Had to cut a lot of this one, yikes!
"From Beginning to End" - 1600 Words
Dirty marquees surrounded a blown-out neon sign, reading "8 Screens," on either side. Letter-shaped stains were burnt onto their yellowed facades, once dominated by exciting titles and double features that beckoned the public into comfortable seats and air conditioning for an afternoon of fun at the movies. The dreary ticket box stood like an ancient guard between vacant entryways, a perfect hole where its two-way speaker once was.
"This is where I was born," I quipped to the man occupying the driver's seat next to me. He kept telling me that his name was Richard, and that he was my older brother. Aside from showing up on my doorstep two days ago, I've never seen him before in my life.
"Yeah, Emma, this is it," he replied, with the same scrunched brow and crooked, pressed lips he'd worn the entire car ride here.
"I know," I retorted, with slight annoyance, "I still remember it, sort of."
This didn't seem to phase Richard, who continued with his story anyway, "I wasn't there when it happened. Mom and Dad stuck me with a baby-sitter while they snuck out for the rare date. They didn't get much alone time when we were around... I do remember the phone call, though, and the trip to the hospital. And then we came back here, every year for your birthday, until it closed."
"Sorry... it just means nothing to me."
"What you're looking for... you think it's actually in there?" he asked.
I tightened my fist around the end of the silver thread that I had wrapped around my body as many times as I could get it to. My "brother" swore he couldn't see it.
"It's got to be, Richard. I have nothing else left, nowhere else to look."
I pulled the lever on the door and set one foot on the muddy soil. He placed a hand on my shoulder, begging me to let him tag along and help. I shrugged him off and stood up, leaning back in to stop his protests.
"If you care about me, and trust me as much as you say you do, you'll let me take care of this alone."
"Sis..." Richard whined, defeatedly.
I marched away from the old Bonneville, and my worried sibling, determined to meet my destiny and whatever that might entail. As I peeked inside the moviehouse, its dilapidated features became more and more familiar. I wasn't lying when I said I could recall the experience. Well, at least as much as a newborn baby was able to.
They had wheeled my mother down this hallway. I couldn't remember her name or her face, but I knew it was my Mom from the latent warmth of her breast. I was crying loudly, healthy but traumatized, as she cuddled me in her arms.
There were lots of dark shapes, people whose faces were shadowed by bright lights coming from behind. I noticed that a few of the Art Deco-style sconces still hung on the walls, sans luminesence, as I creeped my way towards Theater Two.
A weak humming caught my ears as I came upon the entrance. My heart was thumping with the power and vigor of an industial press. Hiding in the doorway, I could hear shuffling and the sounds of work. It was coming closer. And closer. Until it felt like it was just around the corner.
Squinting, I jumped out into the rear aisle. "STOP!" I screamed, hoping to catch the interloper off guard.
The dark creature craned its spindly neck all the way around to stare at me. Its frame was thin, but muscular, and drooped over like a wilting flower, hiding the being's true height. A thick, glimmering rope hung heavily over one shoulder, coiled many times over. It was stretched betwee his sharp digits and led down to the bottom of the walkway, where it attached to a small, red box.
"You can sssssee me, Emma?!" it scorched, the voice emitting from no visible mouth. Two circular, red eyes rattled like flaring coals in their sockets.
I nodded, wide-eyed, but not as scared as I thought I'd be. Frightening as this visage might be, there was something curious to it.
"That night," I gulped, "You came into my apartment, above my bed. And once you snipped it... I could see you! And the thread!"
"Oh, what the hell!" the creature cried, "I knew I would fuck it up! This sort of thing has never even happened during my tenure, and they just tell me to get rid of the mess!"
I was puzzled. "What... what do you mean?"
"I, the irreplaceable Cremortus," it explained with authority, stabbing a knife-like finger at its chest, "have reaped and then ferried souls across this great plane of existence since time immemorial! And yet, here I am, cleaning up someone else's misssstake!"
"Mis... mistake?!" I could feel something bubbling inside me that was neither fear nor base curiosity.
"YES!" Cremortus continued ranting, "You were a mistake! First your daddy forgot to pull out and then you arrived at the front of this theater, a month ahead of schedule! Do you realize how much work disentanglement is?! Nobody's died for the past two days because I've had to criss-cross half of this forsaken country, deleting *you* from the universe! A cosmic fucking joke! You weren't supposed to exist!"
He clenched the rope in his fist for effect.
"And once I get it all back in that thing," he pointed at the red box sitting next to the seat where my mother had given birth, "I will be done, and I can get on with life!"
At once, it all clicked: I understood why I had rapidly lost all but my very first memory and how I could fix it. Confidence welled in my chest and I strolled up the ancient reaper.
I yanked up the sleeve on my shirt, "The only mistake I see around here is yours."
Cremortus made a sound similar to a gasp at the sight of the silver thread emitting from my palm.
I smirked, no longer in fear, "So caught up in erasing me, that you forgot about the new memories I'd be creating while you did it. Should've taken my head while you had the chance."
As he pondered his error, I saw the frayed end of the rope, where he had severed it from my body, dangling from the coil.
"That's not how it wor" He yelped as I grabbed it and took off running up the aisle. The thread caught on a knot suddenly and pulled him forward, spinning and unbalancing his awkward body like a tumbling skyscraper.
I sprinted from theater two, down the hallway, and past the Art Deco lanterns. Richard was standing outside of the Bonneville, and had the look of a man who'd just been pacing back and forth, deciding whether or not he should leap into action. I thought he should.
"Get back in the car!" I screamed, barreling out of the entrance and into the humid night.
"Emma! Are you alright?!" he worried, nonetheless following my directions. As I pulled the handle on the car door, I could feel the rope yank me backwards. Cremortus crashed through the ticket box, hands rapidly reeling in the silver thread.
"Holy shit! What is that?!"
"GO! JUST GO!" I reminded him, clutching onto the window frame.
He threw the creaking Pontiac into reverse, the front wheels spitting mud into my face. Looking back, I could see Cremortus unfurl four powerful wings as he launched into the air, like some brand of gothic ornithopter.
One foot braced against the floorboard, the other on the inside of the open passenger door, and my back against its frame, I joined the rope to the thread and knotted it through.
Suddenly, my soul, my memories started to spill back into me like fishing line into a flywheel. The weight of the moving car combined with the retraction of the silver string forced Cremortus to the ground like a flagging kite. He crashed feet-forward and dug deep into the concrete.
"Floor it, bro!" I cried through freshly-formed tears. I remembered who he was now, and how he'd taken care of me after Mom and Dad passed away.
Richard pounded on the gas and tore into the road, Cremortus resisting with all his might. Like a game of tug-of-war, they pulled at eachother until there was a loud pop and the Bonneville leapt forward in a burst of speed.
I turned to look out the rear window. Cremortus, Death himself, unraveled before my eyes. As the length of my soul disappeared, it began to consume his; another unforseen consequence, I guessed. He cried, and screamed, and clawed at the ground until everything that was left of him was inside of me.
"Do you remember, Emma?" Richard asked, huffing and teared up as much as I was.
"Yeah, I do. I remember you Ricky, and Mom, and Dad. And everything." I hugged my brother tightly.
I pulled back from Richard and looked him straight in the eyes, "Did they ever tell you that I was a mistake?"
He shook his head vigorously, "No! In fact, they always told me you were the favorite!"
"Ricky... thank you," I wiped the tears from my cheeks, "The reaper knows that now, too. I can feel him deep inside me, raging. No, my birth was very deliberate. I think this was a hit, a loophole, and whoever it was that put me on this Earth wanted this to happen. And that... that scares me."
