Labyrinth: A Jeremiah Valeska Story *COMPLETED*

Chapter 59: The Unimaginable

I scrambled to the edge as I watched him fall into the pool of bubbling chemicals below us. The fumes from the toxic waste burned my face as I peered over, screaming as I watched my husband plummet to his death. His hand was outstretched towards me as he disappeared into the cream-colored boiling liquid. "No, no, no, no!" I kept repeating, my body becoming hysterical as grief wracked through me. I was trembling so hard it felt numbing and my sobs came out as screams that ripped through the sound of bubbling and fizzing. I stared at the tub of chemicals, praying that he would resurface but he never did. "There's no way he could have survived that, Lilith. Your precious Jeremiah is dead!" Ecco gloated behind me and I turned to look at her and I saw the relief apparent in her face. She had just taken away the only person I had ever loved, the only person I could trust in all of Gotham. Jeremiah was dead, and Ecco had killed him. It was of a cord within me was cut, a switch that was turned off or perhaps on. I looked to my right to see my gun on the ground, Barbra had made the mistake of kicking it on this side of the room. Within five seconds I grabbed my gun from the floor, stood and I fired shot after shot into Ecco's chest. She looked shocked, her own gun in her hand but not in a position to fire. The shots started as red dots in her abdomen, but they quickly spread until they saturated her shirt. I watched as she fell to the floor slowly, groaning at the pain of her wounds. I walked up to her, desperately trying to control my sobs. She was breathing shallowly, her body beginning to shut down. I pointed my gun at the center of her face, my eyes meeting hers. I glared into the eyes of my husband's killer and I fired one last shot, her body stilling and her blood splattering all over me. I felt nothing, I was a hollow shell. It was as if my heart was ripped from my chest and I was just a corpse left to endure this life without a heart. Barbra had long disappeared, her duty having been fulfilled. I let the gun slip out from my hands as I returned back to the edge of the floor, my legs feeling weighted as I no longer had a reason to move. I looked down to the pool of chemicals, remembering this morning. How he had worried and how I loved him, and how he loved me. It was just the night before that we had professed our love to one another again and again. It all seemed so distant now, my husband was gone. Jeremiah was gone. I would never see my dear husband again, and in that moment I decided that I didn't want to live without him. I felt tears stream down my cheeks as I closed my eyes and prepared to join my husband in his toxic grave. I stepped one foot over the edge, ready for the fall and sweet release of death but I was stopped as something wrapped around my torso and yanked me from the railing. My eyes shot open and I fought as greenery surrounded me and strapped my hands to my sides, forcing me to stand up. Ivy then ran into the room, having sent the plants to save me. She quickly assessed the situation, seeing that Jeremiah was absent and Ecco was mutilated on the floor. She took a deep breath as she approached me cautiously. "Hey, it's okay... It's going to be okay Lilly." She tried to console me but I was in an irreversible state. I shook my head again continuously. "Nothing is okay!! She... K-killed J-... He's go-..." I couldn't even bring myself to say it I was so overcome with emotion. I kept fighting my plant restraints, desperate to jump after Jeremiah. As I sat still, the reality of all that had happened began to sink in. I watched my husband fall to his death and then I killed someone. The weight of those two events was like cement on my chest, and I wished it would crush me so that I didn't have to live with the pain. I began hyper ventilating, my head pounding and my chest feeling as if it were being split apart. It all hurt too much, it felt as if I were being killed slowly, tortured by my own grief. "Let me die! Please just let me die! I don't want to live without him!" I begged her, unable to see anymore because my own tears were blaring my vision. "I'm really sorry for this Lilly..." Ivy said as a plant grew beside me, a flower sprouting and then spraying some sort of fragrance on me. I began to feel drowsy, my body becoming heavy. My eyelids fell shut, my lips moving as long as they could, repeating three simple words before sleep overtook me. "Let me die."