saltwater

=WARNING= Sensitive content: death, murder, child death, hallucinations, suicide, etc.

The streets were littered with bodies. In this town at the edge of the sea, people lay trapped beneath a fog of death and despair. The waves from the ocean beat at the shore similar to the way death knocks on every door, relentlessly dragging away the sand into its watery clutches. Nowhere in this town is safe. The evil doesn’t hunt, it lurks in the most innocent of places.

Cassian gazed up at the hazy brightness of the moon. Even the stars hid from the terrible curse. His whole body ached with fear and grief as well as the physical pain of homelessness. His older sister lay beside him. Their parents had died no more than a month ago and they’d been forced to vacate their house and be moved to an overcrowded and underfunded orphanage. His sister had been possessed by the curse just a few days ago and he feared he was next.

“Izzy?” Cassian whispered to his big sister. “Why did they have to take mommy and daddy away? They weren’t hurting anyone.”

His sister was silent for a long moment. How is one expected to explain death to a child? “They were dead, Cass.”

“I know, but why couldn’t they stay? If they stayed, we’d still have a bed. God doesn’t need them as much as we do.” The little boy clutched his stuffed rabbit and raggedy blankie.

Isavega heaved a sigh weighed down by pain and grief. “They couldn’t stay. It’s not up to us to decide who God takes. He ended their suffering and saved them from the devil possessing our town. The devil hurt them, Cass, burned them from the inside with his hellfire.”

Cassian frowned, but stopped asking questions. By now, he understood what was happening to his big sister. She was dying too. The devil was stealing the life from her body.

“Cass.” Isavega choked out, agony thick in her voice.

He looked over at his sister. “Izzy?”

Then the screaming started. It rang in Cassian’s ears and he buried his face in his blankie to block out the awful sound. He lay still and trembling even as she convulsed, crying out for help from the fire that wasn’t there. The devil wracked her body with its need to drag her to the pits of hell.

“Fire! Cass, help! Put it out! It burns!” His sister wailed, the awful sound shattering the night. She thrashed on the dirty ground where they lay.

“Izzy. Izzy, stop,” he whimpered and flinched when one of her flying fists hit him in the gut. “You’re okay. You’ll be okay.”

It was only getting more intense by the hour. At one point, her punches had hurt, but now they were feeble. The weakness was all the more heartbreaking.

Eventually, she stilled. The quiet was worse than the screaming.

Cassian didn’t dare make a sound. If he called her name and she didn’t respond it would break his heart.

“Cassian?”

“Izzy?”

“I can’t do this Cassian,” she rasped. “I need to be freed from this horrid devil that possesses my body.”

Tears welled in Cassian’s eyes and he finally looked over at his sister. Her skin is pale and coated in a sheen of sweat, cheeks bleached of color and turned to a gray parlor.

“You’ll be okay, Izzy. You have to be. I need you too much. Mommy and daddy already left, you can’t leave too. They don’t need you. I do,” he cries.

Isavega shook her head. Even that small act appeared weak. At that moment, Cassian hated God. How come only God could save his sister? Why couldn’t he? Surely the gates of heaven are overcrowded with those who had already passed. He knew that because of the crying that surrounded them, the cries of grief. They were surrounded by death in all forms: the dying, the dead, and the diseased. What had they done wrong for the devil to punish them like this? God should have protected them.

“Please, Cassian. It’s too late for me. I need your help.”

He dreaded the next words that would come from her mouth. His sister was in pain and Cassian knew it.

“I need you Cass. You have to help me.”

Cassian nodded without a doubt. “Anything, Izzy. I want you to get better.”

Her ragged breath filled the air before she tried to suck it back in. “Good. I need you to take my necklace.”

His nose wrinkled in confusion as he looked down at the silver locket. “Why? It’s yours from mommy.”

Isavega shook her head. “Twist it around your hand and pull. Then-”

“But that’ll hurt you! It’s around your neck.”

“I know, Cass. Listen to me. If you do this, I can be with mom and dad. I won’t be in pain anymore.”

Cassian’s eyes went wide. “No! Mommy and daddy don’t need you! I’ll be all alone!”

She sighed and took his hand in hers. He almost pulled away when he felt the clamminess of her skin, but he didn’t. “You won’t be alone. You have Mr. Wuffles and Blankie. They’ll keep you safe until God decides it’s time for you to come with us.”

Cassian shook his head. “No. No. No. You can’t do this! Why are you being so mean?!”

Isavega gripped his hand tighter. “Help me, Cass. Help me get to mom and dad. Then you can take my necklace and trade it for food. You have to live. You can’t let the devil get you too.”

Fear and grief collect in little orbs before tumbling down his cheeks. “O-okay, Izzy. B-but you have to p-promise you’ll be h-happy with m-mommy and daddy. Y-you’ll wait for me?”

Isavega nods. “I promise.”

Cassian did as she asked. As she asked.

