'Til Death Do Us Part

The sun was high in the sky, and Claudette felt thirst consuming her. How long had it been since she had last drunk? A week, maybe two, she thought. Not that it mattered-- after a few days, her thirst did not change. A curious side effect of her condition, she thought. She would have searched for answers, but she was too tired. So, so tired, after all these years.

The wind swept down the street and leaves tumbled down, a maelstrom with no one left to rake them. A few skeletons sat in chairs, their bones rattling gently. Her fault, she thought. All her fault. She would make things right, though.

She felt her heart pick up speed in her chest. She would be nervous to see any of humanity again. To see him was—well, it was a different feeling entirely. She told herself not to get too excited. After all, superstitions were rampant these days. She had followed a rumor about a man invulnerable to the plague before, a miraculous healer of sorts. Instead of finding the man she was looking for, she found a man who liked to wear too much face paint and thought himself magical. She heard that he died mere weeks after she saw him, another victim of the plague. He clearly didn’t understand how real magic worked in the slightest, she thought.

Claudette stopped suddenly. She thought she heard something, some sign of life. She listened harder, her heart now beating frantically despite herself. Yes, there it was—a ghostly melody floating on the wind, reverberating from far away. She picked up her pace. Could it be? The music broke off and she felt strangely heartbroken, feeling forsaken without the evidence of another person. Then the melody started up again and she began sprinting towards it, thirst be damned. Another human, finally. Another human who did something as frivolous as play music had to be—she staunched her hope. It could be a recording, somehow playing again and again. She had no idea where electricity would be coming from after all these years, but still: plausible. It couldn’t be him. Could it?

The music grew louder and louder until she was directly outside its source. She peered in, terrified that it both would and wouldn’t be him. Inside was a full orchestra, every instrument lying on a seat except for one. A single violin was nestled deep in a man’s arms. The man himself was clearly lost in the throes of melodic passion, bobbing and swaying wildly. And the man’s appearance—Claudette found herself overcome with memories at the sight of his face. The two of them embracing at the top of the Eiffel Tower the night of its opening. Strolling without a care in the world through war-torn France, beholding the horrors of World War II as tourists. And finding the amulet, all those years ago, the air musty and yet somehow eldritch in that ancient tomb. The heart-shaped amulet that had been the crux of their lives for so long. She remembered them talking about the amulet’s origins, theorizing that it was heart-shaped because it could turn two people deep in love immortal. That was before they knew its curse, she thought. And before they had fallen out of love, to boot. She stepped into the room, her heart racing out of control. “Hello, René,” she rasped.

He stood stock still, frozen by the sound of her voice. Then his eyes lifted as he stared deeply into hers—just as he used to, she thought. He looked the same as he had all those centuries ago, crinkles around his eyes. His lips moved into an expression of shock that she knew like the back of her own hand. Better, really. She could hardy recall the back of her hand’s features at all. And then he broke into a wry smile, and she felt like she did hundreds of years ago. “Claudette,” he breathed.

Claudette couldn’t repress a smile at the sight of him. René always did know how to make her smile. “It’s been a while,” she croaked. René looked up at her sharply. “Dear god, you’re dehydrated. Here, let me get you some water.” He rushed over and poured her a tall glass of water from a sterling silver ewer. The ewer and the instruments looked incongruously resplendent in the otherwise crumbling room. “Here,” he said gently, handing the glass to her. Claudette snatched the glass from his hands, the thirst sapping her of all civility. She gulped the water down and had a lengthy coughing fit, precious water sloshing out of the glass. She knew she should not drink so quickly, but she could not think straight right now. “My goodness,” said René, a tad reproachfully. He took the glass from her and refilled it, handing it back to her. “Slow down, you’re making quite a mess of things.” Claudette nursed at the life-giving water and sighed, content. “Thank you,” she said quietly, her voice no longer raspy.

René looked askance at her, at once judging yet sympathetic. “My god,” he said, his tone somewhat imperious. “What have you been doing?” She shrugged, averting her eyes from his gaze. “Trying to find you,” she said huskily. She stared back into his eyes, a pool of ocean blue. “And I found you.”

René smiled wryly at that. “And that you did,” he said kindly, squeezing her shoulder gently. Just to feel his touch again after decades apart was like electricity on her skin. She wanted to nuzzle at his hand, to feel his warmth again, but drew back. He beamed down on her, his expression beatific. “I didn’t even know you were in America. How on Earth did you find me?”

Claudette shrugged. “Finding you was easy. Rumors about a man who couldn’t be killed. Impossible sounding, these days.” She sipped from the glass again. “I took a flight over to America during the sixties. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.” She shrugged again. “Well, halfway over, anyways.”

