The Ripper

Goodbye

The longer Erik sat outside the guard house, the harder it became to will himself to walk inside. A few weeks ago, it had been him inside the cell. Now, it was Jean. The guards had finished interrogating Jean for the night, and Erik was free to go inside to talk to him. Yet, for some reason, Erik remained stuck. He knew he had to talk to Jean. He had to, but Erik couldn't will his body to move.

Night had fallen over the city. A faint mist hung low to the ground while a cozy, yellow light lit the street from the lampposts.

Erik buried his head in his knees and tried to steady his breaths. He knew why he couldn't go in.

Jean was to be executed the next day.

Just the thought of his friend being led to the guillotine turned Erik's breathing erratic. This entire situation was so wrong. Erik shouldn't have been crying over a murderer's death. He shouldn't have been the one to lead his friend to his execution. Everything, everything was nightmarish, and Erik couldn't wake up.

Erik's father stepped outside. "Jean wants to talk to you."

Erik looked up and wiped the tears from his eyes. "What?"

"He wants to talk to you. It's his last wish before he's executed," Erik's father replied. "Erik, you don't have to talk to him if you don't want to."

Erik stared at his father for a few moments while he processed those words. Jean's last wish was to talk to someone who betrayed him?

"Okay," Erik said.

Slowly, slowly, Erik opened the door and walked inside. Each step he took towards Jean's cell seemed to echo through the room. Once Erik got closer to Jean's cell, the two locked eyes. Jean looked awful. The side of his face was bright red, as if someone had hit him.

"I'll be in the front if you need me," Rein said and left the two boys alone.

Jean looked at Erik. Erik looked at Jean.

"Why did you do it?" Erik asked.

"You already know," Jean answered. "I've said it before. There's so much corruption in Meryl . . . so much evil. So I became a Reaper. The Ripper."

Erik took a step closer to the cell. "You became part of that evil, you know. So much fear. You're better than this!"

"I'm really not," Jean murmured.

Erik stepped forward again and grabbed the cell bars. "How could you do this? How?"

Jean just shook his head. "I've already accepted my punishment. I deserve it. But Erik, I wanted to ask one thing. Will you help my family forget about me?"

Erik, without answering, stared at Jean.

"I'm willing to go to my death without a fight," Jean said, "but I don't want my family to hurt over it. They don't know. It'd be better for them to forget I even existed."

"You're asking the impossible."

"It's not impossible with that knife," Jean said. "You just think of the memory you want to erase. In this case, me."

It was silent for a moment as Erik thought about Jean's request. Jean wasn't well-known in Meryl. He didn't have a big presence. If Jean's family were to forget about him, Erik and his family would be the only ones to remember. No, it would be just Erik who remembered. Chris was too little. His parents would forget.

Only Erik would remember.

Still, Erik could see Jean's logic. It would break his father's and little Sera's hearts to learn that Jean was The Ripper.

"I'll think about it," Erik said.

"You're a good person, Erik," Jean said. "Unlike me."

"Jean . . ."

"I have another request," Jean continued. "You have to keep the knife. Don't hand it over."

"What?"

"Don't trust the guards with it," Jean said. "You've seen how they are. They can't be trusted."

Erik knew that all too well, from the guard who had an affair with Jean's mother to the guard taking advantage of the girls at the brothel. Even Rein, who used his authority to release Erik after he had been arrested.

"That I can do," Erik said.

Erik leaned against the cell bars. Even now, after Erik had been the one to capture, to betray him, Jean was still treating Erik as his friend. The cool metal soothed Erik's fever. Jean would die tomorrow for his crimes as The Ripper.

"Do you regret it?" Erik asked.

"I'm not sure," Jean said.

Erik closed his eyes and forced himself not to cry. Jean, his friend, had broken a long time ago without Erik even noticing. Whatever drove Jean to become The Ripper changed Jean beyond repair. This wasn't Jean.

Jean was The Ripper, but The Ripper wasn't Jean.

"Thank you for being my friend all these years," Jean said. "You've been a better person than you could ever know."

Erik locked eyes with Jean.

"Goodbye, Erik."

"Goodbye, Jean."

.........

After standing in the sun all morning, Erik's face had heated up and probably burned. He had woken up as early as possible in order to be at the front of the crowd. Some hidden, underlying force urged him to be here today despite his father's wishes. He had to be here, where he could see everything.

Behind him, the crowd cheered and shouted for the execution.

Jean wouldn't see Erik in the crowd, but Erik felt sure Jean would know he was there to watch the end. Despite Jean's crimes, Erik couldn't let him be alone on the last day of his life.

In fact, Erik was the only person in the crowd who really knew Jean, who knew the boy being executed today. Late last night or early this morning, Erik had completed Jean's final request. It had been easy to convince Jean's father to let Erik erase his and Sera's memories. Jean's mother had been in a drunken stupor when Erik erased hers. He didn't bother asking her for permission.

Jean's father had clasped his hands in a prayer as Erik held the knife to his forehead to erase his memories. Little Sera didn't even wake up when Erik took hers.

Right now, Jean's father and Sera were probably at the bakery to prepare for the sales from the large crowd, unaware that one of their loved ones was about to be executed, let alone the fact that he existed.

Erik watched as the guards led Jean up the steps to the guillotine. They forced Jean's head and hands into the shackles. A large, burlap sack covered Jean's head, but Erik knew it was him from the clothes he wore to the burn scars on his hands. A priest read a text from the holy records to send off Jean's soul to death.

He finished reading.

The guards grabbed the trigger to the guillotine.

The blade came down with a terrific crash.

Once the deed was over, Erik didn't stick around to hear the guards' triumphant speech or the rest of the priest's sermon. He had been there that day to make sure Jean wasn't alone on his last day, not for the ceremony or the guards. As Erik walked away, he held his head high and thought one thing.

Goodbye.