The Undying Truth. C J Higginbotham

the thought of drinking it. Cara’s face turns, looking into the cup. I can’t help but stare at her, desperately wanting her ration.

      I chug my cup of blood quickly, sticking my tongue into the cup, trying to get as much blood as I can. Ezra sees this and takes a sip. His face lights up, and he slowly drinks his cup. He can’t help but enjoy it. Cara sits there, staring into the cup. She looks up at me. I look away, ashamed of staring. Noticing she is now staring at me, I look back. Her eyes tell me she can’t do it. I look at her, slightly confused. Then she raises her eyebrows slightly, almost to ask me if I want it.

      “Hey, Ezra, will you give my cup to the captain?”

      He is next to me, but once he gets up and blocks the captain’s vision of Cara, she will pass me her cup. He agrees and stands up. Once he is in position, Cara hands me her cup. I take a big gulp and hand it back to her. She seems grateful, but by morning, she is pale and is not doing good. She doesn’t seem like she is healing anymore.

      “What did you do?” the captain yells while staring at me.

      “Nothing,” I say, feeling guilty.

      “Did you drink her blood?” he asks.

      I look at Cara for her help, but she is coming in and out of consciousness.

      “Look at her! She will die today if she doesn’t have blood! Her cravings for blood is not like yours! She will die before her body realizes she needs it!”

      “Give her blood! Don’t let my sister die!” I say with shame deep in my voice.

      “She will have to wait till it’s time to eat again. Just know if she dies, it is on your hand, Leviticus. Your greediness will kill your family. Now let this be your final warning.”

      His words seep into my mind, replaying over and over again. I sit and watch her carefully as she slowly gets paler and weaker.

      Please hang on, Cara. You’re strong. You can make it through this.

      It wasn’t until her heart stopped that I started to panic. I jump up. “Help her!”

      The captain rushes over with a cup of blood. Then he slowly pours it down her throat, and I see him manually pumping her heart. After what feels like hours but is really just thirty seconds, she comes back to us.

      “How do you feel?” the captain asks.

      She doesn’t say anything; she just nods. The next day, she is given blood again. She looks at it worriedly, knowing the consequences if she refuses it. This time, Mom sees it and holds her hand.

      “Cara, it may be uncomfortable, but you have been eating this your whole life. All your favorite meals were with this. Remember my lasagna?” This made all of us smirk. Cara goes to try it but hesitates again. Mom reassures her, but she starts to cry.

      “Cara, you will die! You need this!” I yell at her, remembering the image of the captain’s hands giving her CPR. She still questions it. Tears start to slide down my cheeks. “Please… For us, for Dad. Please, just drink it as fast as possible.” It may be a low blow throwing Dad in this, but it is needed.

      She looks down and drinks it. It may taste good, but the thought of it makes her gag. Every day that passes, she gets better and better.

      I start to envy her as she gets her fill of blood. I need it, and my mind sometimes goes wild as the thought of my Mom’s heartbeat makes my mouth water. My dreams continue to get worse. Then one night, as I’m asleep on the boat, like in the rest of my dreams, the hunger again is overwhelming. I hear my mom’s heartbeat, and I stand up. Her heartbeat jumps, but she still seems asleep. I try to get closer, but then Ezra jumps in front of me. I grab him by the throat and growl at him. Cara is awake now, and she stands up and knocks me off him. I look at both of them, seeing who will attack first. Then I’m grabbed by the captain, and I see wings rip out of his shirt and pin me down. He puts a needle in my neck, and everything goes blank.

      Chapter 6

      I wake up to an unfamiliar room that’s cream in color and have dim light from a window next to my head. My muscles are stiff, but I manage to move my neck to look at my body. I notice my arms are skin and bone, and my heart starts to race. What happened? I see an IV in my arm, and I follow the red tube to a bag that has blood in it. Confused, I force myself to sit up. My bones pop, and my muscles scream in agony.

      I’m hungry, is the only thought that I can think of.

      I take the needle out of my arm and drink the rest of the blood in the bag. Needing more, I search on the floor. I find a pile of empty bags on the ground, but none are filled. I stand up and walk to the door. I hear Ezra, Cara, and Mom lightly talking and giggling. I hear the steady heartbeat of Mom, and I open the door. Everyone is in the dining room outside of my room. As they all stare at me, no one speaks.

      “Blood,” I try to say as loud and clear as I can. “I need blood…” But my throat is sore and strained. No one moves. They all stand there, staring in fear of my existence, it seems. I hear mother’s heart beating faster and faster. My eyes start to pulse faster and faster, and I try to take a step closer to them, thinking I didn’t talk loud enough.

      “In the kitchen!” Cara yells with panic in her voice, pointing to her right.

      I start to move toward the direction and find sixteen-ounce bottles of blood on the floor by the refrigerator. I kneel down and start drinking bottle after bottle. I feel the blood rushing to my bones, my face, and my muscles. I stop after twenty-four bottles. I notice my family staring at me, horrified. Feelings of shame, confusion, embarrassment rush to my head and stomach. Not knowing how to react, I stumble out the door.

      The smell of trees and acres of loneliness invite me into the woods. As I approach the woods, I fall, feeling the soft grass under my legs and palms. The warm sun falls on my body like a warm blanket. I feel a lump in my throat from the mistreatment from my own family. How can they treat me like this? Ezra, I understand, but Cara yelling in fear like that?

      I force myself to stand up despite the stiffness and pain from my body. I sprint into the woods. My muscles in my feet, legs, arms, and back start to pull and rip every step I take. I feel my body trying to repair itself almost as fast as my muscles grow. I don’t stop running until I stop feeling pain around my body. I decide to sit down and catch my breath through my sore and underworked lungs. Sitting there, I notice how small my clothes are, and I have the sense that I’m somehow in someone else’s body. That is the only explanation. Could I have grown this much? I start to calculate the time of the journey. Six years was how long we traveled. I was eleven. I’m seventeen now, almost a full-grown adult. I’ve missed out on my childhood; it’s been taken away.

      Why is this happening to me? I fall to my hands and knees and cry, remembering my dad. Why would he do this to me? This is all because of him! The pain—all of it is because of him. Tears start to fall, knowing that I just want to have one last conversation with him. Flashes of his last moments go through my head—the blood coming out of his mouth, the cuts all over his body. I look up at the sky and yell as loud as I can, tensing my whole body, and all of a sudden, my shirt rips open, and I hear and feel popping on my ribs, stomach, and back. I feel something brush across my chest, and red move instantly past my vision.

      I fall to my hands and knees, again frozen in pain. I feel my body healing. Then I stand after I stop feeling so much pain. I touch my ribs, confused by the pain. I notice that the pain started in my back close to the spinal cord. I flex the muscles in my back, and a weird pain shoots down my spinal cord and into my legs; it’s intense. It is like a foreign part of my body that has never been sore before. I can’t walk around in pain. I have to fight through this. I have to get better. I can’t live my life dealing with this pain forever. I have to fix and fight through it. I flex my back again as hard as I can, hearing a harsh cracking and pulling around my shoulder blades.

      Then I see it in my peripheral vision. It’s a wing!

      I turn around, scared, feeling like I’m in danger, but nothing is behind me. I breathe heavily, trying to