All That Remains

I am filled suddenly with the sense of being carried. I imagine it is my father, carrying me to bed after I fell asleep on the couch. I hope when I wake up I am in my bedroom once more, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars peeling off of my ceiling. I hope I can hear my mother’s twinkling laugh as she opens the door and chides me for sleeping through the day. I hope I will wake up to my sister belting the wrong lyrics to a song she doesn’t know. 

I know I won’t. 

I will never wake up again. 

——❈——

“Cassidy Wright.”

A singular, strangled sob emanates from the crowd and echoes off the hills. 

Others listening passively to the names recoil at the sound. Not because it is unusual in a place such as this, but because of who it comes from. They stand frozen, shocked, as General Wright knelt, clutching her chest. One hand clamped desperately over her mouth, stifling her cries. 

For a moment, no one moves. They have watched General Wright face the unimaginable. They watched as her father’s name was read on a day just like this one. They watched as she was handed her mother’s blood-stained tunic. 

Not once has General Wright broken. The world has ended for her many times. 

Now, however, she has nothing, no one, left. 

It is at moments like this that those around her remember that Marrion Wright is only nineteen, too young to have experienced such loss.

They stand in silence for one moment more, honoring the General’s sister. 

But soon, the spell is broken. The reader continues listing off the names of the dead. It is not an act of callousness but necessity. There are so many to read each day. He cannot afford to stop.

The General stands up suddenly, although no one pays any mind now. She dodges swiftly through the crowd. Her momentary lapse in composure has disappeared. The only evidence is the tear tracks staining her cheeks. 

Marrion barely registers what she is told at the medic’s tent. 

I’m so sorry, General, Cassidy’s body was not recovered. This is all we were able to find.

Marrion clutched the identification tag in her hand so hard that her palm bled. She does not let go. 

No body. Just like mother.

She pushes that thought away.

I should have been there.

She pushes that one away, too. She has a goal now. One final mission. 

The sun had just begun to rise when Marrion started to walk. Her legs move automatically, carrying her to a place she can not bear to think about.

“Promise me. Whatever is left of me, you will bury here,” Cassidy’s voice rings unwanted in Marrion’s mind. “I couldn't bear not being with them when I died.”

Marrion had only shaken her head back then as the two sisters had sat at their parent’s graves. As they had buried cloth in place of a body next to their father. “I refuse to bury another family member.”

Now, Marrion walked alone to the site, clutching all that was left of Cassidy. She would fulfill her final mission. 

She didn’t know what came after that. 

Marrion passed piles of bodies along the sides of the road that stunk under the sun. Most of them were human, a sign they were losing this war. 

For every hundred human bodies, Marrion would pass one thin, pale body of a Fakki. They were deceptively weak-looking creatures. For years, they only existed in the ghost stories of old women or the tall tales of travelers. Now, they were a haunting reality. 

They had struck silently, collapsing empires in a night. No one knew how they accomplished what they did. Any who did, did not live to tell the tale. 

Humans were dwindling quickly. They had never witnessed this level of devastation. Anyone capable of wielding a weapon was enlisted into the army. Families were drafted as a whole and fought side by side. Marrion’s parents had quickly risen up the ranks. Her mother and father had each lasted longer than any other general, two and three weeks, respectively. Marrion had lasted longer than either of them. 

She had refused to leave Cassidy alone. 

Marrion was deep into enemy territory now, a stretch of land that used to belong to her people. It was the site of the longest battle in the war. This was her home, one that many had sacrificed everything to protect. Now, it wasn’t hers at all. 

The Fakki were strange. They fought so stubbornly here and then left as soon as they had won. Sometimes, Marrion wondered if the Fakki fought for nothing more than human extinction. 

Marrion stopped just short of a large hill where she knew two crudely marked stones lay. Marrion squinted into the setting sun. Her heart felt like it was beating in her throat. Someone was already sitting at the top. 

Marrion grasped the hilt of her sword using her free hand and slowly climbed up the hill. As she got closer, she realized it was a human. A girl with dark hair just like her own sitting beside two stones. A girl Marrion thought she would never see again.

