She's In The Rain

(cw: suicide, self-harm, blood)

He shouldn’t have done it.

It wasn’t a matter of statistics or probability because Elliot had done all the calculations himself. He’d run the numbers hundreds of times. The margin for error was almost too small to be determined. He knew exactly what he was doing, knew exactly how much blood to take, knew exactly when and how to do it, exactly where the stars needed to be in the sky if he ever needed to do it.

But he shouldn’t have done it.

It had nothing to do with the numbers (he’d been checking the numbers for months – the numbers were right, the numbers were solid) and everything to do with ethics, with morals, with that ultra-fine line between right and wrong, with the oh-so-precarious balance of the known universe and whatever lay beyond.

He’d taken almost as many philosophy classes as he had math classes. He knew that the numbers were correct. It was everything else that was questionable.

They’d gotten into all of it together – witchcraft, voodoo, the occult, black magic. It started as a sick fascination (hers, not his) and Elliot was pretty sure it had all started on Reddit. She’d never been a very good sleeper and more than once (more than twice, more than three times, more than ten times) he’d gotten up to pee in the middle of the night and found that she’d fallen into a rabbit hole. She watched videos about Ouija boards, read articles about spirits, bought books about the afterlife, about reanimation, about hexes and curses and spells and familiars and crystals and the power of the blood moon.

Once she figured out how to work the dark web, she was unstoppable. That stupid Tor browser was her skeleton key. There, it was so much easier to meet people. People like her. She spent hours talking to them. Elliot had always liked horror movies and scary stories so he took an interest. He’d go with her to the library, sit with her while she watched videos, peer over her shoulder while she browsed forums. It was something that was important to her and if she could talk to her online friends about it, why not him?

She liked all of it. Ghost stories, exorcisms, Haitian voodoo, Santerían sacrifices, inexplicable abductions, lights in the sky, potions, ancient artifacts, foreign folklore, necromancy, sympathetic magic, shamanic mythology. But she always seemed to come back to witchcraft. That was her go-to topic. And Elliot supported that. He liked the premise of it, liked the focus on nature, appreciated the female empowerment and the historical implications of it all. So he learned it with her. He read every book after she was done with it. He approached it with a slightly more mathematical perspective. He was especially interested in the spells and potions. He was fascinated by the ingredients, the measurements, the application, and so he studied it – every ounce, every pinch, every drop.

She’d always had her issues. Sometimes, he wondered if her morbid interests were hurting her more than they were helping her. But she swore up and down that they were purely beneficial. Focusing on the world’s darkness helped her bury her own. He wasn’t sure if it was the healthiest approach but if it kept her alive, he didn’t care about the specific nuances.

All he really wanted was for them to be together forever.

So Elliot studied with her.

The truth was that he liked it, too. He liked taking concepts from math and science and philosophy and applying them to the occult, to the supernatural, to the inexplicable.

She was brilliant and he loved that about her.

He loved her.

But deep down, he’d known it was inevitable.

He knew one day he’d have to do it.

The first three times, blissfully, she’d been unsuccessful.

Those first two attempts had been before they met. Once with a razor, once with pills. Elliot traced her scars with the tips his index and middle finger while she fell asleep. She swore that things were different now, that she would never do it again, but then she did it anyway.

Once more, she failed and Elliot met her family at the hospital. He cried more than her mother and threw up twice in the bushes outside. He couldn’t cope with the idea of losing her. He knew he’d never be able to handle living without her. She was so much more than a sick obsession with death and destruction and demons. She was more than her scars and transgressions. She was more than the sum of her broken, rusted parts. She was beautiful and gentle and generous and intelligent and profound.

But she was tortured and damaged and fearful and tired.

And it was very possible that she simply wasn’t meant for this world.

He’d held her that last time, laying right there with her in her hospital bed, offering her the world, offering her his entire self if she’d stay with him. She promised that she would, said she’d just made a mistake, begged for forgiveness.

