The Rapture

EIGHTEEN

PEARL

A flow of wind rushed around me like a river. I worried it would pick me up and send me hurtling toward the scene in front of me, but it didn't. Instead, the scenery shifted yet again.

I returned to my actual body, staring up at an undulating mass of black. My heart took off like a freight train in my chest. Was it possible for somebody so young to have a heart attack?

My eyes stung as I swallowed bile. Dumuzi no longer held me, and tears streamed down my cheeks. My breath came out shaky, and a cold bloom of sweat beaded on my forehead.

"That was. So. Horrible."

Then everything hit me at once, and I wailed.

I fell to my knees as the walls of ink receded until they were nothing. Coming out of the memory safe was a jolt to the senses. Everything was too much; the light, my pulse thrumming through my veins, and the tears that wet my eyelashes.

The floor was like a sheet of ice under my knees, but I was on fire. My words came out like thrown daggers. "So that is it, huh? Earth was your damn petri dish, and the second you realized—oops, we made yet another intelligent species, you bolted. Am I getting that right?"

He said nothing. It took a lot of effort to stand on two legs. They were numb as I stood, my back turned to him. I didn't want to look at him right now. I was infuriated, hurt, and feeling insignificant and fragile because I just watched her fucking die right in front of me.

Not to mention that they did not create us for a purpose. We had no fucking purpose.

That stung, too.

"They killed that girl," I continued. "They just killed her. Did you hear what she said? She thanked them for the rain. She knew you guys created her."

Yeah, so, he was right about this upsetting me. This truth made me angry. He had warned me about this—but this was not what I expected. A metallic flavor flooded my mouth.

His silence was only adding fuel to my flames.

"And yet you think you all have a say in the fate of our world? It's clear your kind makes mistakes, too, and that was a big fucking mistake. You all took responsibility for everything else except for us."

I faced him because I had to now. I needed to know how he felt about this. Did he share my outrage?

His eyes were like two purple oceans in the middle of a storm. Good. He should be upset. I trudged up to him, about to yell at him to explain, but he grabbed my wrist before I could get close enough. His favorite things to grab onto were my wrists, it seemed.

I gnashed my teeth, trying to free myself from his grasp. I knew I was probably being a bit too overemotional, but that was just how I was. "All of you are just as lousy as we are! Let go of me. You all are murderers!"

"Pearl—"

No. "No, let me talk—"

"You can talk all you want, Pearl, but what you saw was the right decision. If she had been sent back into her population, all of your ancestors would have been wiped out if they contracted her illness. It is likely that she would have died miserably and alone, shunned by her community."

I bit my tongue, literally and metaphorically. I inhaled through my nose, the sound like a thousand flies coming to eat my stomach stuffed with disgust.

He let me go, and I took a step away from him. "She never should have had one in the first place."

"This... we can agree on. We did not keep... track of your kind the way we should have. In order to save hundreds of other civilizations we created, we were desperate for a cure. Your world was utilized for observation in order to make new scientific advancements. But the very moment we realized... we—"