Don't Eat the Red Snow

They say your life is supposed to flash before your eyes. The course of events from your bright bitter entry into the world, up until the moment your tether to the Earth is severed. All of this replayed in less than a second as if it were a movie or a flip book. Instead, the moment I died, or should I say the moment wherein it looks as if I’ve died, is materialized in front of me. I’m so close, that if I were alive, I’d feel the sensation of the thick, salty blood pooled at the scene of my death if I were to lick it. The thing is, in the state I‘m in currently, I don’t appear to have a vessel. One might describe it as being a ghost, however, I’ve not even so much as a shadow of my former body following me. My consciousness is the only surviving proof of my existence, and scientifically speaking, that isn’t proof enough to call me a living entity. So, what exactly am I? It appears that I was once human, though I cannot say I’m certain. Not only has my life failed to flash before my eyes, but I also fail now to recount a singular detail about the corpse in front of me. Though the attachment I feel towards the human carcass is so compelling that I know it must belong to me. Perhaps my tether to this planet has not been cut to completion? It’s too soon to say. Though I’m unable to disturb the scene around me, maybe I can still investigate, and determine the sequence of events that have delivered me to this state. 

While I’m unable to physically move myself, my will alone takes me where I need to be. I scan the scene I’m presented with. The corpse that calls to me is a feminine presenting human, though it’s not lightwork deciphering a possible gender as I’m drenched in my own blood. If this was the moment of my physical body’s death, I must’ve gone through a great deal of pain for a lengthy period of time. Though there doesn’t seem to be a trace of pain on my resting face, the rest of my body is crumpled up on the pavement, wounded arms cradling my abdomen. To count each stab wound inflicted on the body would take at least a day’s time, though I don’t believe the concept of time exists where my consciousness now resides. It seems the area around my sternum is what’s faced the most trauma, though my abdomen isn’t entirely in view, and the darkness of nightfall doesn’t help me distinguish anything. I’m wearing a lab coat and trousers with clogs. Whatever shirt I was wearing is no longer discernible. A pair of glasses sits a few feet from my body, coated with snow. 

The neighborhood I find myself in seems quiet, though everything is so still that snowflakes have been suspended midair, so perhaps I’m wrong. Not one house has a single light shining through a window, and a thin layer of snow coats each roof and each car. Other than the house I’m closest to, which has an almost clean car occupying its driveway. At least, clean compared to the inch or two of snow resting on the others, a mere dusting has touched this car. Also, both the driver's side front and back doors have been left ajar. Two sets of footprints starting at those car doors are left in the snow leading up to my corpse, which is now alone in the front yard of this large house. One pair of footsteps makes its way from my body, perhaps if I follow them I can find my killer. There’s a chance I’ll recognize them. Before I trail the tracks, I decide to get closer to myself, one last chance for any sort of recollection of who I might be. I take in my features, my full lips slightly agape and chapped, my eyelids and eye bags purple. It seems like my coiled hair should be dark given my other features, however, I can’t decipher its hue considering both the darkness as well as the blood and snow it’s been caked in. I get closer, closer than I would be able to if I were a physical being. That’s when it comes back to me.

The sensation of being knocks the wind out of me, or is it because I’ve just been shoved to the ground? The snow wets my clothes and hair, and the icy ground burns. A male presenting figure is hovering over me, brandishing a large kitchen knife. I can’t decipher any of his features through my blurry vision, but I know I recognize him, though I’m unable to identify him. I gasp at the first stab, it’s through my arm which has instinctively wrapped around me. His other hand moves to cover my lips, why hadn’t I screamed earlier? The taste of blood fills my mouth, I try to cough it up, but his hand stifles me. He continues until I can no longer see, hear, or feel anything but the warmth of my blood pooling around me. When his hand has left my face, at last, I’m able to expel the blood I’ve been choking on. The coolness of the snow is my last fleeting memory before I’m left with nothing. 

Now, back to my present form, memory having concluded, I follow my killer's footsteps, determined to find the inflictor of such anguish. It startles me that it doesn’t take long to find his body in a similar position as mine, he appears to have been dying or already dead at the time I passed. He is also surrounded by a pool of blood, though he possesses one sole wound. He seems to have stabbed himself in the throat. The odds of this being staged are next to none considering the only feet that have made indents in the neighboring snow are his. He’s face first in the ground, so I can’t say if I would recognize him. One thing I do take notice of is his white lab coat, similar to the one I was wearing, but less red. I get closer, as close as I was to myself when I obtained the memory of my death. This time my vision goes dark, and I can only listen.

The first voice I hear is one I recognize. “She’s threatened to go public if I don’t do so myself. We have no other option.” 

The second voice is the one that belongs to the man who has stabbed both himself and me. “Why does it have to be me? You know I won’t come out of this unscathed.” 

The first voice grows more sinister in his next threat. “I’m giving you no other option. It’s either you deal with her or I deal with you. Choose wisely. Remember the depth of your debt, I can settle it all for you this instant, and your family will remain safe. It would be a shame if any harm were to befall your little Tiffany, wouldn’t it?” The silence is palpable, why couldn’t I see the men as they converse? 

“I understand.” Was his family endangered due to a situation I put him in? They should be safe since the possessor of the second voice followed through with ‘dealing’ with me, right? There must be some way I can ensure his daughter's safety, right?