But a few months later, high and cuddling on the old couch in her parents’ basement, she admitted that she was more monster than person, that she’d researched spells and rituals and ceremonies that could change her, that could free her. She insisted that she could free them both.

But Elliot didn’t want to die.

Life was dark and dizzy and messy but it was beautiful. He loved pizza and videogames and the ocean and the sounds of kids screaming and laughing when they rode their bikes past his house. He loved his job and loved school and loved his friends and loved her.

He didn’t know what she saw in these other worlds, what it was she envied about the monsters she studied. He had no idea what had always caused her so much pain, but he was several edibles deep so he just nodded against her, pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head.

A few nights later, while he was asleep, she sent him some of the spells. Almost all of them involved personal sacrifices. Physical sacrifices. The thought of her being found with pieces missing made him sick so he pretended he never got them.

But there was one he studied. One he memorized. One he needed to calculate over and over and over again.

They went for a long walk on the beach that night. They held hands and watched the sunset like they had back when they first started dating. She made him promise that he’d love her forever, no matter what, and he easily obliged.

“Promise,” she said, nudging him. “Say it.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d made him promise. It was something she requested when she was feeling low, when she needed reassurance, when she needed a reminder. She’d ask him to promise, to say it, and he’d do so without question or hesitation.

“I promise to love you forever,” he said, squeezing her hand. “No matter what.”

She smiled and he kissed the side of her head. He’d promise a thousand times a day if that was what she wanted. Maybe it would get repetitive or tiresome but if it kept her alive then he didn’t care.

All he really wanted was for them to be together forever.

Her fourth time was successful. She’d learned to cut deeper. All of her research had desensitized her to gore. Somewhere along the way, probably somewhere on the dark net, she’d completely lost her fear of blood.

Elliot hadn’t.

He’d found her in a whole pool of it but that was the point. He vomited in the hallway, hit his knees, used the doorknob to help himself to his feet. There were two notes on her bed– one for her parents and one for him – but the cops were only meant to find the first.

They’d never find her finger.

She’d already prepared it for him, something that made Elliot retch whenever he thought of it. She’d severed it, made sure it would suffice, then wrapped it. She even managed to get exactly one ounce of blood into an old water bottle. He found the finger in her hand and stuffed it in his pocket, shoving the bottle into his coat and arranging her body carefully, quick to follow the instructions she’d left for him to the letter.

The police interrogated him for three hours and at no point did he stop shaking.

He knew he had to act fast, had to get everything done before she was buried, had to perform the ritual before she was in the ground or else all of this would have been for nothing.

But he shouldn’t have done it. He shouldn’t have respected her wishes.

He should have just let her rest.

But he’d love her forever. No matter what.

And so he did what she asked.

Everything she’d done for him? All the ways she’d changed his life? All the times she’d saved him? Elliot figured this was the least he could do. This was how he could repay her.

He collected the other ingredients (she’d told him where to find everything) and ran all of the numbers again. He needed it to be exact. He needed everything to be perfect or else it wouldn’t work.

Until then, Elliot had never been entirely sure he’d believed in any of it.

But sitting there at the edge of the woods, right where the trees ran into the sand and the sand ran into the ocean, burying and mixing and crying and gagging, he knew that he believed. Deep down, way deep down, Elliot believed.

He knew it would work.

He had timed it to the second.

It was the night before her service. He’d stalled her parents as long as he could. He felt guilty about that but he knew it wouldn’t matter for long. They’d forget all about him in a couple of weeks. He was sitting in the mud, letting the rain pour down onto his slumped body, and staring at the ocean.

That beach had once been utopia. It’s where they’d had their first date, their first deep talk, their first kiss. They’d parked his truck illegally on the sand once and lost their virginities to each other under a grey and gloomy sky. They’d laughed afterwards, delighted by the absurdity of the world, and listened to fat rain drops land on the roof.

Tears streamed down his face but with how hard it was raining, it was impossible to tell any of it apart. He shivered from the cold, from fear, from grief. He dry-heaved, his stomach completely empty. There was nothing left to throw up.

