PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

By L.A. Lutara

The room reeked of disease, of decay and of the last fetid breaths of the dying. It reeked of skin ripped from muscle, of muscle shorn from bone. Sweet and sickening the smell tickled his nostrils, constricted his throat, tore at his eyes making them tear…

It smelled of flesh, this room; burnt and burning, rotten and rotting…human…

Collin hid his nose in the cleft of his arm. Smelt Sulphur on skin. Smelt infection. Smelt the ebb of his very existence. And as much as the smell terrified him, in the end, ultimately, it was preferable to the stench that clung onto and dug its knarled fingers into the throat of air around him.

The room was dim, the curtains drawn. Not a ray of sun; no, no light of any kind had pierced Collin’s retinas for as far back as his crumbling mind could remember. His eyes, however, had grown accustomed to the darkness. Had come to crave it even. They traversed the room. Four walls…a chest of drawers…beer bottles, coke bottles, medicine bottles… a king sized bed…

Collin’s eyes focused on the bed. A vicious and vampirous swarm of flies and mosquitoes were buzzing around it. Around her. Never quite touching down on the mass of rot the bed cradled but seeming to keep guard. Staking death’s territory. Warning: No Life Beyond This Point.

Sweat broke out on Collin’s forehead. The air was muggy and stale and the room was like an oven. And yet he shivered. An indefinable cold seeping into his bones. Rendering them arthritic and painful to move. Was it fear, this internal frost that gripped his limbs? No, it couldn’t be. Collin had accepted his fate, they had accepted their fate. The both of them, together. To love each other was to kill each other. If they wanted to live, one of them would have to leave…

Collin wiped his forehead with the heel of his palm. His cheeks on the shoulders of his shirt. Steeling himself, he took a step towards the bed. Then another. Then another. The buzzing of the insects seemed to pause, leaving the dense air silent. The cloud almost seeming to part before him as his knees bumped the side of the bed. Turning, Collin sat down. Reached a hand out towards Helena, or at least what had once been Helena but then thought the better of it.

She’s gone. Collin told himself. She’s gone…

And then the guilt hit.

If only he had gone. If only he had gotten up and left. Because no matter how much Helena would have cried or cursed or lashed out, it would have been better than this. Anything would have been better than this. At least she would have been alive. At least she would have been breathing. At least she still would have had a chance had happiness, even if not with him. Collin’s selfishness had killed her. His unwillingness to leave had left her a rotting hunk of meat.

A sob broke through the silence and thick tears forced themselves from the corners of Collin’s eyes. Their descent was slow leaving slug like trails down his cheeks and Collin waited a moment before he wiped them away with the finger tips of his hands. Blood. He was crying blood. One of the very last things that had happened to Helena before she had died.

Collin sighed. His ragged breath coming out a rattle. This was it. Next were the ears, then the mouth, then the nose. His body would slowly and painfully bleed itself dry using every orifice in his body to rid itself of life. His already lesioned skin would then begin to peel, falling off in slops, exposing raw muscle. And then finally, too weak and into much pain to move, his heart would seize and he would die.

Slowly, Collin lifted his legs and stretched out on the bed. Laid his head down on the pillow.

Breath in…breath out…breath in…breath out…breath in…breath out…

Making a decision Collin reached a hand behind his head and under the pillow. Carefully and deftly feeling around he pulled out a razor blade. Peered at it in the murky darkness. Helena had said that if he had to he could. That she would not resent him for it.

Breath in…breath out…breath in…breath out…

Collin raised his other hand in front of his face.

Breath in…breath out…

Then just as carefully and just as deftly as he had pulled out the razor blade from under the pillow, Collin dug the blade into the flesh of his wrist and made a deep and neat vertical incision, cleanly severing the radial artery of his right arm. Then switching the razor blade from one hand to the other, Collin made an identical slash severing his right wrist’s twin. Then, blood tripping down both arms, Collin slowly lowered them allowing them to come to rest at his sides. Looking up at the ceiling Collin took another deep breath…and waited.