Elle

In the end it didn’t matter. In the end nothing would. Because in the end, they would never be able to hurt me again.

*

I knew exactly what I had done. Looking down at the figure below me, everything came rushing back, knocking my breath out of my throat. The warped memories flooded into my mind all at once.

The smell of the dark decrepit room no bigger than a shed. The sounds of bullet casings hitting the floor one by one. The shrill ringing in my eyes that has not yet left me. The familiar but unwelcoming metallic taste of blood in my mouth. And finally, the sight of rodents coming from their hiding places at the stinking smell of death.

My body fell to the ground ungracefully and with a loud ‘thud’. I heard the thump of my weight hitting the ground before I even registered the pain in my body. I remember my piercing scream echoing throughout the room. Choppy and harsh, unlike the sweet melodic voices of sirens, it was my song nonetheless.

After my voice gave out and my screams became but a whisper, the warm tears poured down my face. My eyes staring out at nothing, hollow and empty. I looked down.

The blood was everywhere.

I noticed my trembling hands stained dark red. Then I realized with a panic that the blood was not my own. I squeezed my eyes shut, no longer able to bear looking at the mess. The mess I made.

‘The one we made.’ She finally speaks. The voice inside my head, the one who knows.

I grabbed fistfuls of my hair in pure frustration. I thought after this she would leave, that she would be gone. My screams return, this time with a rigor I did not know I had in me. I beg and plead with her to leave. The deed I carried out should have been final enough. It should have ended all of this.

I look down once more, this time into the cold dead eyes of the man laying beside me.

I am almost calm, looking into his eyes. Still as bright blue as they were in life. I looked into the same eyes many times before, however, have never felt this level of serenity.

I am curious as to how the soul works. Does it pour out messy and sticky like the blood from the body. Or is it like a twinkle in the eyes that just slowly becomes dimmer and dimmer until it is gone. Nevertheless, I know for absolute certainty that whatever soul this man had left, is gone now. I took that from him. Just like he took so much from me.

That is why I thought she would leave me. He did create her after all. From all the years and years of torment and lies and oh the despise, the hate he felt for me that shocked me to my core.

I used to feel that same hate, it is what fueled my vendetta, what fueled her and her distant murmurings in my ear that would frighten the common public.

Now I wonder, ‘can I ever be free?’ The lengths I have gone to already show my determination to finally rid myself of them. Of the memories. To break myself from this awful loop.

I thought by returning to the beginning, to the start of it all, I could end it.

I can barely breathe now, my body shaking and her voice, it just increases in pitch, I hear her cackling, laughing at my misfortune. As if I could think that anything could get rid of her.

And suddenly it all becomes clear. So clear I don’t know how I did not see it before. There is only one way to finish her, and my mind is made up.

And for once, this decision is my own.

Slowly I raise my body from the cold ground. My bones ache and crack but I ignore them.

I step over him and hobble over to where my gun lay on the tile. I cradle the gun in my hand, feeling its weight and the weight of what I am about to do.

I look up, hoping to see the sky but seeing nothing but roof, and cry an apology for Emily. The only sister, the only family I had. The one he took from me.

‘Elle,’ she would say, ‘my favorite palindrome, you are.’ And she would smile that beautiful smile of hers, it could light up anyone’s day, and she would laugh so full and happy as I have not been able to in a while.

And that is the memory I will hold onto, not the ones of him tainting everything good in my life, but of us, Emily and Elle.

I expect tears in these final moments but there is nothing left, I am empty.

I think of the finality of it all, the cold unfriendly bullet entering the chamber as it prepares for one final shot.

I place the barrel underneath my chin as I say a prayer and a single tear falls.

This is it.

Neither of them can hurt you anymore; not her, not him.

I say a final goodbye, to Em, and to him - the father that ultimately murdered both of his daughters, one with a firm grip on her throat and the other, through his endless torment and cruelty. I am not sorry he met his end, by the same gun that is about to bring about mine.

I am ready.

I feel my grip tighten around the gun.

My breath catches in my throat. I place my finger on the trigger and I pull.