Chapter Text
It was The End.
A suitably dramatic, if not borderline ironic, way to begin the journey into the final great unknown. The last hurrah. Her curtain call. Cashing in the chips. Buying the farm. Boarding the last flight, final destination: The Great Beyond.
Sitting there in a growing pool of her own blood, she thought it should feel more final. Or grand? Dying, that is. Funerals had always seemed a little over the top that way. Sobbing widows and blaring church organs and nostalgic stories of better times long past. Lots of black. That part was fine. She liked black.
But it wasn’t grand, there weren’t sobbing widows (why would there be widows???), and she was just… there. Slumped against a stone wall. She wondered how long it would remain colder than her. Until she released her final, shaky breath, perhaps? Until they found her Wednesday-night-leftovers-of-a-body? Until her soul said, “it’s not you. It’s me,” to the clingy physical host that just wouldn’t take a hint, and joined her parents, hopefully somewhere warm? Maybe a beach.
She hoped it was a beach.
She could almost hear the seagulls. Almost.
Forcing her eyes to open, she attempted to look down. Her neck was infuriatingly stiff and uncooperative. Move. She willed her head forward, more than an inch. Only her eyes drifted. They came to a stop at her knees, spotted with bruises but otherwise uninjured, resting gently in the slick crimson beneath her.
There was so much blood. There was so much blood, and this time it was hers.
She laughed.
She laughed at the sight. She laughed at the fact that most of that should really be inside her right now, you know, keeping her heart beating and her brain whirring if nothing else. She laughed at the numbness that rendered her legs powerless.
She sighed at those trashy made-for-TV tragedies Anya loved so much. The ones that always made dying seem so peaceful. Wishful thinking on the part of the media, but Yor understood. No one wanted to imagine their death would be unpleasant. No one wanted to believe their last moments would be filled with the fear of not knowing what came next or the worry for those they were leaving behind. That was why she always tried to make sure her stilettos pierced both hemispheres of the brain or hit a major artery. At least if death couldn’t be kind, it could be quick.
Or maybe death could be kind. Maybe The Ostanian Cable Network got it right, and most people did get a peaceful end. All Yor knew was that her experience could not be described as peaceful or kind. And certainly not quick. She was uncomfortably, unceasingly chilled and restless in a body useless from the waist down. She felt like she was trapped in a walk-in freezer after just having woken up from jaw surgery; unable to release a satisfying scream even if she could manage it.
Her shallow breaths interrupted the thoughts that peppered her mind, hazy fragments with no clear beginning or end. A little girl's voice. Warm arms wrapped around her left leg. The smell of something burning. A shirt. The white one that belonged to the tall man leaning over homework at the kitchen table.
Yes, there was a school and someone to meet at the school. Or pick up? Had she forgotten someone at the school? And what about the dog… or perhaps a small polar bear…
And then, after her many failings had done the circuit in her mind for the fifth time— really, who was counting— there were flashes of a woman Yor was certain she hadn’t met. A dying woman— no. An already dead woman.
They appeared in starbursts, small and bright, just like she imagined the woman to be. His first wife.
Maybe women like her, women who could cook edible meals and not forget the iron on their spouses’ work shirts, fell ill and drifted peacefully into nothingness. And women like her got this: a hellish game where she was stuck comparing herself to a literal angel, halo included.
She closed her eyes. The images in her mind settled on the beautiful woman. Of course they did. Even her mind preferred her to her own memories.
Yor sighed, diaphragm shuddering involuntarily.
The incomplete image of Loid’s first wife was something of a comfort to her. Nameless, a Barbie doll. Easy to play pretend with. Perfect at house, perfect at love.
In the safety of her mind, she’s liked to imagine she had pink hair, long and wavy, worn down to her waist. Never frizzy, never out of place. Never coated in a layer of crusty blood she’d had to lie and say was mud or, once, old pizza sauce from work, because that wasn’t suspicious.
No-name Barbie was everything she wanted to be. Perfect. And not lying in a pool of her own blood.
For however many times Yor had imagined her, she’d never been able to make out her eyes. The starbursts always covered them, but she assumed they were bright and green and wider than the sky itself. Anya looked nothing like Loid, after all.
The ghost of a smile placed itself on Yor’s dry lips.
She must have been beautiful, his first wife.
Painting her palm with sticky red goo, the blood landed gracefully, ironically smearing her lifeline as Yor covered a gurgling cough. Polite, even in death.
It was what she had spent the last ten years teaching Anya. Good manners and politeness opened doors. Be a hard worker, and above all, be kind. Kill, yes, but wield kindness.
Yor wondered what Anya’s mother would have taught her, if she were still alive. Surely something more important than be nice. Science or the liberal arts. Maybe she was an art historian or loved the old libraries that often accompanied old brick-clad universities. She had pushed Loid to send Anya to one such prep school.
She must have been smart to have cared about education so much.
In her dying breaths, his first wife chose selflessness. She chose to put Anya’s future before her own discomfort.
In her dying breaths, she could only cling to this intangible, faceless idea she would never be.
She sighed.
She must have been good to be worthy of a man like Loid.
Lying slumped against the cold stone, she felt herself sink further into herself.
What was her name?
Her fingers twitched uselessly in the warm puddle. They curled in on themselves, almost as if unknowingly trying to hold on.
Did he ever tell me?
Maybe she did. Maybe Loid’s first wife got a peaceful end.
He must have, once.
She tried to take another breath. It barely rattled past her windpipe. One more win for the board.
What will they say about Loid’s second wife?
Her chest ached. But she could no longer tell if it was her heart or the prickling sensation of lungs desperate for air.
Her vision blurred at the edges. She couldn’t blink it away anymore; all her strength was gone.
Was she beautiful? Smart? Good?
What will they say about me?
The thought dissolved before she could finish it.