Vanitas

[Dogs231]

Ten. The number of days since their lives had ended, though that felt like an eternity. Ninety-two. The number of the people—her classmates, in another world—now perished, though the number seemed interminable when one looked at the scattered, broken corpses on the ground. And, the worst part to her, Claire could barely muster the energy to care.

S091: CLAIRE HAIG — CONTINUED FROM "Memento Mori, Memento Vitae"

It was hard to remember that you were still alive when you were dead in all but name. She looked dead. She felt dead. To everyone else on the planet, everyone outside of that island, she may well have been dead already by now. And yet, as if nobody had bothered to let it know, her body kept moving, silent, empty, shambling, ambling, like some zombie.

The wound on her finger had scabbed over; she cut it back open with the golden blade of her sword. The writing of the names in concurrence with the announcements had become almost liturgy, ritualistic and mindless, as if it had always been the case—as if Claire had never known anything but the island, as if she had been born there, raised there, for all time.

TEDDIE BOYD

DANIELLE BIRD

CHESTER FOLK

VICTOR GRAIL

AMARYLLIS PESZEK-BYRNE

CRYSTAL HENDERSON

JACOB LANG

FEY ZELENKA-MORRISON

SHU HAWTHORNE

JESSICA ROMERO •

KARIN HAN •

TRINITY ASHMORE

JULIA GUERCIO •

But, in her aching, tired heart, nothing could be further from the truth. She missed home. She missed the life that, until taken from her, she had never enjoyed a single moment of and longed for the thing that, once upon a time, she had so badly wanted to terminate. That was certainly one way to discover a newfound appreciation for your life—to lose it all like this.

"I'm tired," she said to nobody but herself. "I want to go home." Like an automaton with low battery, monotone, drained of all emotion, lacking a soul to give her words verve or vim. But she kept moving, one step at a time, as if there was still a destination to reach, any paths worth taking. Something drove her to continue; she did not know what it was.

For a long while, it continued like that, silence reigning on its fatal throne, a monarch yet untoppled by the winds of fate.

Claire continued to walk. Until, for a moment, she stopped. Like all things in life, past or present—going until they no longer did. Her right hand, meanwhile, drifted towards the radio in her pocket. She turned it on. A crackle echoed outwards like a rumbling thundercloud. And then, with a sudden breath, she whispered something into it, expecting no answer.

S091: CLAIRE HAIG — CONTINUED IN "When The Man Comes Around"