My surroundings fade back into vision, snowflakes still stagnant, as they were at my time of death. What I think would be considered a long time passes before I move from the man. I haven’t stopped thinking of the family I must've put in danger. What did I do to warrant him to commit a murder-suicide? This isn’t about me alone anymore, this is so much bigger than myself, whatever this is. What was I thinking, putting so many lives on the line? I find myself back to the scene of my death, focusing on the car. Where could it have come from? My focus trails to the tire tracks that have not yet been blanketed by the flurries. Like my murderer's footprints, my tire tracks will lead me to wherever that man had gotten into my car.

The tire tracks are easy enough to follow as I make my way back to the entrance of the suburb, however figuring out which tire tracks belong to me while on the main road doesn’t share the same simplicity. As I hover closer to them, I'm pulled by the sensation of driving, the same way I was pulled by the other memories. It feels as if the car is driving away from its original destination in reverse, taking what’s left of me with it back to the place I’m trying to locate. As I’m being taken to where I was, I can sense my living self’s tightened chest. While I know it’s anxiety that causes it, I can’t recall precisely what I was fearing on my drive home. Surely, I couldn’t have been aware that the man hiding in my back seat was what I should’ve been fearing.

The sensation of driving comes to a halt, as I notice I’m in a parking garage, across the street from a lab. It seems safe to assume both me and my killer worked here given our similar dress, and that the person who issued my murder should also be employed at the same place as us. There are many doors and clearances required for the humans that enter, I guess I could say I’m now exempt from these formalities, tonight's events considered. Though there are no longer snowy footprints guiding me when I’m inside, it’s as if subconsciously, I know where I need to be, it’s comparable to muscle memory. I’m led to someone's office, I can tell it is not mine given the family photo framed on the desk wherein no one resembles me in the slightest. I don’t believe it’s the office of the man who killed me either, as the man in these photos has a smaller stature and paler skin. Also, his entire family looks quite well-off in the image, and given my killer's debts, I doubt he would be able to afford the luxury clothing the pictured family is decked in. I near the frame enough that my vision once again darkens until it’s gone, allowing another past conversation to take its place. 

“Janelle, how long have you worked for me?” That voice is certainly the one that had issued my death in my killer's memory. But the sound of that name he’s just spoken, could it be my own?

“Eleven years, Dr. Wolfe.” That voice is mine, the connection I feel, there’s no other person that sound belongs to but me.

“Eleven years, Ms. Janelle, you’ve worked diligently. Longer hours than I’d expect from a woman your age, though it mustn't be so tiring considering you don’t have any family to be responsible for anymore.” His tone is so sour I can almost taste his bitterness.

“What exactly is your point, Dr. Wolfe? Would you mind getting to it before I lose my patience, and perhaps, do something you would consider rash?” 

“The point, Janelle,” his words are venomous. “Is that this is the only chance you’ll have to consider things rationally. Do you think I’d allow you to go forward with what you’re now holding over my head?”

“I don’t exactly see how you’ll stop me.”

“Think again. This is your final warning. I don’t want to be rid of you, you’ve been the model employee until the sudden outburst.”

“‘Be rid of me?’ What the hell are you implying?” 

Dr. Wolfe exhales, leaving a long gap of silence before his next retort. “I quite liked you, Janelle. I’m sorry that it’s come to this. It’s about time you leave my office.” 

“That’s it? Do you really have no reasonable explanation for what you’ve been having us unknowingly work on? You’ve claimed that you’ve created some new strain of bacteria designed to enrich the human microbiome, having us breed it without allowing us to study it closely enough to realize it causes symptoms comparable to those of necrotizing fasciitis. Only when I’ve bred the bacteria separately, to study unbeknownst to you due to the bacteria’s suspicious structure, do I see that it would be immensely harmful, to say the least, to the human ecosystem. You can’t so much as tell me why you’ve been attempting to deceive us these past few months?” 

Without skipping a beat, Dr. Wolfe answers, “No. Unfortunately, I cannot.”

“Because it looks to me that you’re attempting to either wipe out the human race entirely or begin the zombie apocalypse the world’s been anticipating.”

“Either of those options can be considered correct.” I feel Dr. Wolfe’s hands picking up the picture frame on his desk, likely inspecting it before placing it back down.

“Why only now do you admit this to me?”

“Because it’s too late.” I hear the creak of his desk chair as he starts to stand up. 

“It can’t possibly be.”

“It is for you, Ms. Janelle.” His feet tap the linoleum as they make their way past my voice and to his office door. How is it that his voice has warped my name into a weapon?

“What does that mean?” 

“You’ll regret the course of this conversation later on Janelle. We could’ve worked together on this.” I hear the creak of the door handle as he invites me to exit. The darkness recedes, and I’m left alone in his barren office, with no trace of either Dr. Wolfe or Janelle left. 

After the memory fades in its entirety, it’s as if the tether to my vessel has grown stronger, and I’m being dragged back to where this began, or should I say ended? My consciousness fades in and out on my way, the tether goes from weak to strong each time my existence wanes. I may have taken too long. Once I’ve made it as close to the bloody scene as I can be, I feel myself fleeting. What was the point of all of this if I’m being forced to leave anyways? Unless I was gradually returning to the present? Either way, I know I’m being taken from this purgatory, whether it be back to the mortal plane or a new universe entirely. If it makes a difference, in my next life, I want to make up for these wrongs. I want to fix my mistakes. If not for me, if not for the human species, then for the man who murdered me, for his family whom he was forced to put on the line for my poor choices, for his Tiffany. It’s not until I’m a millisecond from gone that I realize my life has yet to flash before my eyes.