This isn't real.
She watched a nephew pulling his aunt's hair. A wife stepping on her fallen husband's hands. A father shoving his daughter into the lava. The boat was too small to fit them all and no one was willing to stay behind.
This isn't real.
If it was, she would be the first they push off the boat. She remembered the jolly, odd-pitched voice of the clown, and understood.
The show couldn't go on without the performer and the audience so naturally her little ol' life had to be preserved.
The curtain raised for Act II. The metal hunk that hurt her perky butt turned into a plush leather seat and the paddle in her hands turned into a silver steering wheel. She looked up and almost laughed because everything was moving like time slowed down. The way it did in films right before a character death.
But the character that day wasn't her.
A car was about to hit some pedestrians at the junction. On a closer look, the driver looked like an older version of Nolan, a promising child Ruxin had sponsored, and the pedestrians some children she met in New Year parties.
Her eyes frosted over as a gruff, majestic voice asked:
"One side, your child.
Another, the children of your relatives.
You have naught but a vehicle.
Who do you save?"
Seconds later, Ruxin stepped on the acceleration and time seemed to return to its natural trajectory as she was thrown against the backrest and the white nylon of an airbag covered her vision. The car she T-boned, crashed into a nearby street light as both vehicles screeched to a halt.
This isn't real.
This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real.
This isn't real.
This isn't real.
Then the white pressure against her deeeeeeeeflated, drawing into itself, eventually shrinking into nothingness. The smoke, glass shards and dented metal before her had morphed into four white walls and a lone man connected to a respirator. The cold air permeated her skin and laid its clammy hands against her chest.
A voice both hoarse yet melodic—an accomplishment, no doubt—whispered softly into her ears alongside the frighteningly slow beeps of a vital sign monitor.
"The love of your life is on their deathbed. All options have been exhausted and there is no cure.
You can prolong their life for a short period using the heirloom your clan's livelihood depends on. Or, you can end their suffering.
Who do you sustain?"
The scrape of chair legs against the vinyl floor sounded exceedingly jarring as the lithe woman stood up, slender fingers reaching for the tubes of the life support machine.
COUGH!
A hacking cough suddenly exploded from the man on the hospital bed and for a moment Ruxin felt like she was still wedged between the airbag and the backrest. The patient's eyes remained closed while her dark ones kept trained on his face as she severed the machine's connection. It was gaunt and withered, but his nose had the same sharpness and his mouth still had a shadow of the curvature she was so familiar with. It was the face of her former fiancé.
The beeps plateaued.
"Is living without a heart," the melodic voice whispered to her again, "living at all?"
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"This is all because you refused to hand it over," the blonde teen had his back to me as he spat the words out, descending the carpeted steps.
"Lucero, stop!" Breath shuddering from the mana stirring erratically within me, I swallowed with difficulty and trailed behind him, "you don't understand."
My precious child. I hated not having the ability to give him the world in a box tied with satin ribbons, but some actions had a price and this was one I couldn't pay in his stead.
Lucero scoffed, his mockery pronounced, "'Fraid not. IT'S YOU WHO DON'T!" He gritted his teeth hard enough that they creaked and whispered quietly enough that I wondered if he didn't want the following to be heard. Purebloods had stronger senses than halves and from time to time that seemed to slip his mind. "... This is the only way to prolong her lifespan without turning her."
I started, but not for long. It was a matter of course. His semi. The half he would give anything to please and everything to have. How could I not know? I had a semi that completed my ring too. And he, Lucero, was our fruit.
I would never let him destroy himself.
He seemed to notice I would not give up the pursuit for he turned back abruptly. "Look, it accepted me," his eyes gleamed with a childlike wonder they had when he first watched a three-pointer enter the hoop. A blue light floated out from his open palm, pulsating with his every heartbeat. "It wants me to use it too."
As the last word fell, a ceiling-high wall of flames burst into being. I almost collided into them, had an impact not hit my side. Perhaps under different circumstances I'd be proud of his feat, but at the time all I wanted was for him to stop using the Rheinhart.
Sparks flew when the newcomer's spectacles fell from the tackle and was swallowed by the flames. Nouha ignored her singed, midnight blue hair and chastised, "How dare you, to your own mother!" Years of honed decorum slipped away when she pointed at Lucero and a venom I didn't realise the composed lass was capable of laced her words.
The boy didn't grace Nouha's outburst with a response. He stepped away
from the flames,
from us,
from me,
to the double-leafed doors.
"Don't!" I leapt towards the flames but Nouha pulled me back.
The door creaked open.
"I... don't have a mother like you."
The column of light from the open door diminished as it shut silently.
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YOU ARE READING
The Placeholder (World Hopping)
Adventure"You heartless bitch!" "Tut tut. Language, my dear. Better heartless than hurt like you, don't you think?" Ruxin thought she would live to the maximum lifespan but who knew a moment of thrill seeking would result in her demise? But the dice of fate...
