#oneaday Day 677: Wasteland Diaries, Part 25

As I wept, I remembered everything. I remembered Evie’s face when she told me what she’d done. I remembered that feeling like I’d been punched in the gut. I remembered bursting into tears, Evie wanting to comfort me but me wanting nothing more than to run away.

The red lights went out with a metallic “clunk” sound. When they came back on again, the bloodstained crib was gone, and in its place was Evie once again, standing in the same immobile way she had been before. After a moment, though, her head moved up and her eyes opened, looking straight at me. There was a faint red glow in them that was deeply unnerving.

The expression on her face was one of sorrow and regret.

“I’m sorry, Adam,” she said. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

I felt the sense of rage building in me and this time, I didn’t want to stop it. I felt my body tensing and tightening, and my vision clouded. I felt myself losing control of my movements, but I just watched as my hands reached out to grab Evie by the throat. I picked her up and she struggled for a moment, then was still. I raised her into the air as if she weighed no more than a rag doll, and flung her lifeless body at the wall of this horrific room.

Before her body impacted the wall, the lights went out again. The feeling of rage subsided and suddenly I was glad I hadn’t seen what would have undoubtedly happened a second later if the lights had stayed on.

“Are you sure that’s how you really feel?” came my disembodied voice in the darkness. “You’ve had plenty of time to reflect on all this, after all.”

“What do you mean?” I replied, shouting into the darkness. “That was the end of everything! With that one selfish act, she turned what should have been the beginning of the rest of our lives into the end!”

“Did she?” came my voice in response. It seemed to be coming from all around me. “This world was your creation, not hers. You were the one who ended the world, destroyed everything, turned everything to dust. You were the one who was so angry you wanted nothing more than complete and total annihilation of everything both you and she once held dear. And yet despite all that, what has the purpose of your long journey been?”

I hesitated a moment before answering, and suddenly it dawned on me what he — I — was saying.

“I’ve… been looking for her,” I said. “I’ve been trying to reunite with her.”

“And why is that?” came the response.

“I don’t know,” I said.

The lights came on again, but this time, they were not red. They were the lights in the corridor of my flat. I was watching as a passive observer, but this time I was not in my wrathful, destructive form. I was staggering around, eyes clouded with tears. I bumped into several things in the hallway before stumbling into the bedroom and collapsing onto the bed, sobbing. The tears kept coming and I felt like they’d never stop.

Shakily, I raised my head from the damp pillow and looked at the bedside cabinet. Atop it was an almost-full case of pills. I reached for them and–

“Stop,” I said. “I know all this. Don’t make me go through it again.”

The scene faded and I was back into darkness again.

“Very well,” came the reply. “Now, answer me one question.”

“Anything,” I said, my voice trembling. This was getting to be too much to take. I felt my head would explode with the pent-up emotion that these scenes and my emerging memories were provoking. “Anything. Please.”

“Why are you angry?”

I considered this for a moment, my heart still racing, my pulse thumping in my ears. It was difficult to concentrate, but I had to. I just had to.

“I was angry because she took our future,” I said, finally. “She took away something precious from me. She brought about the end. She–”

I paused. Was it her fault? Was I remembering this right?

A light came on, a single bare bulb, illuminating a table with a chair either side of it. On one side was Evie, on the other side was me. I watch the scene unfold, knowing what happens next.

“Adam, I have something important to tell you,” said Evie, looking into the eyes of the other me.

“What is it, sweetie?” the other me asked, taking her hand. “Are you all right?”

“It’s–” she paused for a moment, trying to compose herself. “It’s about the baby.”

I saw the other me tensing up across the table from her. I started to feel the familiar knot in the stomach. Suddenly, I was the one sitting across the table from her, looking into her eyes as she started to speak again.

“Adam,” she said. “I want this to work. I really do. And I want to have a family with you. But–”

“But what?” I said, a feeling of nausea rising in me. “What is it?”

There was a silence.

“I’m not ready,” she said, breaking it. “We’re not ready. You’re out of work, I’m going to be out of a job before long. I’ve still got some money from my inheritance, but that’s not going to last forever. Bringing a child into this would just be… wrong.”

I didn’t respond, waiting for her to go on. The oppressive silence descended across the table again.

“I… spoke to the doctors,” she continued. “They said it wasn’t too late to… reconsider, but that I’d have to make my mind up quickly.”

I knew what was coming next. And it suddenly dawned on me that the most important choice I’d have to make was about to come up. When the next words she was to say came out of her mouth, would I flee like I once did, starting this whole cycle of anger, depression and destruction anew? Or would I stick by her, accepting what she said and moving on with our lives until such a time as we were “ready”?

“Adam, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I… I can’t go through with it. I made a choice. I’ve… terminated the pregnancy.”

Time seemed to stand still, the fate of the world hanging on my answer.