She used to tease him for his nervous stomach.

He checked his watch.

Just a few more minutes.

He could still smell the blood from her bedroom floor, the decay of her severed finger, the acidic stench of the vinegar and the mold from the tree bark.

Thunder crashed in the distance, a flash of lightning illuminating both the forest and the beach, and Elliot whimpered. He heard a screech from behind him, from deeper in the woods.

The screech.

The noise he’d been waiting for.

Her.

His head dropped. He hadn’t known it was possible to tremble so violently.

He didn’t even know how to pronounce the name of the god to whom he’d made the ultimate sacrifice.

He just knew he had to believe, had to succumb to blind faith like a kid at Sunday school.

If this was going to work, he had to be willing to give himself over completely.

He wrapped his arms around his own body and squeezed, pretending it was her, pretending she was holding him, pretending she was with him, pretending things would ever be the same.

Another crash of thunder. Another burst of light.

He hugged himself tighter.

He’d miss the beach. He’d miss his parents. He’d miss nachos and beer and soccer and dogs and long drives across the city.

He’d miss being alive.

But he missed her more. After just a few days without her, Elliot knew he missed her more.

Another screech. He threw his head back, tears and rain falling into his eyes and mouth.

Why’d it have to be like this?

Why’d she have to do this?

Why’d she have to make him do this?

But he’d promised he’d love her forever.

No matter what.

The screeching grew louder. He heard branches breaking, twigs snapping, ragged breathing. If everything had gone according to plan, if all of his numbers had been correct, she no longer felt any pain. She wasn’t tired or afraid. She was powerful, immortal, incomprehensibly strong.

Would she recognize him? Would she know who was sitting on the ground? Would she know he was waiting for her?

He squeezed himself as tightly as he could, trying to make the shaking stop.

Screech.

She was sprinting now, running to him, demolishing anything in her path.

She knew it was him because she loved him as much as he’d always loved her. That was what he told himself. He said it over and over again in his head, bracing himself, trying to prepare.

Elliot wondered how much it would hurt.

When the sounds of running and screaming were replaced with slow footsteps and cautious panting, Elliot knew she’d found him.

But he didn’t have the guts to turn and face her.

He couldn’t look at her like this. He couldn’t face what he’d done.

He wanted to remember her the way he’d always known her – beautiful and vibrant, laughing with her whole body, blowing the hair out of her face, mouthing along as she devoured book after book, talking in her sleep, pulling him down into a kiss just to shove him away with a smirk.

Horns and talons and blood and exposed bone? That wasn’t her. It couldn’t be.

Elliot was empty. There was nothing left for him to retch, no tears left for him to cry, no words left to be screamed hoarsely into the night sky.

If there was nothing left anyway, Elliot just wanted to remember her as she was then, not as she was now.

She got closer and he squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to see.

One step at a time, she sniffed and chittered like an animal, inching closer and closer until she was close enough for him to feel her breath on his cheek. It was sour, hot against his skin, the pouring, freezing rain not nearly enough to mask it.

He whimpered again, wept, clenched his teeth and his fists.

“I promise to love you forever,” he cried. “No matter what.”

She screeched again, howled. It was louder than the thunder, more powerful than the lightning.

He’d turned the love of his life into a monster, an abomination, and he didn’t care.

Even now, he had no regrets.

He’d rather have her like this than not at all.

She wrapped what used to be her fingers around his throat and squeezed.

Elliot wasn’t sure which hurt more – the way her claws sliced through the skin of his neck or the sensation of being strangled. They both paled in comparison to how it felt to find her body three days before.

Had he waited too long? Was she too far gone? Did she remember him? Was she in there?

His vision began to spot. Involuntarily, his body fought hard against her, his lizard brain springing to life and activating a fight-or-flight response he didn’t know he still had. He pounded his fists against her, gasping and choking and kicking his trembling legs.

She roared, seizing his entire body into her deformed hands, and threw him across the beach.

