Full Circle

  “Try to catch me suckers!” Varjak yelled gleefully. 

  He disappeared into tree trunks and up canopies to escape the undead. 

  He had come out of invisibility a while ago - he didn’t have the energy to sustain it - but could flit from the undead. 

  They were on his tail, and obviously not ever going to run out of stamina, but Varjak didn't want to reveal the bubble of panic sitting in his stomach. 

  It was only a matter of time before one of them pulled off something to outsmart Varjak and catch him. 

  Even with their lack of defences, and that really would be a disaster. 

  Thinking quickly, Varjak bounced up into the canopy, became invisible for a second, and floated back down into the same tree trunk.

  It was just his luck that the undead were so determined to catch him that they hadn't noticed the fluke - they jumped up into the canopy after him, bouncing along through a line of trees after what they thought was an invisible Varjak. 

  He knew they wouldn't be fooled for long, but it kept them at bay, at least until he found a way to get out of this and get back to the others. 

  He stood in the tree trunk, thinking hard to himself. 

  A hand suddenly grasped his shoulder - he almost yelped but just managed to stop himself, as something, for some reason, told him this wasn't a danger. 

  Then something else told him, well, something else - that it had to be an undead who grabbed him, else how could they possibly get through the trunk? 

  His intelligent mind found the answer but he didn't want to admit it to himself, until the word fell out of his mouth.

  “Gwen,” he whispered harshly, turning round to the blond girl standing behind him in the trunk. They had rather big tree trunks in the undead territory, he observed. “What the Hell - ?”

  “You know that I am here to help you,” she whispered back delicately, staring intently into his eyes. “But you have to run whilst I am doing it. You will not stop to help me, no matter what previous feelings for me may resurface. Do you understand that?”

  “G-Gwen - ”

  “Varjak, do you understand me when I say that?” she said, eyes glittering with tears. “You will not see me again after this, for one of two reasons. And I repeat Varjak - you will not stop to help me.”

  “Yes, I get it already!” he hissed, although he couldn't refrain the curiosity in his expression. 

  Gwen seemed satisfied. 

  “Good. Then get ready to run further east whilst I do my duty to you and repay you for all I have done. Your friends, I have seen, are situated there.”

  “Gwen, you don’t need to do anything. My friends will be safe enough - these fools are stumbling around in the dark trying to find me, I can shake them off whenever I please.”

  Gwen shook her head. 

  “Then why have you not done so? The drugs will wear off soon, and you will be in combat with a dozen undead. Your friends will be disadvantaged too. See, they will not stop running after you, Varjak. You are the most important capture. They will most likely retreat from your friends soon, but not you. If I do not do this for you, you will never return to them.”

  And then Varjak understood. 

  Gwen was definitely going to repay her debt to him. 

  “Thank you,” said Varjak with a hoarse softness, then bent to kiss her full on the mouth. 

  She stuttered under his lips a little in surprise, then her mouth touched his, moist and velvet.   

  His fingers were picking the butter-colour curls from her cheeks. 

  Time had lost any value - it was just them now. 

  There was nothing beyond the oak barriers of the tree. 

  And with that, she vanished. 

  Varjak stood ready to run east, just as Gwen had instructed. He was smart enough to know that there was only forest in that direction, and was the only way out of undead territory.   

  Basically, she really was saving him. 

  Varjak had only just gulped down the last of his love and admiration for her when he heard a scream in the forest. 

  He just knew they had killed her. 

  Varjak knew that the undead night vision abilities were not exactly brilliant. 

  A blonde woman in the dark, a blonde man - it was difficult to tell the difference. 

  He suddenly felt sickened - he'd thought she was only going out to redirect them so he could get away! 

  Why did she deliberately do that?

  The urge to go to her beat against his skin, brought bile to his throat. He knew it would be silly to do so. 

  Yet he could care less what happened to him now, or the rest of civilisation. 

  Gwen was dead.

  The words were a shaken whisper in his mind. 

  Then, purposefully, he thought of Gwen hard enough that his own body appeared beside her the next second. 

  No one else was around. 

  The forest was quiet, only wishes floated through the breeze, rustling the grass and their hair. 

  He went to his knees.

  “I can’t believe you did this,” he whispered.

  The knife was in her sternum. 

  “You - idiot, Jack, you should not have flitted after me!”

  He held her hand. 

  “I heard you scream. You must have known I’d come back for you.”

  Gwen tried to sit up. 

  When she couldn’t, she wailed, catching sight of her bump. 

  “He will die inside me now. The sacrifices I make for you, Jack!”

  “Hey, I never asked you to kill yourself and a child!” He was exasperated. His vision begun to distort and water. 

  “What you said to me - it affected me more deeply than anything I have ever known. Look what I have become, spawning children for war. Perhaps - dying with me is even the best thing for this little one.”

  “But I understand, I understand now!” Varjak cried. “You were dying then, and someone gave you the opportunity to live! I get it!”

  Gwen’s tears burst out with soft hiccups of pain. 

  “I only ever did it so I could have the chance to be with you again! Now time has passed and we have become enemies, and I realise I will never be your wife again, Jack!”

  He leaned over her, then pressed his wet forehead to her’s. 

  He kissed her through low, dry wails of pain and heavy breaths from both. 

  “You didn’t have to kill yourself!” he growled against her mouth. 

  “If I hadn’t stepped in the way, they would have gone after you relentlessly. I didn’t mean to die - but now I no longer need to be a creature. Now they - know they’ve killed me, a valuable child bearer, they’re too occupied covering - their tracks. But it won’t be long before they return, you must go Jack.”

  “We could have had time together in that cave,” he breathed, against her. “If I hadn’t pushed you away, you could have sneaked up there, I could have kissed you and made love to you - ”

  “You never needed - to physically show me it. I always - knew.” 

  In his grip, underneath his torso and pressed to her’s, he felt her hands begin to loosen.

  “No no, no, no - ” He was whispering fiercely at her. “Not yet, please. There’s so much - ”

  “It’s over, Jack. I know you’ve moved on, and I know you have feelings for that Kate girl. We just simply never met again, I’ve been dead since that day in the hospital.”

  “Don’t. I can’t ever forget this, what’s about to happen now.”

  “Jack.” The vowel was elongated, and she was blinking slowly. “Save them. I must tell you - ”

  “Tell me, tell me.” He was inaudible against her mouth. 

  “Don’t trust him.”

  Varjak’s inner being shuddered. 

  “You mean, James?”

  Her head rolled delicately to the other side. 

  “I have known perfect happiness with you.”

  Her eyes glazed over. 

  She was now only a body.

  He heaved in sobs over her. 

  Once more, time went to nothing. 

  An owl which he did not notice spun his head at him and stared. 

  It was time for him to leave.

  He felt that, as though Gwen had entered his own soul and told him so. 

  Physically, he could barely lift his head. 

  It was time to leave though, and there was no escaping that. 

  He did not lift from the ground to leave the scene. 

  With raw, new eyes, he kneeled and waited for his body to shift eastward. 

  Once it did, he collapsed again, and did not stand for twenty five minutes. 

  He moved to run then, and flitted through the lightening forest to a brand new existence. 

  

Reviews

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Gwens death was truly tragic, though a great epiphany for Jack and a beautiful scene for the reader. With humanity finally visualized as something pure and the destructive nature of the undead overcome Gwen accepts sweet death and Jack accepts Gwen. Absolutely wonderful revelation. I really feel terrible for Jack. I connect to him on a great personal level. His burden weighs deep in the acid hammocks of nausea, swaying like oceans in my gut. This was a great setting for Jack's enlightenment. I wonder if his shell will reform.