A Breath of Solace
Date: 01.07.2007
Keywords: of, Breath, A, Solace,
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Conscience can sometimes act as a fair weathered friend basking in the days of benevolence and luck only to vanish in light of the truly difficult decisions. The only thing that can be counted on with absolute certainty is that it will come back and it rarely likes what it finds has taken place in its absence. That's when the nagging at the back of the throat begins and the true torture of personal accountability settles in.
Idleness brings thoughts unbidden to mind. That's when conscience goes to work at the ragged edges of actions past. Hindsight can benefit one as they avoid making a mistake a second time or it can cause one to dwell on all the things which cannot be taken back. In a word: guilt.
Anne woke the next evening on an empty bed. Mia's body was gone. Only a stain of blood on shoddy sheets told that she ever existed outside of a wild dream. She was immediately aware that Sasha was not in the house. That fact filled her stomach with fear. If he abandoned her, she would be completely lost... or worse.
A small consolation came from the fact that Anne was still alive. Had anyone discovered them during the day, she never would have woken up. There was a new sense about the place however; a sense of tension and anxiety. Surely if they found a body it would've been fear. As she rose naked from the bed, she determined to find out what had happened.
Mia's clothes weren't a good fit but wrapping a cloak about her frame did much to hide the awkward hang of the bodice and the fact that the skirt was entirely too short, showing Anne's shins to the knees.
Outside she could hear people talking in the street, speaking in hushed voices. Despite the wall and distance, Anne picked up every syllable as if she were standing right between them. Her ears seemed warm as if she were exerting some unconscious effort in order to project her senses beyond what she considered 'normal'.
"When will they know for sure?" A young man asked the question and she realized she was dab in the middle of their conversation.
"When the wreckage is sorted I'd suspect," An older voice replied, raspy from breathing salt air for at least two dozen years. He had the sort of confidence one would only acquire with age. Youthful swagger always held a contrived tone; a result of the extra boost that had to be put into every word to make it believable and to qualify the speaker. Such things were not easy to hear. "Half the bodies aren't rightly easy to identify what with the sea's hands taking so much out of their skins."
"I won't sleep right for a month after that, I won't!" The younger one added some color to their topic and Anne frowned at the visual they were painting. "You think there's truth to what the priest is saying about them?"
"I'd sooner believe a sea monster came up from the depths for a taste of liver before God striking them down for their sins," The spit loudly to accent his disdain. "They were sea going men with no more or less sins than the rest of us. No one's going to admit to that nonsense."
The voices died off as they disappeared down the street. Anne leaned against the door with a long sigh. None of these people knew her. Prowling the streets would only lead to problems, especially with a catastrophe having just occurred. They would be looking for any reason to blame for what happened.
She returned to the bedroom and sat on the floor in the corner. Her mind raced through the labyrinth that was the last few days that turned every time she arrived at what would've been a moral dilemma when she was alive. For one part, she felt free and excited for what was ahead. For another she couldn't shake a feeling of guilt. Had she become something contrary to what she believed was good? Then again, what really was the definition of good? How could anyone know for sure?
When Anne had met the boy on the steps of his own home, something within her said that she was doing right; that the gift she could grant would set free his fears. Now that her desires were totally satiated she was able to think more clearly. What they had done to Mia was unthinkable. How could her new instincts be so callous? Doing wrong is one thing but she felt that the true definition of evil was justifying wickedness as benevolence.
The first few moments of her new existence and the final few seconds of her old life's ending brought a rush of excitement. She would finally show the world who she really was and all that she was made of. What she didn't realize was that the creature was talking then; the beast that was stretching into place. It had spent a time awake in her body but now was asleep and she was back in full control of her faculties. Life was not vengeance against the world. Life was suffering and when a person couldn't weather anymore, that person died. She should have died.
Why did her soul cling to her physical form when Mia and her other victim both died? What made her special or different? These questions plagued her and she knew that Sasha would not satisfy them anytime soon. He planned to dole out information in carefully measured parcels and she might never learn the full truth.
