Chapter 18: XVI: MARCO, GODDAMNIT, MARCO!

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MEREDITH

(tw: death)

THE ROOM IS DARK and something is beeping.

Meredith sits up, all the blood suddenly rushing to her head, pressing her hands into the rough wood beneath her to steady herself. What is it? It's soft, too soft to be of any danger to her. She reaches her arm out, feeling her way around this unfamiliar space. Her fingers slide into the deep crevices of old wood.

Her eyes are starting to adjust to the darkness, the abstract black blobs starting to form into legitimate things, the shadows deepening into sharper shadows. She notices an outline of the door; an open window, the blinds ruffling with the warm breeze dripping in; warm bodies pulsing with each breath; a boy beside her. A boy beside her. Something flutters in her chest, fast and panicked and warm. She reaches out to him, and her hand closes around Silas's. In his sleep, he grabs tight to her hand.

Something is beeping and Meredith's trying very hard not to notice it.

She starts imagining how she'd draw the world right now, trying to distract herself. The light bleeding in from the window is a bright, fiery red-orange, but she doesn't think she'd use any colors. Just charcoal, all ill-defined shapes and thick, chalky. Maybe on newsprint of Fabriano. She'd leave a lot of cream in it. Or maybe she'd scrap the whole charcoal idea and use oil pastels instead. Or she could use watercolors; she loves watercolors. Maybe she'll make it a contrast piece, color everything around the window in black.

She misses her art supplies more than she misses her family. Out here, all she's got is a sheet of bright pink sticky notes and an eraserless mechanical pencil.

Something is beeping, soft but persistent.

Meredith desperately wants to go back to sleep, but the world won't SHUT UP. Her eyes are heavy, her blanket warm, but THE BEEPING WON'T STOP. It's making her want to pull her hair out.

She gets up, finds her bag with her feet. Blindly, she roots through it until her hand finally closes around her phone. She pulls it out, cupping it with both hands, squinting at the sudden brightness. It's three forty-three in the morning. She looks back at the window; it's still bright and fiery and red-orange, like the sunrise. Does time work differently in this dimension? What's the sun doing rising at three forty-three in the morning?

Something is beeping. Something here, in this house, is beeping.

Leaving her phone laying there, the light from it burning blue into the ceiling ten feet above it, she scrambles to her feet, transfixed. She cautiously makes her way around Silas towards the window, possibilities bouncing around in her head. It's icy cold without her warm blanket wrapped around her. She pulls her sweatshirt tighter around herself, shivering, and, well, technically it isn't exactly her sweatshirt. It's Silas's old swim-team sweatshirt from, like, freshman year, and she stole it. She's never giving it back. The fabric feels familiar, smells like home.

She stands at the window for a second, her palms digging into the plaster windowsill. Her nose pressed against the ice-cold glass, her breath darkening the window as it settles against it. The world outside is bathed in a warm orange light, and a light snow's falling. At least, she thinks it's snow. It's gray-white and looks like flakes of dry skin peeling off a metal sky. That must be where the light's coming from. Snow always bathes the world in unfamiliar colors and sounds.

Well, she thinks, that's someone else's problem. She's going back to sleep. She pushes back on the balls of her feet, inching back to her little makeshift bed so she doesn't wake anyone.

And that's when it happens.

There's a succession of three sonic booms, so loud Meredith feels her brain get slammed out of her skull. She bites her tongue so hard she tastes blood, shoves her fingers into her ears so hard her eardrums burst. She can't tell if her eyes are open or not. Everything is white.

An explosion? she wonders. The end of the world, again? Did someone get Taco Bell?

Another boom sounds out, and the ground's pulled out from underneath her feet. She trips, slamming her chin open on the rough wood. Her vision goes completely black.

The world's pulled apart and then it lurches upwards. The building collapses and crumbles and explodes. Meredith is thrown from it. She slams into a roll in the ice-cold grass stiff with frost, crashes through a piece of drywall. Sulfur flames, gasoline, blood and splintered wood. Pain arches through a body . . . her body? Her head's slammed into a wall. Something sharp and cold digs into her thigh. Her arm is torn from its socket. She doesn't have a body anymore. She doesn't have a head anymore.

And then everything stills.

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MEREDITH HAS TO pry her eyes open with her fingers. Her eyelashes had been crusted together with blood.

She can't see much of anything, really. The smoke's so thick the world looks like Michael Jackson's Thriller music video. She coughs, her throat closing up when she takes in a deep breath of smoke. It doesn't go down like oxygen or helium or even blunt smoke. It goes down burning, like she's inhaling tiny particles of glass.

Her mind's reeling, her head's pounding, and her heart isn't beating. At least, she doesn't think that it is. What happened—an explosion, a bomb? Did they nuke this poor town again? Haven't these people suffered enough? She only knows one thing: the orange light she saw was from other homes facing the same fate. From the city bursting into flames.

