[SPOILER]
Once, lying on a cot, contorted with pain, he told me to leave.
"It's not that bad," he lied.
I looked under his bandaging, where the flesh around my neat black lines of stitching was turning waxy yellow. The image kept rippling regardless of how many times I wiped my eyes.
"Yes it is," I insisted, choked.
"Calysia," he said, and gripped my arm, "I'm strong. I'll last. Don't worry."
"I ought to stay and-"
"No. You ought to help everyone else. Lizzie, go and help everyone else. I'll still be here when you're done."
I stood there, young, pale, wavering, uncertain. Listening to a lie from someone I trusted. I saw him flushed and shaking in the grasp of a deadly fever. I saw him dying. But I heard his words and, childishly, I trusted him. I turned my back, and focused on those lying sick all around me.
Murder was not hard.
Once, lying on a cot, contorted with pain, he told me to leave.
"It's not that bad," he lied.
I looked under his bandaging, where the flesh around my neat black lines of stitching was turning waxy yellow. The image kept rippling regardless of how many times I wiped my eyes.
"Yes it is," I insisted, choked.
"Calysia," he said, and gripped my arm, "I'm strong. I'll last. Don't worry."
"I ought to stay and-"
"No. You ought to help everyone else. Lizzie, go and help everyone else. I'll still be here when you're done."
I stood there, young, pale, wavering, uncertain. Listening to a lie from someone I trusted. I saw him flushed and shaking in the grasp of a deadly fever. I saw him dying. But I heard his words and, childishly, I trusted him. I turned my back, and focused on those lying sick all around me.
Murder was not hard.
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