I think I probably deserved to die. It was my own stupidity and hubris that got me that time, but if I lived through that night, death would have found me another time. I was going to die all along. I’m glad I only realized that after it happened. I was lucky it was quick. The jaws crunched down on my ribs and collapsed my heart in a single second. Only the tentacles had time to flinch.
I don’t remember what it was like being dead. I’m pretty sure there was nothing on the other side of it. There was darkness with the occasional sound breaking through. I heard the wind roar through the darkness. When I came to, I was already in motion. It was like waking up while sleepwalking. What was most shocking to me was that I was capable of moving at all. It was like being able to walk for the first time. The tentacles moved where I wanted and did as I willed. The extra-anatomical movements before death had been nothing more than spasms in comparison; dead nerves firing off. Now they were alive and functional, incredible tools for violence. They swelled up in size all around me. The sudden expansion scared the bear back, but it was too late.
Also worth mentioning that I was not seeing through my own eyes. I’m told that my face came off somewhere along the way. It did not feel that way, but I knew I had a new range of vision that I couldn’t explain. The tentacles had become sensory, some sprouting eyes that let me see the forest on all sides. It all felt like my own body. I was not disturbed by it at all. Finally, the pain had ebbed. All I felt was an incredible appetite for violence, a sense of indignation.
It wasn’t hard to grab its wrists or to restrict its movement. It felt like old habits. It wasn’t hard to get beneath it because I had eyes already there. I was only a little surprised when I pried it open and found stuffing inside. It was nourishing enough. I curled around it and ripped it out. I rolled the carcass over onto its side and felt the curse lifting.
The adrenaline wore off very quickly after and the exhaustion hit me. I felt phantom pains in the shape of sharp teeth, along my ribs. It wasn’t disabling, but I did feel it. I pulled the tendrils back in, feeling they were now too heavy to carry. The stuffing went along with it; it tasted like cotton candy. I pulled in too fast while still in the air and ended up plummeting the last few feet. When I hit the ground, I didn’t want to get up again. They came for me anyway.
And I asked them both to go home, as a kindness to me. I remembered what I had been once and I knew where I was heading clearer than ever. I knew that I was dead. I saw the same fates laid out for them along the path, even if I could not guess the shape they would come in. I didn’t want to see them condemned the way I was now.
Maybe they thought it was cheap, because they knew deep down what every living thing know. I couldn’t save them from death. But what I knew was that a worse death awaited them at my side than any death they’d find elsewhere. I knew what waited for them. I knew about Valentine.
Or maybe they could tell I didn’t mean it when I asked for them to leave. I like to think my own selfishness is well hidden, but I know it’s not. I wanted June at my side forever. I wanted Micah, if he would have me. I didn’t want to be alone when I faced oblivion.
I’m sick to admit this. I tried to be frank about what awaited them, but I could never find the right words. I hope I gave June warning enough so that her choice was informed. But she syaw what had happened to me and must have known worse things were possible. Micah knew. But he always did what I asked.
He was good about Ezekiel. I think he actually knew more than me about that situation, but I thought I had a good grasp on it at the time. The hiatus was worrying, likely meant things were ramping up where we could not see them. However dangerous I had been before was nothing in comparison to what I had just done, what I could now do at will.
It’s nothing compared to what I can do now, either. My body was new and undisciplined; I was not remarkably skilled with it. That my infantile abilities were enough to have downed the second sword was in fact what marked me for commitment. I didn’t know what my commitment meant just yet, but I knew the world could not afford it.
I didn’t want to fight Ezekiel. He had been kind to me. I told Micah to see that that distance was never closed, which he agreed to. I kissed his cheek, certain that this would be the last time I ever saw him. He drove away.
I warned June again, a final time, before we entered the train station. She was steadfast. I couldn’t have gotten rid of her if I tried. So I slipped my arm around her waist and my fingers through her belt loop until we boarded the train. I fell asleep with my head ducked into her collarbone and the cradle broken apart.