Bargain to Rot

Trigger for emetophobia (briefly mentioned), talks of death, body dysmorphia, disassociation, and vivid descriptions of an unhealthy body.

Why are you here, child?

I don’t know. What are you? Where am I?

Delia brought you here, I presume. Meddler. Do you want it then?

Want what? Please, I want to leave.

Do you want to live, of course?

Am I… dead?

You’re nothing. Would you like to be something?

I need to live - please, my family… I have a life.

Not anymore. Bargain for it, or be nothing.

Anything you want! I just want to live.

As you desire.

—

Last year, I had no idea what a vulture sounded like. Of course, I had no reason to; I hadn’t lived anywhere close to the creatures, so it was never in my area of concern. Now, 

their cries are all I hear. To best describe it, it’s half-step between caterwauling and a human scream. People who’ve had near-death experiences describe many differing accounts. Their life flashing before their eyes, a white light, a cry of a baby. For me, it was the screech of a vulture. 

At first, it pained me to hear animals make such bone chilling noises, but my patience had already worn thin from the environment alone. No sympathy was allotted to these howling little monsters that wouldn’t stop following me around. The screeching was just to intimidate anything else trying to snack on their future prey. These days, they mostly stick to hissing, a noise that seems quite out of place for such a bird. Less obnoxious at least.

I should say, I’m not sure whether they’re vultures or buzzards. Veronica - she is was? real into ornithology - said there was a difference. Never one for science, myself. For convenience’s sake, let’s say they’re vultures. They keep pursuing me. Keen senses, I’ll give them that, thinking I’m about to become carrion. After a few weeks, they’ll give up, but new ones replace them as soon as they leave. A deadly relay race that’s been going on for months. Maybe if I left the desert it would stop, but where else would I go when I’m still not… back together?

Besides, it’s not uncomfortable here. It should be, I know, but I don’t feel hot, even in wool. Thirst and hunger haven’t been gnawing at me, though my lips crack and my skin sags without the meat to keep it in place. When I tried to sleep, the vultures started pecking at me, thinking I’d finally died, and I haven’t tried again. I’m not about to keel over at any moment. I don’t think so anyway, but I don’t know the rules. If only I knew the rules, I would be crying into Veronica’s shoulder right now as mom and dad held me tight. But I’m not.

Isolation is what drives me out of the arid plains. It’s a natural need, humans are pack animals. I cling to loneliness like a vice, foolishly thinking it means I’m still alive. I am alive! All I need is some help, so that’s what I leave to get. I already know where the signs of life are, being lost wasn’t the problem, and I never strayed far from the road. It’s a long road, not designed to travel on without the assistance of an automobile. I don’t have a car obviously, I don’t even have a license, I was too young, and I can’t hitchhike. Even if there were cars, they would be… put off by my appearance.

I think if the me from a year ago could see myself now, I’d find my appearance to be something sinister as well. My hair and skin made dry, sandy, and greasy all at once after over a month without a wash; the smell must have been putrid. Neck and arm wounds left to suppurate in the desert sun. The awkward limp and violent twitching I’d developed after narrowly dodging rigor mortis. Left to steep in death for too long, and came out bitter. All together, I look like someone’s poorly puppeteering a cadaver. So I walk to town instead. Distant enough to never be spotted by some family on a road trip.

Thankfully, the first building I see is a gas station that doesn’t open on Sundays. It must be Sunday, since no one’s in the building. I feel bad stealing from some poor mom-and-pop shop, but I need to stop smelling dead. Disinfectant is in stock, thank god, and I rub it into my open cuts. It stings. I bask in it. Just to try, I drink bottled water. There’s no relief that I can feel, but my body soaks it up like a sponge, so I do the same with food. The change is less obvious, but if I keep eating, I won’t look like a bundle of sticks and bones anymore.

Next step is their landline and phonebook. Only businesses still have those. Delia’s House of Resurrection. Certainly a scam. It’s my best shot. Five rings, it almost cuts me off, but someone picks it up at the last minute.

 “Greetings from the departed. I am Delia, and speaking on their behalf, how can we help you?” Fake. Fake tone, fake spirituality, faker! All that bravado lures the gullible, but the sceptics are just as deceived. Beneath the persona laid real power. I heard her voice, heard the nothing speak her name reverently, spitefully, patronizingly.

“It’s Elliot Whittaker.” The line goes dead quiet. Tears start to burn my eyes, but I’m not hydrated enough for them to fall. “Please fix me.” I beg, near silent, but it echoes on the empty call. She sighs, gives me the address I’d already seen in the phonebook. Location isn’t important. What matters is that it’s an invitation. After days of limping there, the building is about what I expected. A con waiting to happen, only legal on grounds of spirituality. The sign says closed, but I swing the door open.

