She woke up gasping for
air. She turned her head left and right and was relieved at the sight
of her blanket, her dresser and her bookcase. Her bookcase. She was
safe inside her bedroom, but the smell of morning disturbed her—it
was midnight.
Sisi had a dream, but for
Isis, it was a nightmare. After the third voice had corrupted their
mind, Isis tried her hardest to evict the foreign being, fought to
dissuade Sisi from listening to it. It was the darkness, the essence
of eternity that opened the gap inside their psyche. It whispered
glory and greatness and godhood. Isis saw it differently. She saw
suffering.
There was no name
attributed to the third voice. They just called it The Third.
Sisi argued with herself
again, debated on the pros and cons of immortality. The big pro was
not dying. But at what price? Sisi had never considered the price,
and she had doubts after the birth of Isabel, a sacrificial child. It
was a terrible word that Sisi wanted to erase from her
vocabulary—sacrifice. Isis repeated it again and again just to
convince Sisi to stop the ritual.
And it worked. Isis took
control. The plan was this: take all the books of life and then burn
it. Isis didn't consider the possibility of harming the souls bound
to it, but it was okay. Isabel was safe since the child was not bound to any book. Isis got up from the bed, but before she could reach the
bookcase, her legs stopped.
Images flashed in her
mind. She saw herself. Her skin wrinkling and crusting and drying and
turning into dust. Her eyes bore the expression of fear, and it burst
into dust. As her skin and guts blew against the wind, her bones
remained. Then it shattered like glass.
Sisi sank to the floor and
screamed. Isis begged her to push on.
“A taste.”
The thrumming sound
returned. She turned her head towards the door that led to the living
room. The thrumming grew louder. It wanted her out of this room. It
wanted her to forget the books. Sisi struggled to stand up as if her
body weighed twice its size. When she balanced herself, she exited
the room.
The lights were off
outside. Only moonlight and the headlights from passing cars
illuminated the inside of her home. She unknowingly stepped inside
the kitchen and spotted a faint glow by the sink. Plumes of light
emanated from the glow.
As Sisi neared it, she
learned it was a steel cup containing a bright liquid. The liquid
blinded her as she stared directly at it.
“A taste.”
She grabbed the cup. It
was cool inside her palm, and it weighed as if it was made of air.
The liquid sloshed around as she drew near it to her lips. Before she
could take a sip, there were screaming and screaming, but the
thrumming noise drowned it out.
A taste. Only a taste.
No comments:
Post a Comment