C6 Eli

She saw me.

I kicked a paper ball that was my pent-up jumbled emotions as hard as I could, knowing it wouldn’t go far. I just needed to move my muscles. They were so tense they were getting sore. I stared at the paper on the desk, ran my hands through my hair, then paced the floor. Repeat. I have written too many letters to count, none capturing what I need. None of them would show Luka how desperately I need Amelia Rose. None of them would push Luka to my side of the family line of division, or at least help him empathize with my perspective on this second chance at life. He wouldn’t understand.

What do I say? Luka has always been a more reasonable person than me. He always led me toward calculated idiocy. Although the idiocy was usually my fault, he was always there to help me sort through it. We simply shared very different opinions on our curse. Mainly, that I saw it as a curse; he saw it as a gift, as did the rest of my family. But I was writing the letters, anyway. Writing them and throwing them around the room. I kicked two or three as I walked back to my desk. I shook out my tense muscles and sat back down to write again, feeling poetic.

Luka,

I’ve drained so many beautiful women. Beautiful, feisty, and pure, those women enchanted me. Their fragrance wafted around me, the spell compelling me to get a taste. They run, and I chase; it’s exhilarating. My heart thumps faster to match their pace. Their sweat amplifies the scent of their fear and I CAN NOT CONTAIN MY IMPULSES when I breathe in their glorious fright; I must taste.

Fear and beauty both draw me and haunt me. Each satisfying bite ends with debilitating regret. Death brought evil to my grave and offered me immortality. Immortality for morality, a curse I ignorantly accepted. Fine Print. Every night, they cry out through the halls, never letting me forget. A vicious cycle of endless regret. Though we have never met, she has already guided me to the light. Amelia Rose is different.

I know it makes little sense but I haven’t drunk from the well of veinous beauty since I first laid eyes on her. I dream of holding her in my arms, tasting her too, I admit it. Impulses are not so easily tamed. So, I keep my distance, watching from afar as her life unfolds, letting that feeling seep into my bones. If I got too close, who would save her? Then how will I fight these urges? Brother, help me, she saw me today. I ran.

Eli Mathison.

I crushed it in my hand and pushed it to the side of the desk. I couldn’t send it. Luka wouldn’t be the only one to find me; the whole family would be at my door. More like taking over my house and launching a new intervention because of my whining and ungratefulness. Their visits always came with lectures about what family means, and helping with the family business.

They all fell on deaf ears now. I wanted no part in the family business or this curse Dad gifted us. I just needed to vent. I needed a release that wasn’t women. I needed it without Amelia Rose and her soothing aura. I stood up so quickly my chair fell over. I kicked it across the room, putting a dent in the wall. She saw me. I paced the floor, nearly running. The room was suffocating, like a vacuum sucking out the air in a freezer bag. It didn’t take me long to make it outside.

She saw me. This changes everything. She’ll be watching over her shoulder now, fear guiding her instead of the beauty of life. Fear attached to my face. She will think of me, but not in the way I think of her. She will think of police and weapons, and changing her routine. She will think of protection from me. She may even think of destroying me. That isn’t a bad idea. I. Am. Bad; I hated it, but it reigns true. I should be destroyed. All of us living with this evil inside us, guiding us like marionette puppets should be destroyed.

I don’t know why I am drawn to her. I just know that my pain fades around her. Life with this curse is more bearable. She makes me feel human, like there is hope for an end to the suffering that plagues my life, that plagues this earth. Knowing she exists will have to be enough. I have to stop following her, lurking in the shadows, memorizing everything that is her. I need to let her go. My chest was rising and falling quicker and quicker, my breaths short. I had to find another way to ease this ache, to quiet the screams of the past.

I sat down on the terrace overlooking the garden. The orange, pink, and red of the horizon mixed and blended. The gentle breeze brought the sweet scents of azaleas, orchids, and oriental lilies floating through the air. I breathed in the fresh air deeply, trying to let the serenity wash over me, as the fountain water's steady stream attempted to soothe me. I didn’t think. I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. I just breathed. Just as the sun melts from the sky, so do all my thoughts. All of them.

But then the eyes appear in the nothingness I created. Thousands of eyes, drawing closer, circling me, scream in the distance. The victims of the curse make themselves known. Their heartbeats like metronomes set on prestissimo. I breathed in but it was shallow, sharp, cold, quick. I think of her and her soothing aura and hold my breath. She can help me. I release it. I breathe in again, deep and slow, again and again. Years of released impulses faded until there was nothing left but breathing. Breathing and Amelia Rose. I can’t let her go.