René looked bemused. “Ah,” he said, a look of clarity passing over his face. “Well, very sorry to your fellow passengers. No survivors, I assume?” Claudette merely shook her head. René looked utterly nonplussed at the news and walked back over to his violin. “Well, too bad.” He paused. “That’s a hell of a swim, though.”

Claudette sighed. “Yes. We were only midway across the Atlantic. The swim was…” She shook her head. “Hunger and thirst you get used to after a time. Lack of air, though…”

René shook his head ruefully. “Terrible luck, that.” He now began to play the violin again, a melody filled with life and verve. “Terrible luck seems to follow us,” Claudette murmured quietly.

René sat his violin down, a look of annoyance passing across his face. “You’re not on this again, are you? It’s like Normandy all over again. Goodness.” Claudette blinked. How could he not see the truth? “Yes, I am on this again,” Claudette uttered slowly. “You must know it too.”

René threw his hands up in exasperation. “Know what, exactly? Bad things happen over time. Humanity is undeniably flawed in this way. Yet you turn it into a pattern, all centered around you.”

“Berlin, 1945,” Claudette uttered quietly. “Bengal, 1943. Ireland, the 1840s.”

René sighed, beginning to fiddle at his violin again. “All disasters that we happened to be at. Honestly, I have no clue why you’re so fixated on this.”

Claudette sat still, quietly astonished at his reticence. “I could list places for hours. Days, even. And if you still need more proof, this.” She spread her arms wide, gesturing at the shattered world around her. “You’ve experienced the same things I have. The same trail of devastation wherever we went. And it makes sense, really.” She shook her head ruefully. “Only unceasing death can pay for eternal life, after all. Our eternal lives.”

René threw his arms in the air, clearly furious. “Fine, then. Let’s say you’re right. You’re not, of course, but let’s say that you are.” He stood, his face now ghastly in its fury, advancing towards Claudette slowly. “We are a miracle,” he hissed, jabbing himself in the chest. “Perhaps humanity must pay the price for our existence. Well, they were going to die anyways. Maybe a bit later, but death would come for them eventually. We will never die, Claudette. The sum total of tragedy that we’ve seen pales before the amount of life that we will live, just the two of us.”

Claudette snorted at this. “Only as long as the amulet exists to give us life.” She shook her head. “And for what? Long lives marked by tragedy and woe.”

“Long lives where we can do whatever we want to,” spat René. “I’ve seen the German empire rise and fall, twice. I’ve been to the London Symphony Orchestra more times than I can count. Olympics are a dime a dozen. I’ve traveled the world to sample the cuisine again and again, and on every time I return there’s something new to try.”

“I imagine that’s hard now,” Claudette uttered drily. “What with civilization being broken.”

René scoffed at this. “Perhaps civilization is broken. All the more time for me to practice other skills while it rebuilds.” He gestured widely with the violin. “There are no more orchestras, after all. But that is no matter to an immortal like me—I simply play each part until the music is perfect. And once civilization makes itself whole again, it will have transcendent music to come back to.”

“Civilization will never come back,” Claudette said flatly. “Not as long as we’re around.” Claudette hesitated. “We have to stop,” she whispered. “We need to—to make our peace with ending sometime. Or this—” She gentured around herself again. “—will happen again. And again. Until there’s nothing left but us, clinging to asteroids.”

“Then I’ll cling to asteroids!” René raged. “And some day, those asteroids will land on other planets, and I’ll explore them! It will be magnificent!”

Claudette shook her head. He was even more unhinged than she feared. “Where is the locket?” Claudette asked, softly but firmly.

René’s eyes grew wide at the mention of their animating totem. “You’ll never find the locket,” René sneered. “And the fact that you would even ask for it shows just how misguided you are.” Claudette gazed at René’s chest. A small lump lay underneath his shirt.

“Liar,” she said quietly. “You love it so much you can’t let it out of your sight.”

René tensed at this. “Don’t make me hurt you, Claudette,” he said venomously. “I’ll do it, you know.”

“I know,” Claudette whispered. Then she lunged at René, and the two collapsed on the floor, a tangle of limbs. They wrestled for a moment, René easily emerging victorious. He pinned her wrists to the ground effortlessly. “You would end our lives!” René hissed. “I should never forgive you for this. But we do have unlimited time to forgive, after all. And if we did make up—really make up—just think of the immortal children we could have…”

Claudette felt the urge to vomit at this statement, utterly repulsed. In fact… She regurgitated directly in René’s direction. He clutched at his face, cursing in French. Claudette took the opportunity to use her free hand to grasp a piece of stone, shattered from the apocalypse. With all her strength, she rammed it at the heart-shaped lump underneath René’s shirt.

When raiders later stumbled upon the bodies, they simply rifled through the clothing. They paid no attention to the woman’s hand clutching a rock, the faint scent of sick around the scene, or the heart-shaped locket lying shattered on the man’s chest.

Why would they care? After all, everyone dies somehow.