together in a fight to the death. Regret won, a victory that stunned me into silence and enraptured attention.

  “Brynna, I should have been able to love you.” He said as he stared intently at me. “We both should have. But after what happened, after what it did to you...” He trailed off and looked away. “It turned you into such an awful person. At first, we both felt sorry for you. How could we not? Then your brother...”

  “I know that you hate me for what happened to Lucien.” I told him dryly. My eyes might have shown the sudden grip of sadness that had taken me but my voice certainly would not.

  I did know that they all hated me for that. But I hated myself for it, too. I allowed their loathing to contaminate me, though a small, sensible part of my inner self understood that my little brother's death had not been my fault.

  I cannot speak about these things easily. I can barely put them into words. Still today, I feel great pain over them, despite living for years under the assumption that I could no longer feel or show strong emotional strife internally or externally, respectively.

  “Your mother... She was broken after that. And I didn't care about what had happened to you anymore. I'll admit that to you. Neither did she. You were supposed to be watching him. I don't care what happened. You were old enough to know that you had to pay close attention to him or else an accident could happen. Your mother, Maura and I explained that to you time and time again. I don't care how traumatized you were. You shouldn't have looked away.”

  I was not going to make excuses. I was not going to pass the blame.

  To this day, I still do not know how long he floated face-down in the water before I came out of my stupor.

  I could not breathe when that thought crossed my mind. It always crept up on me like a knife-wielding thief in the night. It always gutted me and bled me dry.

  “I couldn't love you after that. I tried. She did, too. But...” He leaned forward, his eyes begging me to understand, to see things as he saw them, which in his opinion, was the only way, “we wanted it to be you, not him. That's terrible to say, I know. A small part of me is sorry for saying such a horrible thing. But we're being honest now, aren't we?”

  “I have always known that.” I stared at him as he struggled with that “new,” honest revelation. They had said things like that before. But through their actions even more than their words, I became aware that I was not wanted. They stopped buying me Christmas presents. They stopped celebrating my birthday. My father started to lose his temper, striking me when he found himself too angry to use words. My mother pretended I did not exist, even going so far as to throw my baby book away. At the time that the world ended, it had been eight years since the event that had taken my innocence. It had been seven and a half since my brother's passing. In that time, she had spoken perhaps four words to me, and even that is a generous figure. I was well aware of their hatred and resentment.

  I accepted it. I could understand it. My moment of weakness had killed my brother. The moment I allowed myself to lapse into a fit of silence and ignorance to escape my raging, terrified thoughts, my little brother had slipped and fell, hitting his head on the side of our pool.

  I cannot imagine him drowning. My heart splits a little every time I see it.

>   I had been so weak. I had been so irresponsible. That was why my brother died.

  I had been too trusting. I had been too naïve. That was why my godfather was able to do what he did.

  I had tried to apologize, only to find that my words were as useless as the many baskets of fruit and flowers my parents' friends had sent the week after Lucien had died. I sat at the table, zoning off into a tormenting space of guilt, regret, disgust, fear, and loathing, staring at the fruit as it rotted and the flowers as they wilted away.

  I expected Maura to apologize, too. I expected her to be on my side. What a little fool I was... She felt no anger over what her husband had done to me. She felt no pity for me. She felt only rage at what had happened to Lucien. She felt only that I had seduced her husband.

  That I could not understand. I had been nine.

  None of this is meant to make you see me positively. After all these years, I could not care less. Their faces fade from my mind with each day of my eternal life. I cannot remember my mother's face at all. It was blocked out, erased completely from the portrait I had of her in my mind. Elijah, Violet and even Penny report the same blank spot in their memories where her face once blossomed in comforting familiarity. Perhaps I inadvertently erased her in my mind and theirs, though this has caused more pain than it has remedied. My father's face has begun to drip, like when rain falls on a painted canvas. Maura's is clearest to me but then, I had been seeing it since the day I was born. It was branded into my memory quite painfully.

  I had faith that one day it would fade away, too.

  All of those thoughts in that moment with my father were the direct result of the fact that I had fallen into the same kind of stupor that had indirectly claimed my brother's life. My father's shouting voice, his hands around my throat, the way he shook me... Those were my jolts back to reality.

  “This is what it was! This is what killed him! You bitch! It should have been you!”