In the End

This work contains mentions of terminal illness, death, and mild violence. Please read at your own discretion.

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When he looked again it was just a painting. Gone was that hint of familiarity, the sensation of déjà vu, that unsettling feeling of being watched. All that remained was a simple watercolor of a pond in a simple wooden frame hanging on the wall.

His musings were cut short when the door opened, the doctor stepping inside with a greeting and his customary comforting smile. The usual pleasantries were exchanged - no new symptoms, pain fluctuating as always. There were the standard inquiries about sleep and appetite and bathroom habits. Finally, though, he was able to ask about the painting. It had been donated, the doctor said, by one of the long-term residents of their facility upon her passing, on the condition that it be hung in this room.

“This room specifically?” he asked. That seemed an unusual request. 

“...yes,” was the reply after a moment’s pause, at which point the doctor immediately declared it time to rest and let the treatment do its job. The physician left and silence descended save for the occasional soft beep of the machines as they monitored whatever they were monitoring. He sighed and tried to relax as the medication flowed through the tubing and into his vein. Staring at the painting, as his eyes drifted shut he could not shake the feeling that it was staring back.

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The night breezes were cool with that late-summer caress that spoke to the coming of autumn. Crickets sang their operas to the accompaniment of wind rustling through the cattails at the water’s edge. Under his bare feet the bank was damp and chill, soft earth between his toes. Across the water, the same silver moonlight that scattered diamonds on the slowly-rippling surface of the pond also highlighted red-copper strands, as glossy as his own had once boasted, though the shade was so unusual in their dark-haired family. She had always been so different, so lovely. A yawn took him before he could speak to her and when his eyes opened once more it was to the clinical white of the treatment room and the watercolor painting on the wall. 

It wasn’t a masterpiece. If anything, it was amateur work. The brushstrokes were unsteady, unpracticed. The colors were…not quite right, the blues too dark, and strange splashes of red here and there like abstract poppies littered over the canvas. Yet there was something about it that felt…he couldn’t put his finger on it. Known, perhaps. Like something he’d experienced in a dream. A dream - or a memory of how her eyes glittered in the moonlight. 

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The day came when he brought his belongings with him, the few things he was keeping. They checked him in, genuine kindness overlaid with understanding on all sides. The nurse piloting his wheelchair down the labyrinthine hallways was sweet, chatting away in a manner designed to put him at ease, and he was happy to let it work. Understanding the inevitability did not eradicate the fear attached, after all. The door to his new home opened with the push of a button and he got his first look at his final room. White walls, of course, neutral colored furnishings. And-

“Why is that painting here? Wasn’t it supposed to be kept in that treatment room I usually went to?”

“Oh, no, that painting is yours. It goes where you do.” Instantly her eyes widened and her mouth slammed shut, the look on her face screaming that she had not been supposed to say what she had. After a stammered statement about the dinner hours she tossed out a suggestion of a nap and vanished out the door, the new silence punctuated by the soft hiss of it closing and the click as the automatic lock engaged.

Left alone in his comfortable armchair in his new home that still smelled like hospital cleaners and air freshener, he looked at the painting on the wall. His painting, apparently. The swoops and streaks of paint seemed to almost ripple and he could swear he was beginning to smell the scent of damp earth, hear the rustle of grasses. Evening sounds flittered around him, calming and familiar, bringing back memories he hadn’t chosen to think of in decades. He closed his eyes for a moment, chasing the past back down to where it was buried, and when he opened them again she was there, like before, shining copper curls dancing in the falling night. She was closer now - he could see the moonlight reflecting off of her eyes though he could not see the brilliant sapphire hue that so matched his own. More than anything he longed to reach out for her. He opened his mouth to call her name but was seized by a coughing fit so hard he doubled over. 

When he regained his breath he was gasping and clutching the arms of his chair and the painting was hanging peacefully on the opposite wall.

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Eventually came the day that they brought the treatment to him - IV poles and bags and a warmed blanket for his comfort and he was in so much pain that he could barely keep his eyes on the calming colors that had become so familiar to him over the long days. Through the injections and the shifting and the questions he tried to keep sight of the painting, but it wasn’t until they left that he was able to fully relax into it. After a longer time than usual he could feel the cool breeze on his skin, hear the night creatures singing their songs. And she was close, so much closer but still too far to touch. He stretched his hand towards her, falling short of the mark, and he could have sworn he saw the beginnings of a smile on her shadow-shrouded features. He tried to whisper her name and a wave of pain slammed into him, dropping him to his knees as his eyes squeezed shut. 