He landed in wet sand, gagging and wheezing. When he found his voice, he screamed her name. The rain came down harder, obstructing his view of the woods, but he knew she was there. She was in the trees. She was in the rain. She was still in him and he wasn’t leaving without her.

They were in this together. They were in the trees. They were in the rain. And they’d never be apart again – just like he always wanted.

He screamed again, as loud as he could, and in the time it took for lightning to flash, she was on top of him.

She knocked him to the ground, landing squarely on his chest, and Elliot was forced to look at her – rotting, winged, bleeding, grotesque. His weak stomach churned to look at her. He shrieked and sobbed, tried to fight her off because his body’s primal urge to survive was stronger than his fear, but she was so much stronger now.

She roared, sounding a thousand times more monster than human, and Elliot cried. The entirety of their five years together flashed before his eyes. Every date, every kiss, every meal, every laugh. It flooded his senses, making him dizzy. He felt drunk. He tried to leave his body, tried to spare himself the pain, but she cocked her arms back like two shotguns and plunged her claws deep into his chest.

Momentarily blinded by pain and shock, Elliot realized he’d been wrong.

Somewhere along the way, he’d gotten something wrong. Maybe it was a miscalculation, or maybe he’d simply put his faith in the wrong kind of god.

Maybe he’d never know.

He started to fade. It was hard to breathe. He was losing feeling in his arms and legs, the pain in his abdomen replaced with a faint burning sensation.

This was it. The end of them. The end of him.

But just as he was about to shut his eyes, just as he was about to give up and accept that he’d failed, she leaned into him. She dropped so that her chest and forehead were pressed flush against his. Her breath was hot and stale, her body heavy.

But their eyes met and Elliot saw it.

He saw her.

He saw her showing up at his door on Valentine’s Day with pizza and roses because he said he’d never had a valentine before. He saw her waking up in the middle of the night with sleepy eyes, kissing his cheek and resting her head against his shoulder as she fell back asleep. He saw her singing in the car, laughing on their favorite roller coaster, playing Xbox in his living room with messy hair.

He saw her.

She was in there.

And suddenly, Elliot understood.

She was finally as dark and as powerful and as dangerous as she’d always felt. She was finally safe from all of the pain and fear that plagued her.

She was finally free. And he had done that for her.

He gasped and choked when her talons pierced his heart.

Seconds away now. He could feel it.

He was almost empty.

He mustered up all of his remaining strength, all of the energy and fight he had left in his entire broken body, to utter the nine words she always needed most.

“I promise to love you forever. No matter what.”

It was a dying, gurgling plea, the promise of a dead man, the last words he’d ever speak. Blood spilled from the corners of his mouth. The pain was gone now, the pain he’d felt in his body and the pain he’d felt in his heart.

He could see in her eyes, dark and wild, that she’d understood him and this time, when she threw her head back and howled, he knew that it was her way of reciprocating.

She loved him, too. She’d love him forever. No matter what.

And then she ripped out his heart.

She’d go back into the woods, bury it, and he’d be reborn just like her. They’d be the same. They’d be together. They’d be immortal, side-by-side until the very end of times.

She held his heart tightly in her hands, mutated and raw, and watched as it stopped beating.

Elliot stopped moving.

The rain stopped falling.

He died there on the beach where they’d had their first date, their first deep talk, their first kiss and their first time, and after she leaned in again to press her forehead softly to his, she scurried back towards the tree line to make quick work of his carcass.

Everything he’d ever known was gone but his life with her was just beginning. He had no way of knowing what it would be like but he knew that he’d done right by her.

He’d made good on his promise.

He shouldn’t have done it but he did.

He’d helped defile her human body, helped cover up her choice, sacrificed himself to an entity that might have been more demon than deity, and died in agony but it kept her alive so he didn’t care.

All he really wanted was for them to be together forever.

And now, at long last, without worry and without fear and without any of the beautiful and agonizing things that made them human, they would be.