Irreversible

“Aiden, you don’t want to do this.”

Through the cracks in my shell, the sun judges me with its unforgiving glare.

One more hit. One good smash then I’m out.

“Gimme that locket. It doesn’t work that way.” The voice continues.

I press myself against the glass shell and peek out. Wyman looks older than I remembered. Time hasn’t been so kind to this man.

At the end of Aiden’s trembling arm, the crowbar glows temptation.

Kiddo, do it. I whisper.

A ghost of a smile escapes from the corner of his mouth. Then I hear the sweet chime of death.

* * *

It was my fourth year in solitude when Aiden found me. Actually, it could be the fifth or the third. I wouldn’t know. Darkness warps your sense of time, so they say.

It’s hard to describe being held in complete darkness. You stop screaming after a week. Then you count days — not hoping for an end, just hoping that you might come to terms with this. Then you stop counting.

Turns out, the hardest part is not having no light, but having no sound. You can’t even hear the blood in your own veins because you don’t have any veins anymore. You can’t feel any movement surrounding you, or inside you. This must be how it feels inside a coffin.

I used to have nightmares about being buried alive, and I thought that was the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to me.

How much I miss those nightmares.

How much I wish I could have a proper burial one day.

So you could imagine how I temporarily lost all ability to think or make a sound when I felt somebody was shaking my coffin.

I did not recognise Aiden immediately. The sudden brightness blinded me, and pulled a shriek out of my non-existent throat. Aiden flinched and dropped me. I hit the ground and saw my reflection — no, not reflection — I saw a photo of mine, a photo that they took of me when I was 18, when hopes were high and life was worth recording.

Although it was hardly a surprise, it was still somewhat disappointing to see that they put me in the same container as they did everyone else: a generic locket made of cheap metal, with a thumbnail photo inside the front piece and a small ampoule in the back shell.

When you are liquid, you get glass. Urns are for ashes.

The metal looked grey and dull. The only stylish touch was the heart-shaped case.

Oh, the irony.

Aiden picked me up and cleaned the dirt off the locket on the thin fabric covering his chest. I pressed closer and listened.

No heartbeat.

So I reckoned they had lowered the age for the procedure, again.

When the pandemic began, nobody reacted as they were supposed to. We had been through similar things for several times and it almost became seasonal. Every time they told us it was something that could wipe out 80% of humanity, but not one of those deadly diseases managed to dilute the concentration of assholes. So there was no reason to think this time would be different.

But it was different.

Even after the countless deaths, we remained hopeful, until we realised humans were not the only species that got sick. Whatever that disease was, it got the animals too, and made them rot from the inside. It poisoned the soil, and everything growing out of it was as hateful as the land. The panic finally began when we tried to eat the wheels on our cars, and drink the tokens in our virtual banks.

You think you are gods, but everyone dies.

So the church took over the torch and preached sacrifice. Sacrifice, in the name of the one mighty Lord.

The old. The weak. The disabled. The unproductive.

They were kind enough to first “prep” the sacrifices by removing what they believed to be the essence of humanity. The “heart”? The “soul”? Pick your label. God said thou shalt not kill. He didn’t say thou shalt not eat meat.

The barren. The poor. The freaks. The sinners.

They chose to archive “the extracts” instead of throwing them into an incinerator. That would be inhumane, they said, as they sank their teeth into their loved ones.

I watched buckets of those lockets being dumped in the local library. They were meant to be memorabilia for families, but people didn’t like being reminded of what they did. I carved their names on the collective headstone that would be erected properly at a better time. Before I was able to finish, it was my turn.

Frankly, I had been around long enough that I almost thought my wheelchair was invisible.

* * *

“…Kei?”

Aiden studied my photo for a few good seconds and found the name for my face.

“Hi, Aiden.” I tried not to scare him away.

He mumbled and stuttered, choosing his words. Then he went with the most pressing question.

“Have you seen… I mean, do you know where I can find my heart?” He bit his lip. “I need it back.”

“Sorry.” If I still had a body, he would have seen me shrug.

He threw my chain over his head and resumed digging in the pile of junk at his feet. My locket dangled and swayed. It made me nauseous.

“It’s gotta be here. Everybody is here.” He murmured.

Well, not everybody. For example, I knew the Miller’s boys dumped several loads into the swamp because it was closer than the library. But I hadn’t the heart to tell Aiden.

“What are you trying to do, kiddo?” I sighed.

“I’m gonna get my heart back.” He clenched his teeth. “I ain’t no dead meat.”

