Page 116 of We Were Eternal Once

“Why?” I ask, my voice a whisper.

“You know why,” you say.

“I don’t want to live,” I manage.

“I don’t care,” you say.

When I am strong enough to stand, I try to run away. I try to run into the sun, to let it burn me through. You’re too smart for me, you’ve barred the doors somehow. I am too weak to break them down. I crumple against them, raging.

“I will let you go once I know you will not try to kill yourself again,” you say. “I spent too long searching for you to watch you die.”

You bring me humans and I drain them against my will because I am so hungry. Now that I am revived, I am consumed by the need to feed, to replenish my dead body. I am feral with my need for blood, cracking the marrow of the bones to suck what I can get from it.

“Where is she?” I ask.

“Who?”

“The woman in the sitting room,” I hiss. “The one you called your heart.”

“Ah.” You tap your fingers on the ground. “I made a mistake.”

I scoff and look away. It wasn’t just you that drove me underground though. That would give you too much credit, admit how weak I truly was. It was the loss of Zora, the realization that I could never have a friend.

You were not enough, and it burned me worse than the sun.

“I thought I could fix your problem. You were miserable, so I thought I could create another to satisfy you. It was a rash decision,” you admit.

“Satisfy me? Fix my problem?” I hate these words and I bare my teeth at you.

“You wanted a friend. I tried to find you one.”

“You think I am stupid.”

“I do not.”

“You must, to think I would fall for this. That I would believe that the woman you called your heart in our sitting room was there to be my friend.”

“I made a mistake,” you say again. It is the second time I’ve ever heard you say it, and it is in the same night. I should revel in it, instead I feel nothing.

When I am strong enough, we leave. You’ve washed and dressed me while I sleep. I don’t recognize the clothing, the material strange on my skin.

The new world is foreign and loud. Cars, trains, television, telephones. It barrels past me while you explain. “You can go anywhere now. Anywhere you desire, all you need to do is get on an aeroplane or ride a train. There are still wars to worry after, but we are creatures capable of much.”

“I want to go back,” I say.

“There are many marvels built, new world powers. You’ve been gone through several wars, it is for the best. Humans are cruel.”

“Take me back.”

“You can hate me all you want,” you say as we are on a train heading east. “But you must live.”

“I’ve seen enough of the world. It is the same thing, over and over again. I grow tired of it.”

“You have seen nothing,” you say. We get off the train and take another and another and another. We journey past fields of grain, past cities. You show me television, you show me the telephone.

“You can pick this up and speak to anyone, anywhere in the world,” you tell me.

“Who do I have to speak to but you?”