The world's turning to a sharp focus, the fog starting to dim. The floor's all that's left of Vic's house. The walls are gone; the ceiling is gone; the door is gone. Sporadic little fires have started up all over the place. Debris litters the neighborhood like the aftermath of a tornado. The entire world is on fire. Still blinking the blood and smoke out of her eyes, Meredith looks around, searching for her friends. Finding them is the only thought on her mind.

Thrown across the street is a body so mutilated it's unrecognizable. The center of the person's stomach is shot through a flagpole like a cannibalistic kebab, a bloodstained American flag hanging from the gaping wound. Gore drips onto the grass beneath them. The body's small, a child, a toddler. Too young to be Avani. She doesn't know if that's a good thing or not.

She can't tear her eyes away.

Somebody grabs her shoulder, shaking her. Meredith just about jumps out of her skin. She watches as Avani herself plops down in front of her, her legs crossed. She's wearing soft pink Minnie Mouse pajamas, and her eyes are eerily emotionless. She doesn't seem to realize that it's there, the body. She keeps repeating something, the same word over-and-over again, but Meredith's ears are still ringing from the explosion. She can't hear her.

"What?" Meredith asks. She can't even hear her own voice. She feels like she's trying to speak underwater.

Avani keeps screaming at her like that's supposed to make a difference. Meredith shoves her fingers in her ears, trying to snap whatever broke back into working-condition. She feels her fingers scrape against her skin, feels earwax catch under her nails, hears her blood pounding in her head . . . hears it! She pulls her fingers out of her ears. She can hear Avani now, almost. Her voice starts to break through the barrier, quiet and faraway and watery.

"Meredith!" she's saying, over-and-over again. It's odd hearing her speak, she's usually so quiet.

"Avani," Meredith replies. She isn't sure if she's yelling or whispering. Now that she can finally (mostly) hear, she's been snapped back into panic mood. She's practically an adult, or, at least, she will be in a year. Avani is . . . what, nine years old? Ten? She's responsible for this kid's life. If anything happens to her . . . the fault will rely entirely on her shoulders.  The prospect of that is terrifying. The most responsibility that Meredith's had thus far is keeping her goldfish alive, but a robot could have done that. The fucker was practically unkillable. She needs to find her friends, needs to find an adult. Needs to find out what happened and a way to escape. "Sweetheart, you need to help me find them."

"Help you find who?" Avani asks. "Vic's in trouble. You need to help her."

"Where is she?"

Avani doesn't answer, just grabs Meredith's hand and tugs her to her feet. She leads her deeper into the remains of the house.

By now, Meredith's hearing has mostly come back, even if there's still a ringing in her ears—the echo of sonic booms. She's acutely aware of her surroundings, her body pulled taut with nerves. There's only one part of Vic's house that wasn't completely obliterated in the explosions: her bedroom wall. It's collapsed, a small fire burning on top of it, but it's still there.

"She's under there," Avani says softly, tugging on Meredith's hand.

"Avani, stay back," Meredith orders, trying not to help. "Okay, sweetheart? Go get help. Get Bianca, if you can find her, but send anyone you find this way. But don't go too far. Stay in sight."

Avani just stands there, unresponsive, staring blankly at the collapsed wall. Meredith's never seen a child so expressionless in the face of death.

"Avani, go," Meredith snaps, her voice cracking.

The little girl scampers off without a word.

Meredith can see Vic's pale, freckled head sticking out from underneath the pile; it's the only part of her that's actually visible.

Sorrow rises in Meredith's throat like a thick chunk of bile, but this ghostly girl isn't dead. Not yet. Her eyes are wide and terrified, darting frantically from one spot to another. It's like she's trying to find some sort of solace or redemption. She's panting so hard her breathing shakes the wall on top of her, and glittery sweat shines on her skin.

Meredith forces herself to walk towards the destruction. Maybe it's not as bad as it looks. Maybe she'll be able to push this burning wall off of her. Maybe she'll be able to save her from a long and painful death. Maybe . . . maybe for once something will go right.

"Vic," Meredith tells the dying girl. "I'm here."

"My dogs are under here. My babies are trapped under here. Please get them out, even if you can't save me," Vic pleads. "I don't give a fuck if you save me or not. Just please don't let my babies die."

Meredith starts pushing at the wall, throwing her back into it, trying to get it off of her, trying to move it even the slightest bit. It doesn't budge.

"You guys need to get out of here," Vic mumbles, tears pouring down her cheeks. "Save my babies and . . . and get out of here. Have those boys Atlas and Silas take care of them, okay? They were so good with them."

"We'll save you, too," Meredith says, weak, determined. The wall isn't moving. "I'm gonna get you out of here, Vic, I promise."

