Eternally Yours *Short Story*

1: October, 1865

October, 1865

 The young girl stood up from where she sat on a bench just feet away from the train tracks in the crowded station. No one took any notice of her. No one cared about that fact that she had no luggage or a ticket. She didn’t even wear a jacket, despite the brisk air on this October night in 1865. No one’s eyes followed this peculiar, pretty, young girl as she looked around to make sure no one was watching her, walking a few steps forward until she was at the edge of the tracks, as if she were boarding a train. There wasn’t a train there just yet, but one could be seen chugging closer a few hundred feet away. No one watched this girl as she made her way to the middle of the tracks           

 The train was closing in on her, coming closer and closer, and finally, someone saw Genevieve Marie Sheridan standing with her eyes closed and her arms wide as the train came closer. She gave one final cough, making no attempt to catch the blood that came up from her throat in her handkerchief. Women and men alike began to scream as more and more of them saw Genevieve standing there, waiting for death. None of them could think fast enough to try and move her out of the way of the oncoming train, which was quickly approaching her frail body.

 “Genevieve!” cried the voice of a young man.

 He was running to her as fast as he could, reaching out for her as if to seize her and keep her safe in his arms. The boy, Genevieve’s best friend, ran faster, fueled by his love for Genevieve and his want to save her from this terrible fate. He didn’t care if she saw him. He wanted to see Genevieve once more. Even if he couldn’t, he wanted to say goodbye like he hadn’t been able to before he had gone off to fight in the Civil War…where he had died of 7 shots to the chest. Genevieve heard him call her name but simply believed him to be calling to her from beyond the grave.

 “I’m coming, Isaac…I’ll be with you soon,” she said, as the train hit her with its full force.

 “Genevieve!” Isaac Foster screamed, as her lifeless body flew back.

  He stopped in his tracks so fast that he nearly fell over. His eyes widened and filled with tears as he felt his unbeating heart freeze over and break in his chest. He stood, unmoving where he was, seemingly frozen to the spot, as the crowd pushed against him in a mad scramble to surround Genevieve’s body. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t do anything.

 Suddenly, he found his feet moving quickly away from where Genevieve lay, surrounded by terrified people. He couldn’t find the strength within him to try and reach Genevieve. He wouldn’t be able to handle seeing her like that and he didn’t want to risk someone recognizing him.

 Isaac ran as fast as he could, knowing he’d be mourning Genevieve’s death for all time. He knew she’d have to die eventually, especially being as sick as she was, but he had really been hoping that her death wouldn’t be for a few more years, or even decades, if he was lucky. He hated himself for leaving when he knew she was sick. He couldn’t help but think, as he ran, of the horrible day when time stopped.

 He was just another Union solider. He wasn’t anything special. He wasn’t the fastest or the strongest or the bravest solider. He had been drafted towards the end of the war. To be totally honest, Isaac had been expecting to die in the war. He had expected to never see his family or his best friend Genevieve ever again once he left. He wasn’t shocked at all when he was shot repeatedly in the chest.

 What did shock him was when he woke up. His eyes snapped open, burning in the sudden sunlight and watering at the smell of the decaying bodies of the fallen soldiers around him. He sat up, his back aching, taking in the wasteland that was this deserted battle field where he sat. He had been expecting to die. He had not been expecting to wake up just in time to watch several bullets fall out of his chest and on to the ground as the wounds they’d opened closed up behind them. His eyes widened. He waited for his heart beat to quicken in fear, but it didn’t. He reached for his pulse--only to find that he didn’t have one.  

 Isaac couldn’t think straight. He must be asleep, or back at home and this was just some horrible nightmare, or maybe this was Heaven. No…not Heaven. If he was in Heaven, he wouldn’t be surrounded by the dead bodies of his brothers in arms. And if this were a dream, he’d definitely have woken up by now.

 Before he knew what he was doing, Isaac had raised his gun so any bullets he fired would go straight into his temple. He closed his eyes. He knew he couldn’t go home. His fellow soldiers had seen him get shot. If he just walked home, what would happen? He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want Genevieve and his family to think him some sort of hell spawn abomination, or how else would he still be some kind of alive right now?

 He said a silent goodbye to Genevieve, to his parents. Then he fired. And when that didn’t work, he stood, catching the bullet from his head as it fell. He looked around at the bodies of the fallen. Why had they died and not him? Why did his body refuse to fall?

 ”I vow,” he said aloud, his voice hoarse, “to discover what’s done this to me. As God’s my witness and on the name of Genevieve Sheridan, I will not rest until I find the cause of this personal Hell.”

 And here he stood, a little more than a year later, looking no older than he had before. The war was over. Genevieve, his best friend, the girl he’d been in love with his whole life, was dead. She was gone. She had really died, unlike him. He couldn’t bare it.

 One day later, Genevieve Marie Sheridan found herself, pushed only by instinct, running through the field behind her house, hearing the screams of her parents as they realized that her body longer lay in the room where she had been just a few short moments before.

 She wanted to cry for them, to be scared, as she ran, but her entire body felt empty. There was nothing in her wide brown eyes where fear should be. Genevieve Sheridan was alive in the most brutal sense of the word. She wanted to be scared. She wanted to feel something, as she ran away from her family, who she knew would be repulsed and frightened if they saw her alive after the accident. She wanted to feel her heart racing, but instead it felt like her heart wasn’t even there anymore. Maybe she had been dead too long for her emotions to be salvaged. She stopped running, wanting to fall down and sob for the life she had lost, but all she did was sit and stare at the ground.

 “I’m sorry, Isaac,” she said aloud, “I’m so sorry.” She was silent for a while, arguing with herself, and then spoke again.

 “I’m going to try and live, Isaac…I’m going to live for you.”

 It would be nearly 40 years until Genevieve and Isaac would see each other again.