Human Spines

Jumping into the Fog-II

Emmeline

        "I feel like I've just killed someone."

        "No you don't, you feel like you've just beaten someone so nearly to death that the guilt of letting them suffer in so much pain is masking any feeling of relief you could have to be rid of the person. I know the difference quite well." Dumaine clears.

        I can't bring myself to smile at him. I can't bring my mind off of Father's face. I can't get this guilty ache out of my head. "How do you get rid of this feeling?"

        "Honestly, I'd just go back and kill him, but I don't think that would be the right thing to do here." He scrapes his hair off his face. Hans put mine in a braid this morning.

        "We're almost there, should be just ahead," The old man informs.

        "Make me feel better," I exhale to both of them. I want to dive in a pool of ice water. To freeze this guilt melting my insides.

        "'If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good...' wait, no, don't apply that to this situation, murder is not good. Ummm..." Hans thinks. "'Everything stinks until it's finished.'"

        "That's not how I see things, is it blue eyes?"

        I know this voice. The Sibling is walking beside me, toes dragging across the sand, brittle hair packed with dirt and dead plant stems. She smells like burning flesh. "Is no one going to congratulate my sneaking up on you? C'mon, not even Sir Sees-a-lot noticed me! Amistifer couldn't do that!"

        "Go away." I don't want to have to ask Osinsius for help again.

        "No, no, no, you don't understand. I actually have something to inform you of. You see, you're going to have to remember some things. That's why I put that string around your finger, baby blue. Remember."

        "Remember what?" Dumaine's going cross-eyed trying to focus on her.

        "You already forgot? That's a shame. Why can't you remember? It's not that hard. Just think back. Why couldn't you remember your accordion—"

        "I am not falling for this. I know what you did to Maddy Jefferson, and I am not going to let it happen to me." He pushes back, trying to walk faster.

        "Oh, but you see, the thing is, you don't get a choice. I get the choice. I'm going to drive you slowly—"

        "Just shut up!" Dumaine is tired of her. At first I see his muscles tense as if he's going to attack, but he quickly changes solutions. He digs his harmonica out of his pocket, and blasts out the same song that had gotten rid of the Demons before.

        Smart move. She's almost as fast as me as she runs away.

        "That isn't good." Hans doesn't smile. "She's headed to our destination. She's jumping into the pit."

        "The Reaper-Mother isn't going to save her from anything. She won't help her." I point out.

        "Are you sure?"

        I nod. "The Reaper-Mother never helps the Demons."

        "I do hope, at least in this case, she continues being such a harsh mother. At least until we speak to her." Hans squints into the distance.

        "How's that supposed to go anyway? Talking to her." Dumaine returns the harmonica to his pocket.

        "It depends."