Page 80

Registering what’s happening, or what’s about to happen, Harlan becomes visibly angry. “You fucking bitch!” He spits out.

“Ssh.” My lips pout. “Don’t talk dirty to me. I like it. Don’t worry, I’ll meet up with you soon enough. You had your time in limbo. It’s my time to shine.Alone.” I continue to recite the words as I pry Harlan's tense jaw open. The look of betrayal dances throughout his irises as the coin for passage nears his tongue. “Summoning you was my apology. Saying goodbye is my gift. See you soon, brother.” It’s true, I gathered what was left of him with the intention of experiencing the punishment I deserved for being the catalyst for his downfall. It was my guilt that drove me back to that house, but it’s the freedom and peace that death has given me that has me greedy for more.

I watch his soul leave the room. Just as the voices told me to that night at Heathen’s Cross, when they urged me to let him sail. His passage is now complete, while mine is now beginning. Just how I wrote it to be.

The hooded figure disappears. His debt paid and now thebathroom is full of Heathen’s Cross members, surrounding me in their cloaks. Fellow fallen souls that refuse to give into the idea of submitting one’s will, even in death, to seek refuge in another realm.

“Now, my initiation is complete.” I say out loud, before reciting the end of the excerpt to myself in silence.

“You’re wrong,” I spit. “Tell el Barquero, there’s no escaping me.”

I meant it when I said that I’d rather be cursed, or haunted, over being saved. Except now, I can do the haunting becauseIchoose my fate.

“True horror is given life through the lies we tell to protect ourselves and it lives on through the tragedies that not only define us… but own us.” — Araceli Suárez.In Flames We Thrive.New York: Charon Press, 2024.

THE END.