His hands froze and I could hear his hair stand up on the back of his neck. He ducked behind the hills of leather-bound dead words, until the footsteps in the hall died down.

“Look, I'm not sure a heart would make a difference.” I told him the truth. “If your time has come — ”

“ — They are not going to slaughter me like a lamb.” He sniffed loudly. “They want to eat my flesh and drink my blood? They’ll have to kill me as a person, and I’m gonna haunt those motherfuckers till the end of time!”

He picked up a hardcover and flung it over the top of everything he just dug up. Then he dropped his face into his palms and stayed there.

“Is my body still out there?” I broke the frozen air.

Silence.

“Hmm… Did I taste good, at least?”

Silence.

Then he jerked back so hard that my locket crashed into his chest.

“What if I put you inside me!?”

That’s what he said. Those words barged into my mind and knocked over a vase of emotions. Last time I heard that, Wyman was sitting next to me, laughing so loud he spat out some of the milkshake he just swallowed. Aiden was at the other end of the table, fidgeting with his cup and trying to hide his blush.

“I mean, if I crack this shell and drink you — ”

“ — I’m not sure it works that way.”

“But — ”

He swallowed the rest of the sentence as we heard the approaching footsteps.

“Come out, Aiden.”

Wyman always sounded bored when he tried to be authoritative. You would’ve thought all that sedentary lawyer job had taken the hunting instinct out of him.

Aiden closed my locket and listened to Wyman’s impatient pacing at the entrance of this reading room. Don’t make this harder than it already is. Wyman yelled.

The pacing stopped, and turned into a walk — the calm, steady walk of a predator who had his eyes on his prey. Before those echoing footsteps closed in, Aiden dashed out and kept on sprinting.

Being back into the dark reminded me of how much I dreaded it. Run, Aiden. Run to the shore. I said. Your heart is there. I heard myself lie.

So he ran. I breathed hard as if I was running with him. I breathed harder and louder, louder than the gunshots chasing us. I continued panting and grunting when Aiden slowed down as I didn’t want the running to end. I knew what was waiting at the finish line.

The embrace of eternal nothingness.

* * *

“Show me where.”

Aiden popped my locket open and held it up like a beacon. I scanned the crimson water that used to be blue. He had made it to the shore.

“Where is it!?” He fell to his knees, but thrust his arm higher. I saw drops of red on his trousers, followed by the dark, ominous stream dripping down the side of his belly. His question lingered in the air and all I had was silence, and the guilty comfort of knowing that the procedure couldn't change the colour of blood.

“I fucking knew it.” His arm dropped like a lifeless snake, and he knocked my locket on a rusty crowbar on top of the trash mountain he stood on. The collision almost split my mind and whatever physical being I had left, and I deserved that.

Aiden sighed and put the necklace back on. I was grateful that he left the locket open and turned it to face the water. He tried to sit more comfortably but every tiny movement brought out a muffled groan. The bullet must have lodged in a bad place.

“I remember Wyman brought me here and taught me swimming.” He said. “They say you won’t remember a thing once you are prepped. That’s bullshit. I remember everything. They just don’t care.”

I listened. For a moment, I felt I had a body again. I could feel the slaps of wind across my face, and smell the pungent odour of ruins.

“Better off this way, I guess.” He chuckled. “Better off this way.”

Do it, kiddo.

I said, as I stared at the faint crack on the surface of my ampoule.

Eat me, drink me, whatever you need to make it happen. So I may die decent and you may die human.

* * *

One good smash, and I’m out.

I float for a moment. Maybe I will keep ascending like this and diffuse into the atmosphere.

I look down and see Aiden’s inviting arms. His smile is shy yet eager. That’s the kid Wyman and I brought to diners and set up with girls.

I plunge into his embrace. The resistance comes in waves. I feel I have grown more limbs than I ever had and I grab onto any tissue that stops me from drifting away. I swim to the deepest core inside Aiden’s body. A rhythm rises up from the bottom of that warm darkness.

Thump. Thump.

A heartbeat.

“Oh no, you’re not.” Wyman cocks the gun from behind and empties the chamber without any hesitation. He keeps on pulling the trigger over and over, ignoring the monotonous clicks of a useless weapon. Why do you have to do this? He cries. Look what you made me do!

Aiden falls forward. I use my last strength to keep the heartbeat pumping.

Thump. Thump.

Thump.

Eventually, it’s time to let go. The rhythm slows down and silence takes over.

A few seconds. A dignified death takes no more than a few seconds.

I reach out a hand and find the touch from a kid who was also afraid of this emptiness.

Better off this way. We chuckle.