The painting hung, unchanged, at the foot of the bed.

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“It’s okay, doc, I knew the pain meds wouldn’t work forever.”

“Knowing and comprehending aren’t always the same thing. Would you like someone to sit with you when it gets bad?”

He declined. The only comfort he sought waited just beyond - within? - haphazard brush strokes. The doctor nodded and left and the room fell to silence. 

The pain was horrific. The doctor had been correct - knowing that he would develop a tolerance to the pain medications was not the same as understanding that all he had left was agony. Eyes watering until his tears fell like twin rivers, he focused on his only touchstone - careless swirls of color on the wall in front of him. The painting blurred as his breath began to labor and he deliberately forced his inhales and exhales to a slow, even pace. Closing his eyes, he waited for the touch of earth beneath his toes.

The water lapped up with the breeze and it was cold, so cold, colder somehow than he had expected, or remembered, but when he looked up she was there in front of him. Her sapphire eyes shone, her titian curls gleamed. She was every bit as beautiful as he had known she would become had she gotten the chance. He murmured her name and it sounded like a hurricane growl in the otherwise quiet environs. 

She smiled. As a child her smiles were infectious and adorable. Grown, it was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen. To think he was the only one that would get to see it. 

“I’m dying,” he murmured, the first time he had spoken that knowledge aloud.

“You are, brother.”

“I’m glad I got to see you again.”

She hummed in response, still smiling as she stepped ever closer. The rising moon played over her skin and the flickering shadows looked almost like stripes or bruises against the pale cream. 

“Are you why this painting was given to me? So I could come see you?”

She nodded, hair tumbling casually over one shoulder. 

“Are you here to-” And with that he began to choke, eyes watering as he wheezed and clamored for air. He felt the plastic of the mask as it settled over his mouth and nose with a rush of cool oxygen, held by a firm grip. When he opened his eyes again, the setting sun through his window made the painting seem to almost glow.

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It had taken too long this time, the pain wracking his concentration, but eventually the cool of the night swept slowly over him. He was relieved to see her there, close enough now to touch. He was going to reach out for her but something held him back.

“This is it,” he said calmly as the fading memory of machines and beeps left his mind.

“Yes…” she whispered.

“Is that why you’ve come back to me?”

“Yes…”

“You’re here to guide me. I’m glad it’s you. That you’ve forgiven me.”

Her laughter rang in the falling dark and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. So lovely was it that it wasn’t until it had gone on for a long while - too long - that he began to hear the note of…wrongness…laced into it. Suddenly unnerved, he began to take a step back.

Her hand shot out and clasped around his throat with bruising force. Her grin widened.

“Forgive you?” she hissed. Her step forward forced him back as he began to choke. “Why would I forgive you, brother?”

“I - I’m sorry! I’ve - I never meant-”

“Oh, you never meant. You’re sorry. Because that fixes everything.”

“I…I didn’t…it was - accident!” Another step and another , water over his ankles, up to his calves, and she still pressed him backwards.

“It. Was. No. Accident.”

“No-no, you’re right, but I’ve-” Her grip tightened and he struggled to speak. “I’ve always regretted it!”

“Your guilty regrets change nothing!”

No longer kind, her lovely smile was malicious. Vicious. Unnatural. Borne of anger and he knew exactly how many years it had had to fester, how long she’d had to grow angry and vengeful.

“I thought…you were here to…show me to…”

“The afterlife?” The water was up to his neck now and her grasp was like titanium. The moon’s glow glinted in the gemstone depths he remembered so vividly.

“You think you deserve to die, brother? After everything? To die in pain for all you have done?”

“...yes…” he managed to gasp. She cackled and it was cold.

“Oh no. No. Death is far too kind. Far too easy for you, brother dearest.”

The water closed over his head and he struggled - oh, how he struggled, but the pain was too intense, her grip too strong, and he couldn’t surface, couldn’t break free, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe…

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When he looked again it was just a painting. Gone was that hint of familiarity, the sensation of déjà vu, that unsettling feeling of being watched. All that remained was a simple watercolor of a pond in a simple wooden frame hanging on the wall.

His musings were cut short when the door opened, the doctor stepping inside with a greeting and his customary comforting smile.