"Okay," Vic says, her voice lacking conviction. "There's something in my ribs. It's sharp . . . digging into me. Can't hardly breathe."

"I'm gonna get you out of here," Meredith repeats. It's an empty promise, and she can tell that both she and Vic know it, but she hopes that saying it out loud will make it come true. "I promise."

Hopeless, Meredith looks up at the cloudless night sky above her. Which of the stars hanging up there is magic? Which one is already dead? There are thousands of millions of billions of galaxies with thousands of millions of billions of stars. What makes one star any more important than the others? What gives one star the right to keep on burning when others are simply snuffed out of existence? What gives one star the right to burn so brightly it blots others out of the night sky?

"MARCO!" someone is screaming. Cain. "MARCO, GODDAMNIT, MARCO! MARCO! MARCO!"

"POLO!" Meredith screams back. Where is the motherfucker? He's practically fireproof, isn't he? He can try to get the wall off of her without having to worry about the flames like Meredith does. And then there he is, barreling towards her, Avani trailing behind him.

"Watch out!" he yells. "Let me try to get her out."

So Meredith steps to the side, and Cain starts shoving all of his body weight into the wall, and, all of a sudden, Meredith realizes why she should never, under any circumstances whatsoever, put her trust in this fucking kid. Sure, he doesn't have to worry about the fire like Meredith had to, but at least she has muscles. He's literally a stick. The wall still doesn't budge. If anything, it looks like he's making it worse.

"My babies are trapped under here," Vic tells Cain, her voice a gurgle. "My babies are gonna die, please get them out. Please . . . "

Cain shoots a confused glance over his shoulder at Meredith.

"Her dogs," she explains, picking the skin off her lips, full of all kinds of nervous energy. "Where's Rachel?" Isn't she telekinetic? Why had Meredith been sent her dumbass brother instead of her? She could get the wall off Vic without laying a finger on it.

"Passed out."

Well, of course. The one person that could actually have a shot at saving Vic's life, and she's passed out.

Meredith glances back down at Vic. The poor girl isn't doing so hot. She's drenched in sweat, and her eyes are staring at a fixed point above her. She's gasping for air and choking on what she gets. Each breath takes longer to come than the one before it.  There's something in her ribs, Meredith remembers. Something sharp.

Vic Daugherty doesn't have long.

Meredith kneels beside her, wiping the sweat from her face. Her poisonous eyes follow her every move. "Vic, everything's gonna be all right. Rachel will get the wall off of you once she wakes up. You and your dogs will be fine. I promise."

"I'm going to die," realizes the dying girl.

"No, you aren't."

"Yes, I am," Vic insists. There's nothing in her voice and nothing in her face. No emotion, no fear, no pain, no hope, nothing. "You only tell someone that everything's gonna be all right when they're going to die."

Meredith is quiet for a moment. She doesn't know what to say. It's only now, on her deathbed, that she realizes how little she really knows about this girl. How little she really knows about anything. How little this world is. How short life is. She doesn't even know what her full name is. Is it Victoria? It must be. Funny, considering that the name means victory, and this here seems like the opposite of that. "I hope you find peace."

Vic smiles at the sky, soft and sad and sweet. "I already have."

Her last breath falls short in her lungs.

Cain's still pushing on the collapsed wall, his face red with the effort.

"She's dead," Meredith says, detached. She's speaking from somewhere outside of her body. "Stop it, Cain, she's dead."

Her words echo back out of her own mind, swarming around her ears like flies, like vultures. Dead; Vic Daugherty is dead.

Cain shoves his shoulder into the stupid wall. "Maybe I can burn it," he muses. "Maybe it'll turn to ash on top of her and we can pull her out and she'll be perfectly fine."

"She's dead," Meredith repeats. "She's dead, Cain, stop it!"

Finally, the dumbass listens. He takes a step away from the wall, panting. His palms dig into the top of his head to slow the blood bouncing around in his brain, his fingers curling around his dark hair.

Meredith looks away from her friend, forces herself to look down at—who was Vic to them? An accomplice, an ally, a friend? Her glassy eyes staring at something just out of reach. Her parted lips devoid of color. The dried sheen of sweat on her forehead. Meredith cups her hands around Vic's cheeks, feeling her cool, claylike skin. Tears race each other down her cheeks. She might have watched Vic Daugherty die today, a girl she didn't even know existed until yesterday, a girl she might never meet in her own dimension, but there's only one thought on her mind.

"I watched my mom die," she tells Cain.

She watches as he leans on the other side of Vic's lifeless head, cupping his hands around Meredith's. He doesn't say anything, doesn't offer her any words of comfort or advice. His dark eyes are full of concern and tears. Meredith's never noticed it before, but he has really expressive eyes. Everything about him is expressive. For someone that talks so much, he doesn't really have to. You can just look at him and tell exactly what he's thinking. And moments like these, where his body's completely still and silent, his eyes focused on one thing and one thing only . . . well, it's like the entire world has gone silent.