—

The bread tasted like death. It lingered in his mouth for days on end. The feeling of salty tears filling his mouth never quite left his senses. It fogged his mind and refused to leave. The cold chill wrapped around his throat and pulled tight. He choked, just as his sister had when he’d pulled the necklace tight. Cassian clawed at the noose around his neck, digging his nails in and scratching at it. All he felt was more pain as he strained to breathe. His vision blackened as his lungs felt as if they would burst. Then it vanished and his sight returned. Cassian gazed down at his hands, coated in his own blood. If the choking sensation had lasted any longer, he may have cut his own throat with his nails.

As he sat there, gazing down at his hands, he started to cry again. He muffled his tears with his stuffed rabbit so nobody else could hear. “Izzy… Izzy please… Why did you leave me?”

A shadow formed at the edge of his vision, a person walking along the beach where he sat. His eyes were unfocused and her face came to him blurry. Did they plan to hurt him? Were they here to punish him for hurting his sister? He tensed. No. Cassian didn’t hurt her. What he did saved her. She asked him to do it. She. Asked. Me.

“Hello?” They voiced, the single word sounding more like a question than a greeting.

Cassian’s gaze snapped up to meet theirs.

Izzy stared down at him. “Hey. What are you doing here?”

“No!” He shrieked. “No!”

His sister froze and looked around to see if anyone was nearby before kneeling down to his level. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“No! You’re dead. I was supposed to kill you!” He cried, unable to look at her. His hands reached up to cover his eyes. “I was supposed to kill you!”

Izzy stood and looked down at him in confusion. “Who told you to kill me? I don’t want you to kill me.”

His eyes went wide, heart leaping into his throat to choke the air from his lungs. “What? No! I was supposed to kill you!” He stood, fists clenched. “That’s why I did it!”

“I don’t think I know you.” She shook her head. “You must be sick. Here, I’ll bring you to someone and tell them.”

Now it was Cassian’s turn to freeze. “No! You can’t tell anyone! If they know I killed you, they’ll send me to hell!” In a sudden movement, he lunged at her. His hands clawed at her face.

“Stop! What are you doing?” She cried.

Cassian shuddered, his hands remembering how they had reached for the silver necklace. He wrapped it around his palm and pulled. “I’m doing what I have to do! You told me to!”

His sister had thrashed, her body fighting for air. “Wait! Stop!” She had cried despite begging him for death.

This time, his sister didn’t have a necklace. He had sold it for bread. The bread had tasted like death. It had choked him in grief. The chilled air had wrapped around his neck like a noose. He had clawed at his neck until it bled. His hands had been covered in blood. Blood still coated his hands. His hands. Cassian’s hands wrapped around a stone, jagged along the edges.

“Please stop! No!” She sobbed and begged as he raised the stone.

The stone fell, it fell just as he surely would. It fell and he fell with it. The devil laughed as he brought it down again and again upon her head, his tiny hand shaking as he clutched the rock. He was laughing too. Why was he laughing? No. He was crying. He was crying because the ashes burned his eyes. They filled the air, rising with the smoke as the rock fell. Fire. Fire burned his skin. He was burning alive. No. He had to put out the flames. The rock. Cassian brought it down again and again, until his muscles failed. The fire vanished and so did the illusion.

The unfamiliar girl lay under him, her eyes blank and lifeless.

“No! You’re not Izzy!” Cassian panicked, head swiveling to search for anyone who could have seen what he had done. Anyone could walk by at any moment. He scrambled away from the girl’s corpse. “No. I’m not a murderer!” Cassian’s voice was carried away by the wind, out to sea.

His sister would be disappointed in him, he scrambled for a solution, clutching his stuffed rabbit to his chest. He was covered in blood and doomed to hell. Cassian could feel it, the fires that reached up and grasped him. He had felt them when he had killed her and now they had returned to finish him too. The fingers of flame lashed his skin and he fought to escape. “No!” He struggled to his feet, slipping in the sand.

The water was just a few feet away, so he ran. Cassian ran as best he could to escape the fire that consumed his body. He landed with a splash in the waves. His hands pulled him forward, deeper into the sea. The flames needed to be extinguished. They had to be doused or he would die. Even as he fully submerged, he still felt them burning his skin. He clawed at the scorching tendrils, trying and failing to pry them from his body.

And he was buried six feet deep beneath saltwater.

—

1034 was the year the plague had struck France. It wasn’t the devil at all. Perhaps if people had figured out sooner that the ergot lingers in the food they eat, more would have been saved. Instead, children lost their parents and wound up on the street, laying there like corpses with nothing to eat except the rye that was killing them. The sickness fills the air with ghosts. Many even claimed to see these ghosts, but it’s merely an illusion cast by the illness itself.

Only later would scientists realize that the illness called ergotism, which causes intense hallucinations, seizures, convulsions, gangrene, and even death, was a result of the consumption of rye or other grains infected with a fungus called Claviceps purpurea, which produces toxic alkaloids, including ergotamine. They called it St. Anthony's Fire, this dreadful epidemic. The hallucinations were a result of the alkaloids affecting the central nervous system, leading to sensations of burning, crawling skin, and vivid, terrifying visions. It wiped out this poor town and this is one story of how.