Tea is prepared, two cups of chamomile. I slot into the chair opposite to Delia. My body forgets to cooperate for a moment, the muscle memory for sitting is delayed, unused for so long. She lounges in her chair with an easy smile.

“I want my life back.” Her face is stone, her lips pursed, waiting, and I remember the voice. Bargain for it, or be nothing. Desperation overtakes me, and I drop to my knees, pleading, praying. “Please, please, I’ll do anything. My family, my life, I - I have to go back. Whatever you want from me, I don’t care!” She doesn’t blink, damn impossible to read. Here I am, laying my soul bare, but she stared into the nothing, spat in its face, and came back whole. Some child wouldn’t be what made her flinch. “Please.” I offer one last time, as if that one word would make her crumble.

“What I do isn’t natural, the nothing must have complained about that.” It did, voiceless but irritated. “You can’t expect to come back normally. I didn’t expect you to come back at all! This is all the life you’re getting, child. There’s nothing you can offer me.” I want to scrape her unaffected expression off her fucking face. At the very least, the grime under my uncut nails would give her an infection. I want to fight. There’s nothing to fight. “Just go home. People miss you, don’t they?” Don’t they?

Just go home, she suggested. So I do. Well, not really. I’m sort of stalking my family, but not in a weird way! I think, possibly, if I ease myself back into being home, I’ll start to naturally repair. Maybe I haven’t finished bargaining yet. For a while, I was terrified that they had moved or moved on, but then I saw the missing posters. Missing for eleven months, my face slapped on the cover. Not my face, not anymore, rather the face I had when I was fifteen. I don’t focus on it. That’s a lie; I do, and I vomit up bile looking at it. 

Veronica is in the picture too, reading under a tree in the background. That’s what inspired me to start the not-quite-stalking. I sit on the bench of Angelwood Park, within spitting distance of her favorite reading spot, the same one as in the photo. Wearing a disguise, of course. Sunglasses I stole, a coat she’s never seen me wear, hair a couple inches too long. I don't think she would recognize me even in my regular clothes. I look homeless, and everyone ignores me as such. Nothing to do but chew my nails - an old habit that resurfaced when they grew so damn long - and slowly lose faith.

Until day three. To my surprise, there she is, book in hand. The Backyard Bird Chronicles. Absently, I wonder if vultures have a page. Seeing her rattles me, but I school my expression. Poorly, I assume, but she’s not looking at me anyhow. I cover myself with a newspaper, peering over it inconspicuously. Ronnie looks different. Not like I do, not like she’s looked at something she shouldn’t have, not like she’s been remade. Just different. Sad, or worn out. No twelve thirteen year old should have that dead-eyed stare. Would my appearance make her happy again, or would it be so much worse?

One more day, and I would have it figured out. One more week. One more month. If I observed her for long enough, I would know if she wanted me around again. Every day, without fail, I would show up to the park. Occasionally, she would sit under the tree for about an hour. About once every three days, according to the notes I kept. Never on Mondays or Fridays, those were reserved for science club and family meals. Despite this knowledge, I’m at the park every day. In case.

Looking back, that might have been too conspicuous. I’m at my same spot, reading the same newspaper that I had been for the past nine days, too scared to steal another. Apparently, Veronica is attentive as ever to those sorts of details. Now, she’s at my bench. Staring directly at me. I’m frozen in place. Sure, I’d watched her for over a week, but it feels different when her attention is fixed on me. I should be disguising myself further, but my traitorous hand starts twitching again, uncooperative.

“You’ve been stalking me.” Her tone brooks no argument, not that I could formulate one. I don’t know what to do, it isn’t supposed to happen like this - it isn’t supposed to happen at all! “Explain or I’m calling the police.” Ronnie doesn’t recognize me. Of course she doesn’t. I knew even behind the disguise, I was only a caricature of what used to be her brother.

Acting on some impulse to be seen, to be known, to feel something familiar again, I take off my cheap, stolen sunglasses. Expose my tearful eyes that hold nothing, that hold everything. I try to form some expression that says “sorry”. For leaving. For coming back a monster. For still wanting you to hold me through the rotten carcass. No expression covers those apologies. Veronica screams.

“What’s happening?”

“Isn’t that the Whittaker girl? Wait, who’s that… oh my god, call 911!”

“That’s the missing kid, Elliot! Jesus, he looks- should we get a doctor? Hey, is there a doctor here?”

I remember being pushed away from Veronica by a frantic crowd, I remember the shell shocked look she wore, I remember the wail of the ambulance siren. Everything else is… fuzzy. The silent question the nurses never asked lingers in the air. How the fuck are you still alive? There are a mixture of doctors and police arguing outside my hospital room. Disagreeing on the questions they should ask me, one fervently demanding that I shouldn’t be asked questions until I was in a fit mental state.

They send a psychologist. Doctor Edna Garcia, but please, call her Dr. Edna. Well, she asks me where I’ve been. Which is… a tale I should’ve thought out, but it’s hazy.

