A short fiction from my dA page.  Read it here or find it at:

http://paranoidalchemist.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2pz0lf

————————-

I told him not to.

I told him.

I told Tom not to go after that… thing.  Not yet, at least.  He’d die if he tried.  Even if he didn’t, he’d wish he had.  But no.  It killed his Claire.  He couldn’t wait.  Now I’m stuck here, in this hotel room, and I have to deal with T— well, what’s left of Tom.

He’s right across from me, sitting in that ugly chair.  The gaping hole in his chest doesn’t bother him.  It apparently didn’t bother anyone in the lobby, either.  That just speaks to what the Thing is capable of.

The hole is empty.  A sick sense of poetry— it took Claire from him, the girl he’d often referred to as his heart.  So, on second meeting, it took his literal heart.

Tom is somewhere else.  His eyes focus on a spot on the floor by his feet.  I clear my throat, and his eyes snap back to the here and the now, to me.

“So what are you gonna do?” I ask him, gesturing to the pistol he’s had resting on his lap, pointing at me for the last twenty minutes or so.  ”Kill me, it lets you live, right?”

He shakes his head.  ”Other way around,” he says.  ”You can’t imagine how… cold I feel right now.  Vacant.  Tired.  I kill… you, it lets me die.”

His speech is halting; like he hasn’t the lung capacity to speak properly anymore.  He probably doesn’t.

“So why are we still talking?” I say.

“I’m… thinking.  Thinking I’d rather let you… go.  It’s not your fault; you… told me this would happen.”

“In so many words, yes.”

“Just… promise me…”

“Yes?”

“Promise me you’ll… find a way to kill it.  And… me.  A way to kill… me.”

My heart would be breaking if it hadn’t already broken into so many pieces watching that Thing take Claire from us.  It wasn’t enough to do what it did, it had to parade her around, making her dance and twitch like a puppet.

I look Tom in the eyes.  ”I promise.”

He nods, and flashes something resembling a smile across his face.  I stand up to go, and am at the door, and open it, before he speaks.

“I’m sorry… Claire.”

The bullet hits me in the back, drives its way into my insides.  It does its damage, and breaks through my stomach before embedding itself into the far wall.  I fall to the carpeted floor.  Hard.

He must have changed his mind.  So impatient.  Always so impatient.  As the light leaves, the last thing I hear is the gun drop from Tom’s hand.

At least the three of us can be dead together.