Reddit: r/nosleep

PART XIV: I Can't Save Everybody

Lilian Madwhip

PART XIV: I Can't Save Everybody

My Name is Lily Madwhip and I can't save everybody.

I’m tired...

....tired of all this. I want to go home and not look back and curl up in bed. Maybe pedal over to the cemetery and see Roger and ask him if he wants to trade places for a bit. Maybe he’d like to get up, stretch his legs, and play with three crazy angels for a while. I think Felix would have a hard time dealing with Roger. Not because he’s dead, but because he always liked to argue.

Paschar’s talking to me. You cannot continue to carry three totems. Even just having two was a risk--

“Just stop.” I’ve had Paschar for years and he always told me stuff. Ever since Meredith showed up though, he’s been telling me stuff I feel like I should have been told sooner. There are others with angels for one. And some of them are crazy. And if we get close to each other, bad things can happen. Like one of us can wipe out an entire pet store. That seems like a pretty big, important thing to let someone know.

You need to know this.

I sit on Jamal’s bike and watch a tree burn. I accidentally set it on fire when I got angry earlier and just happened to be passed by an ambulance that apparently had Felix in it. There’s people running around yelling and some lady in a white shirt and grandma pants keeps running out of her house with a pitcher and throwing water on it. Grandma pants are what I call pants that billow out like a genie’s pants and are covered with flowery designs. They’re what my Nana always wore.

“Fine, what is it?”

There is an angel named Samael, also called The Seducer and The One Who Accuses. He is drawn to power and answers to none but himself. Normally Paschar drones on almost like a computer. Now he sounds afraid. Even when Roger was dangling him out a car window, he never showed fear. I guess Sammy terrifies him.

“And what-- he’s going to kill me because I have three totems?”

Worse.

There isn’t a lot I can imagine that’s worse than dying. Torture. They must be talking about torture. I know torture. I’ve been in two car wrecks recently. I saw a woman burn to death and curl up into a little ball like a pill bug. I had to sit in Mr. Longbough’s office right next to Lisa Welch. I’d still rather do those things all over again than die.

Just focus, Lily. Get the doll back to Meredith.

“But why?” I ask, “If you said she had to die, and not having Nathaniel will get her killed, then isn’t this what you want?”

The totem must be under the control of its earthly connection at the end of their life in order for it to be passed on. Oh great, that’s Dumah speaking. He sounds like someone is constantly pinching his nose shut. And he wears a monocle. And smokes a cigarette on the end of a long stick which he flicks the ashes onto people as they go by.

“What? I don’t-- what?” I hate it when Dumah speaks because he doesn’t care if I understand what he’s saying.

It’s very complicated, Paschar says, I’ll explain, just get back to the hotel. NOW.

Somebody shoves me from behind, hard. I almost fall over the handlebars of the bike. But when I look back, there’s nobody there. “Did one of you just shove me?” I don’t wait for an answer, I get the message. I hop back up on the bike seat and start pedaling in the direction of the highway that the hotel is near.