CROSS MY HEART // dystopian romance

1. what rhymes with burden

      My name is Ivy Warden, and I shot my brother in the heart when I was seventeen years old.

I like chess, the way tar smells after rain, music from the seventies, and musicals. I always sneeze twice right after chewing gum, and I once scratched my leg onto a branch when I was tree-climbing in elementary school. It made a nasty scar. I like collecting shells, karaoke nights and greek salads.

I also killed my brother, James Warden. He squealed my name about a demi-second before I pulled the trigger. His once warm hazel eyes faded into frozen dullness, a lifeless stare that stabbed me in the chest. Then, when I could not see my brother's body anymore, they fed on him.

Now three years have passed by, and James is still dead.

I ran it over in my head, naturally. Thirteen is an awful age to die. I thought about all the things he missed in life. All the things he has yet to experience, but never will.
James' expressive hazel gaze are the first thing I see when I close my eyes. Every time I blink, even for a split second, a flash of his wheat blonde hair crosses the blackness of my mind.

I see James, and his wide careless smile. I see the classic Warden family traits in his face. The chin dimple of my father, the amber-greenish eyes of my mother, my golden hair and bunny teeth. He was the best of us. Still is.

I don't sleep much, but when I do, I dream of him. Most times, I see him in nightmares, and it's horrifying, but it's still something, anything. It's the last glimpse of him I can hold onto, apart from fading memories. Not long ago, I realized I have forgotten the sound of his voice. I am losing him. Again.

The sole comfort I find in all this, is that he is not a filthy Dead-Alive. He is not a monster, a blood-drinker, a limb-eater. He was dead long before he could become one of them.

I never thought I'd say this, but it's better that James is dead. That way, he doesn't have to survive in fear and isolation like me, and he doesn't have to turn into a soulless creature, or a broken man.

That way at least, he is safe, forever.