Page 10 of Eternal
But I wasn’t sure, what if this was forever?
I thought of Daddy’s laugh, I thought of Mommy before she got sick, I thought of my baby brother’s tiny hand holding mine, I thought of Vik and Kat and the iris garden we ran through on my sixth birthday.
The way the sun made everything feel like magic.
That was the last time I think I felt real, now I just feel…wrong.
I remembered my little red fox plushy I had back then. They didn’t find it in the house after the intrusion. I don’t know what happened to it, but it was the last soft thing I had, the last thing Mama gave me.
I rocked a little, back and forth, and my arms hurt from holding myself so tight.
“Happy birthday to you,” I whispered. “Happy birthday to you…”
I sang it again, and again, quieter each time.
“Happy birthday, stupid girl,” I mumbled the last time.
And then I closed my eyes and waited for sleep, or silence, or nothing.
Whatever came first.
3
DAMIR
“??” by Erika Lundmoen
7 Years ago
Asingle breath. A single blink. A single shot.
That’s all it takes to erase a man from this stupid world. It’s too easy, too normal, it probably shouldn’t be. The art isn’t in the aim, it’s in deciding if his life matters less than my bullet.
And judging by the certainty in his death, I guess it never did.
My eyes follow my target of the day, calmly, as I lie flat on the roof of a building across.
The cold bites through my gloves, and I steady the sniper rifle against the edge of this roof.
We're entering the coldest season in Moscow, snowflakes drift lazily around me, and I know I need to act fast before a clear shot is lost in the snowstorm.
The streets below are almost empty, muffled under the thick blanket of snow covering every inch of this city. It's always so pretty here at this time of the year.
I missed this view when I was in prison, so I took it all in a few seconds, trying to memorize how calm it looks. How different it is from real life.
My breath fogs up the mask covering my face, but I welcome the warmth, brief as it is because it’s so fucking cold.
I inhale deeply and exhale slowly. It's warm enough to help me focus on the task at hand.
Last mission of the week.
I adjust the scope of my rifle with gloved fingers, watching the man shiver under the yellow glow of the police floodlights.
He fidgets, glancing around nervously as if he senses that these seconds could be his last.
Even from here, I can see his breath come out in anxious white clouds. He doesn’t know his life is measured in seconds, that his secrets about our existence will die with him.
No room for mistakes, some might call my decisions selfish, and they are, I’m well aware of it.