I could have saved her! Meredith thinks sourly. I could have saved both of them!

But she doesn't want to talk about it. She just wants to know that her friend is there with her. That he's willing to listen. That he understands, or he can at least pretend to.

Cain takes his hands off Meredith's, brushing them on his pants. Meredith mirrors him, suddenly disgusted.

"Oh, my God. We were touching a dead body." She wants to bleach her hands or, even better, burn them off.

Cain doesn't look quite as horrified as she'd imagined he would. "I mean, there's a first for everything, right, Virgo?"

Meredith doesn't know how he's being so calm about all of this. She's freaking out. There's a dead body right in front of them, for God's sake! They were just touching it! It?

The second your soul leaves your body, you're no longer a body. You're no longer a he or a she or a they. You're an it. All physical ties to this world are cut. Everything meaningful you ever did on this planet only really becomes meaningful after your death. Meredith doesn't know if it's sad or comforting. All she knows is that she can't stop thinking about death.

She'd wanted her mother to die.

After watching her suffer for so long . . . she'd just wanted it all to be over. Not for her mom's sake. Not because she'd be going on to a better place, to the great golden castle in the sky she always talked about. (Meredith had been thinking about that a lot lately. How could a supposedly kind God watch so many deserving people suffer from His safe golden castle in the goddamn fucking sky? He wasn't a god; He was either a king or a coward. Meredith didn't know which one was worse.) Not because at least she would be out of pain, at least she'd be somewhere dark and warm and safe, but for herself. For her, for Meredith.

She'd wanted her mother to die so she wouldn't have to deal with it anymore.

She just wanted to be a kid again. She didn't want to have to push her mom through her school's art show in a wheelchair because she was too weak to walk. She didn't want to have to miss school every other Wednesday to go comfort her mom while they did her chemo (because Lord knew her dad wasn't around to do it, and all her grandparents did was stress her out with their constant nagging). She didn't want to have to hear her mom calling out to her dead relatives in the dead of night. She didn't want to have to stay up until three in the morning the night before exams listening to her mom vomit up her own blood in the room right next door. She didn't want to be the one to have to clean it up and pick her frail body off the bathroom floor and into the shower. She didn't want to be the one who helped her bathe.

But now it's almost been six months since her mom died, and she's in a different headspace. She doesn't blame her mom for any of that; if anything, she blames herself for not being more help. She blames herself for getting so irritated with her mom, for not spending more time with her. For not telling her she loved her as much as she could have.

She wishes she could do it all over again. She wishes cancer didn't exist and the world wasn't cruel and people didn't have to die. But if she could do it all over again . . . why would she? Her mom would still get cancer. Her mom would still die young. She'd face it with a different attitude, maybe have a couple less regrets, but her mom would still die. Nothing she could do would change that. And even in some kind of alternate universe where her mom never got cancer, what would happen then? Would she realize how lucky she was to have her mom? Would she take her for granted? Would she get rude with her, get snappy and mean? Would they end up hating each other?

She just hopes that her mom knows how much she loved her. Loves her. How much she misses her.

Meredith feels wet sorrow pooling in the backs of her eyes. Not wanting to cry, knowing that they have more important things to worry about, she angrily wipes at her tears. Embarrassment heats her face. She doesn't want Cain to say anything to her. She doesn't want him to tell her that it's all gonna be okay or that Vic and her dogs are in a better place or that it wasn't her fault or that he's sorry for her loss or any of that complete and utter BULLSHIT.

He has no idea how deep the wound is, how deep her grief runs.

Three deaths. That's two deaths she could have prevented but didn't. One death she carried out herself: the poor man in his burning house. Three deaths on her hands. She's soaking in the blood of three innocents.

Does she even deserve to feel grief? She's a murderer crying at a funeral.

She pushes herself to her feet, shaking. She needs to find something to do. Needs to help the injured. Needs to get out of here. Needs to do something. There's a gaggle of people in the middle of the road, looking dazed and confused. She needs to get to them . . .

"Meredith." Cain lightly grabs her wrist, locking her in place.

"What do you want?" she demands, turning on him, feeling her eyes blaze beneath her tears.

"I just wanted to say that really fucked up things happen without any reason. Don't blame yourself, and don't . . . don't try to search for meaning where there isn't any."

Meredith feels the hot tears finally pouring down her cheeks, an ugly choking sound rising in the back of her throat. She knows she should be helping out. She knows she should be doing literally anything else but this. She knows that now isn't the time. She knows she doesn't have the right to get so upset over this. But still she finds herself initiating a hug, letting herself cry out into Cain's chest. He's a really good shoulder to cry on; he keeps rocking back and forth, rubbing her back in circles.

"You'll be searching for meaning your entire life and die without having found any."