Cassidy. 

Marrion sprinted up the hill.

——❈——

We Fakki are very strange creatures, I will admit. We begin to decay from the moment we are born. We are born with our death date ticking loudly in our ears. We know from the very beginning that the time we have is precious. 

We are peaceful creatures. Or, we were until a human discovered our secret. He promised he would tell everyone of our true nature. That he would not stop until every last one of us was dead.

We do not know if he is alive. We do not know whom he told. But we can hear our time running out quicker now, the ticking thundering in our ears. We knew that if we did not strike immediately, they would kill us before we could kill them.

We can only exist when they do not know we do.

Maybe, when this is over, they can believe that none of us remain, and we can peacefully coexist once more. We will not have to kill all of them. 

I do like humans. I am sorry that they had to find out about us.

I encountered one today. She was still breathing when I found her, though barely. She was so young. She had so much time left. I wonder if humans appreciate how much life, how much time, is given to them at birth. I think they take it for granted. 

I will not. I know how precious life is. 

The Fakki warriors had driven the humans farther down into the valley, allowing the rest of us to examine the fallen humans in peace. 

I placed my hand on the body of the young girl and swept the hair from her vacant eyes. She was small, not yet grown into her features. In her final moments, she clung to a vision of her parents, a child who longed to go home.

I sat and watched until her breathing finally stilled. Good. She was too young for war. 

I closed my eyes and focused on her essence. Slowly, hers became mine. Her memories, her features, her essence. 

Then she was gone, and only I remained. 

I hesitantly stood up. I was not used to limbs heavier than mine, and I stumbled forward like a newborn deer. 

The first human to ever witness this process was horrified. He had called us monsters. Thieves. But we are not thieves. We only take what has been lost and use what humans can not. We preserve life that otherwise would have been wasted. It is because of him that we are forced to become monsters. Forced to kill before the humans realize we are among them. 

The transformation has been described to me before, but it is so much different than what can be described in words. 

For the first few days, you have trouble remembering who you are. I knew I needed to find the girl’s family before anyone counted her among the lost. It would make the transition smoother if no one knew she had been dead at all. 

Yet the remainder of the girl’s will was overpowering. Intoxicating. Desperate. I felt as if I was the one who had been taken over. I had no choice but to allow her will to guide my new legs as they carried me in the opposite direction I wished to go. Part of me was curious, where did she want so badly to go?

Finally, I reached her destination. I found myself on top of a large hill where two stones lay nestled in the grass. I no longer felt the tug of the girl’s essence. She was content. I know humans usually mark their buried dead with stones. I wonder if she knew the people who lie here. It will be a while before I can process all her memories. I imagine for now that her final wish was to lie with her loved ones. 

Soon, I feel things I have only heard named, like hunger, and thirst, and exhaustion. These are signs that this body was meant to be sustained, to keep on living. This was not something my decaying form had ever known. The idea that so much life lies before me thrills me. The ticking in my ears is finally drowned out. I sit on the grass and feel the wind blow through my hair and tickle my skin. 

I am more alive than I have ever been. 

I am content to sit here forever. But soon, I am interrupted. 

I turn to face the intruder when she calls out a name. 

“Cassidy!”

Then a lifetime’s worth of memories pour into my mind. 

A young girl is cradled in her sister’s arms as blood stains her knee. It will be okay, her sister whispers. I’ll take care of you. I always will. 

The girl pretends to be asleep in her father’s arms, and he pretends not to know as he carries her upstairs. Neither can keep from giggling. 

The girl runs from her mother as she chases her with a napkin. Both have flour all over their faces. 

The girl makes her sister promise that she will be buried with her parents. She knows her time is running out. She can not fight forever. She does not want to.

I am embraced by a young woman not much older than the form I wear now.

“I thought I had lost you.” She is sobbing into my shoulder.

I have never once felt love like this. 

Maybe if I had, I would have killed myself before I ever dreamed of stealing this girl’s body. 

I am a thief. 

I am a monster.