Dwindle

  Chapter Twenty-one: The Birth of a Murderer

  “Are you feeling better?” Ollie’s voice asked before I even opened my eyes.

  He spoke with an air of terrible knowledge. I didn’t look at him, not at first, but his tone was foreboding; it was the first thing I noticed. The second thing was that I had not remembered sleeping. The images of the waking were imprinted behind the lids of my eyes, and I could not unsee those horrors.

  “Are they gone?” I asked Ollie, sitting up, for I’d been placed on my mat.

  My voice seemed to move him, and he took my hand in his, squeezing it.

  “Yes, they’re gone,” he whispered back.

  I felt a “but” in the air.

  And my lip began to quiver.

  “Who?” I asked him.

  “They…”

  His voice cracked. I looked over at him, feeling fear. He opened his mouth again, but nothing came out.

  “Who?” I asked louder.

  Ollie swallowed audibly.

  “Chess and Foot both.”

  “Chess and Foot both what?” I asked, suddenly blind.

  “They’ve been…”

  “Dead?” I croaked.

  “No…they’re…gone, Myth.”

  I nodded at first, to show I had understood, but I knew after several moments that I didn’t. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Chess had to be alive. Any moment he would come bursting through the door, look me in the eye with his steadiness, and greet me with the new day. Chess had held my hand yesterday. He had squeezed it. I lifted my hand to my eyes to look at it. It looked as if it were a normal hand. It had not experienced what I had for it was just a hand.

  I put the hand to my mouth. Chess had kissed me the night before. He had kissed me, professed a desire to be with me. Kissed me in the open. We would have a future together. The knowledge slowed as a ball formed in my chest. It made me hold my breath out of pain and when it was released it transmuted into a sob. My vision blurred as I realized what he said, but I could not let myself make the tears fall.

  “Chess and Foot…” I sobbed. “They…oh…no…”

  There was a long, long pause. It was his turn to say something. All he could manage, all he could think of, was,

  “I’m so…so…sorry.”

  A numbness overwhelmed me. It was a thing beyond description, so low was I, that thinking that I could reach no lower point before that moment was laughable. I was dead. I felt myself dying inside as much as I was sure that Chess and Foot were dying somewhere, wandering around, walking down a path I could not follow.

  Oversimplification became a tool necessary for survival, and it was easily done then. My mother’s voice told me to breathe. Every time I inhaled, I knew I’d made the decision to do so, and it was difficult. Then, it was impossible. I wanted to be with them, so I held my breath. I tried to die along with the rest. If I didn’t breathe, I could be with not just the voice of my mother but my real mother. I could finally rest with the last remnants of anyone in the world who gave a damn about whether or not I lived or died.

  ***