Anne's first look at the world opened her eyes. Peering down on the town with the gaze of a monster didn't offer her much of a perspective at the time but in retrospect, she realized she had the opportunity to indulge curiosity on her own terms. It may be fatal to try alone but that was the way of all birds that departed the nest: the natural order of living or dying according to one's wiles.
Anne gasped in a breath as the front door opened. It was Sasha returned from whatever errand he had been on. He walked in with a couple of boxes under his arms and set them on the bed carefully. His eyes took her in curiously before he sat down.
"What are you doing down there?" His voice was the same silk seduction that had won her trust in her room. It had the opposite effect now, making her cringe internally. She wanted to be further away from him but couldn't back further into the corner.
"I'm just thinking." The words came out all at once and she bit her lip from speaking any more.
"Is that a good thing?" Sasha asked. "I find that idle thinking tends to be quite the bane really. Empty thoughts contrive problems that never existed before. Fixation can be terribly unhealthy."
"Or they are problems otherwise ignored until we have a moment to explore them," Anne dared a glance up at him, half expecting to see a devil complete with horns and red skin. It was just Sasha; dark skinned, black hair brushed back away from his eyes. He smiled at her as she spoke. "When we can see how uncertain everything in life really is."
"That's the one universal truth concerning life, dearest." Sasha spoke soft and kind. "Everything is uncertain. We trudge through existence in a vain attempt to make ourselves happy and sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes we fail."
"But we're not alive, are we?" Anne let out a slow, shuddering sigh and brushed back a lock of hair from here eyes. "We prey on life and find self satisfaction—not happiness in suffering."
"Do you think Mia suffered in her rapture?" Sasha asked. "Do you believe that we reveled in her death or in her total embrace of actual life? That was the most she would have ever felt—her truest form of being human. We unlocked that. We put her in touch with what it means to be alive."
"She said 'help', Sasha." Anne clenched her fists tightly. She was feeling so helpless at that moment that the action gave her a defensive quality; a means to feel powerful even if it was a fleeting illusion. "She didn't want to die. What we gave her; thirty seconds of pure joy cannot overcome an eternity of oblivion."
"But apparently you believe that death is preferable to a life of misery and loneliness." Sasha shrugged his shoulders, still smiling which was a maddening expression when trying to argue. "That's the point I found you teetering on. You stared into the abyss and decided it was more welcoming than the life you led. You didn't think about all the things you could do. You only thought about the things you couldn't do."
"I made that choice for myself," Anne was finding some personal strength, the ability to speak for herself against him. It was an alien sort of confidence but she embraced it wholeheartedly. She had no idea when it might leave her. "No one came along and decided that I needed to kill myself for me. You and I made a choice for Mia she might never have made given a chance."
"Perhaps. Perhaps I justify. As a predator with more than instincts guiding my path, I have more to answer to than simply my appetite." Sasha moved over to sit beside her. "You are changed in many ways but you still have a conscience. No creature that 'thinks' can escape that possession—they can learn to silence it but it's always there. Without discipline, even the most hardened killer will one day have to answer for what they've done."
"Is that what you've done?" Anne couldn't hide her irritation. "Learn to silence your conscience?"
"That lesson comes in time, Anne." Sasha looked down at his feet. "We can't cover everything all at once."
"Why not?" Anne stood from the floor, glaring down at him. "Because you want to keep me under your thumb longer? You want my dependency?"
"What I've given you is a gift, Anne." Sasha kept his voice patient and understanding but beneath the surface she could detect a growing irritation of his own. "Such an offering cannot be explored or fully appreciated in a few evenings. Please, give yourself some time."
"I see." Anne nodded slowly, unsure where to go from there. A myriad of insulting things popped into her mind but none of them were worthy of her feelings. "Where are we going?"
"On a ship." Sasha replied smoothly.
"To where?"
"Paris."
"Why there?"
"Because it's a safe place for us... for our kind." Sasha gestured to the boxes on the bed. "You should take that in the other room. I drew some water for you to clean up and those clothes are brand new.
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Keywords: of, Breath, A, Solace,
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