“I walked.” That much is clear. Judging by the abrupt cut off of Dr. Edna’s note taking, that wasn’t a sufficient answer. “In the desert.” No coherent story comes to mind. First, the nothing, then the desert, then Delia, and finally the park. That was the order, I’m sure, but the more I think about what came before and the in-betweens, the more my head hurts.

Instead of getting frustrated, the doctor gives me a patient smile. “Dissociative amnesia is common with traumatic events.” Too many words. Ronnie would understand them, I think. “Now that you’re out of survival mode, your brain is blocking out whatever it can’t deal with.” Out of survival mode. That doesn’t make sense. What am I doing if not surviving? “Living.” No, that’s out of the question now.

“I had to give that away.” She pinches her eyebrows, ignorant in a way that makes my insides twist. “That was the bargain, I can’t live. I’m not-” My face is wet. They shouldn’t have hydrated me, I waste the water. “I’m not real anymore.”

“You can try to be.” So I take a shower. Several showers. Dirt continues sliding off on the third. By the fifth, I almost feel like a person. The water’s cold and wet, a stark contrast from the desert, from the nothing. I take even longer in the mirror, inspecting myself. It’s… not as horrible as I saw in the gas station window. Scars still litter my arms and neck from the accident, but after treatment, they’re not open or yellow. They’re Inflamed. Painful. Healing.

My hair’s a bit long. Jonah said boys shouldn’t have long hair, but I don’t dislike it. My skin is still oversized for my body, although there’s already a notable difference after the nutrition IV. When you’re so small, any food makes a change. Heavy eyebags, twitching fingers, stiff leg. All signs of poor health, but… I don’t look undead. Just sick.

In a daze, I plop myself back onto the stiff bed. Dr. Edna’s on the chair next to me. I didn’t mean to keep her waiting, but she doesn’t look unhappy. In fact, she smiles. “Feeling any better?”

“Yes.” I’m then evaluated by more doctors, who’ve kept the police at bay for a week or so. According to Dr. Edna’s analysis, it would be best for Elliot’s readjustment if he were to go home. Which is thoughtful, which is terrifying. I can’t see Veronica. Or rather, she can’t see me. My parents, will they let me in the house?

I’m escorted to the waiting room, where Richard Whittaker, dear old dad, is being comforted by mom. He’s hyperventilating, she’s shaking even as she rubs circles into his back. Ronnie’s not there. I don’t dare to move, but they spot me anyway. Neither speak. Everyone in the ER with broken fingers and concussions watch me, dissecting me. The hospital gown isn’t helping.

“I need pants.” The first words I speak to them in eleven months. Mom stands, blocking the onlookers from seeing me, and walks me out, dad trailing behind, his breathing ragged. Somehow, I recognize the route home. I relax. The house is the same, my room too. Not dusty for some reason, and the bed even looks used. My clothes are still in the same drawers. I forgot what pajamas felt like, and I start crying again. Pathetic.

My alarm clock tells me over 24 hours have passed in the hospital. Ronnie might be at school. Wishful thinking. Downstairs, waffles are stacked in an absurdly high tower of cholesterol. Dad’s habit of stress baking only became problematic after he lost his job. Based on the spread of waffles, my return stresses him out more than job insecurity. The family’s preference is for pancakes. I was the only one who ever wanted waffles.

“Are these for me?” Both parents jump and flip their heads around. Veronica’s there too, but I pointedly don’t look in her direction.

“Yes, yes, take as many as you want!” Mom pushes the plate towards me encouragingly. Not subtle. They’re hoping if they feed me, I won’t be so skeletal. “You’re back, and, well, we missed a few celebrations. Richard suggested waffles to make up for it.” Fuck, she doesn’t get it, does she? It would be so easy to be selfish, to trick her into thinking I’m her son. I can’t.

“I’m back,” I confirm, not quite sure if I’m lying. “but I’m not right. I won’t be right again, not ever.” I duck my head so they won’t see how hard I’m trying to be detached.

“Of course not!” Dad exclaims. It doesn’t sound angry or resigned. “I don’t understand what happened, but I do know that you’re hurt. You don’t have to be alright to… earn your place here.” My brain stalls, disbelieving. “This is your home, no matter what.” I look to Ronnie, searching for some kind of agreement or disdain.

Somehow, she’s wearing a watery, broken smile, purely involuntary. Not screaming, not terrified. Relieved. My body acts on muscle memory, as it was recently loath to do, and I’m hugging her.

“Sorry I freaked out,” She sounds guilty, which makes no sense. “I had prayed so hard to get you back, I looked everywhere, and there you were! You just looked so sick, and I- I’m sorry!” She’s fully sobbing into my shoulder. We eat waffles until I’m full. I bask in it. No bargain was needed, nothing was expected. All they wanted was for me to live again. One day, I think I might.