“A pair of twins are cursed with immortality causing them to grow younger or older depending on their proximity to each other. One yearns for death, desperately seeking to get as far from their sibling as possible in the hope they will die of old age. The other does not, and pursues vigorously.” -u/Lorix_In_Oz, original post here.
Three thousand miles.
That was how far I had to get, by my calculations. Beyond three thousand miles, I might be old enough to actually die. It was a long way to go.
At the moment, I was in the airport, my ticket crumpled tightly in my hand. I was middle-aged; I could feel the lines on my face, feel the scraggle of my slightly greying beard. It meant that Vivian was at least fifty miles away from me, which would be great, except that my flight had been cancelled and now I was stuck waiting for another hour to fly out. I tapped my foot impatiently.
As the time passed, I could feel myself getting younger. It wasn’t a rapid change, and it wasn’t consistent, but she was using her own age to gauge what direction I was in. It wouldn’t take her long to find me.
By the time my new flight was boarding, I must have been in my twenties. A few trips to the bathroom and a change of clothes had helped to disguise things, but I was seriously relying on apathy from the other passengers to not attract attention. It was less than ideal.
I didn’t have the resources that she did. She would be speeding along toward me in a fast car, with her bodyguards close at hand. I had a rolling suitcase with a bum wheel, and I’d had to steal that on the way in. I hadn’t gotten even this far in years, and I didn’t want to fail now.
I could still feel the damp air of the storage shed where she’d kept me. I could still remember the dark, the cold, the bugs. I could still remember how thin I’d gotten, to the point where I was counting my ribs through my skin.
She’d swing by every week or so, knock us both back down to our pre-teens. It kept her healthy, reversing any particularly stubborn fat she’d gained or illnesses she’d picked up. More importantly, it meant I didn’t need to eat, and that any particularly grevious injuries would be healed.
I had used that last bit to my advantage. Have you ever chewed off your own arm before? Because I have. Twice. It got me free of my chains, and I only had to endure it until she came by again and turned back my clock.
It had still been a long time. Maybe she decided to skip a week. I’m not ashamed to say that I filled my belly with my own severed flesh. Starvation is a powerful force, and in the end, it was my own bones that provided the leverage I had needed to bust the lock.
And now, I was here. Shuffling forward in the slowest boarding line in history, trying not to let people notice that my facial hair was disappearing and that I was breaking out in pimples.
I was two people away from the front of the line when Gordon appeared. Her current husband-slash-bodyguard. I spotted him before he spotted me; he was powerwalking between terminals, glancing over the people at each one. I flipped up my hood, tucking my hands into the pocket of my sweatshirt and looking down. Inconspicuous, hopefully.
No doubt he was here because she couldn’t be. If she got too much closer, we’d both be children. Not great in terms of agency, but she’d do it if she was deperate enough.
I reached the front of the line, glancing up only to flash my ticket at the attendant. She gave me a bright smile back.
“Hey, hon! First time flying alone? Don’t worry, we’re here to help you through it.”
She sounded genuinely cheery, but that didn’t change the fact that she was talking to me like I was a thirteen years old. Probably because, at the moment, I was a thirteen years old.
And that was where my luck ran out. A heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder, holding me back. I twisted away, but he had a full foot and at least a hundrred and fifty pounds on me. Gordon.
“Ah, Victor. There you are. You had your sister and me worried, running off like that. How did you even get here?” He turned to the attendant, apologetic. “I’m sorry miss, but I think there’s been some mistake. My son here is definitely not supposed to be on this flight.”
I tried to twist away again, calling out as I wrestled against his grip. “He’s not my dad! Someone, help me! Heeeelp! I’m being kidnapped!”
The attendant took a half-step forward, clearly conflicted. She reached for a walkie-talkie, stammering into it. “S-security! I need you at terminal 6, now!” She held up her hands, trying her best to break us up. “Calm down, please. Let’s talk this out, there’s no need to–“
As she moved in, Gordon’s grip faltered, and I made a break for it. I was off like a flash, all the speed of my youth restored to me. I zipped through the terminal, grabbing luggage and tossing it behind me as I went. I could hear Gordon shouting after me, and behind him, the attendant yelling something urgent into her walkie.
I didn’t have long, but I did have a plan.
I saw my target and I ran with it. A stroller, held loosely by a woman who was distracted as she talked on her phone. I slammed into her, grabbing the stroller and rolling it along at a break-neck pace. I was around the corner before she even knew what had happened.
I looked down at my catch. A baby girl. Damn. I slowed for just a moment to scoop the sleeping child out of the stroller, placing her out of the way behind a trash can. She stayed asleep. Sorry, baby.
I was approaching seven or eight years old, and that meant I was getting close. I speed around another corner with the empty stroller, and I saw her.
She looked like a toddler playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes, a once flattering dress now draped around her, feet in shoes three times the size of her feet. She saw me as I saw her, and drew in a deep breath, pointing an accusatory finger at me.
“I’m telll-ing!”
I could feel my mind receding as I hurtled toward her. I ran and ran, and my legs hurt, and then I let the bar above me go and the rolling thing shot forward, and I think it hit the girl who I’d saw standing in the funny dress.
There was a lot of scary sounds and blurry shapes. I missed mommy, but I felt like I couldn’t cry. Not right now. It was important that I not cry, even if I really, really wanted to. I crawled off to my hidey hole, and I sucked on my thumb, tears streaming down my cheeks.
When I began to regain my full mental capacities, it was to the sound of a woman shrieking in the distance. I peeked out from where I’d crawled behind a vending machine to see her swatting away a crowd of security guards around her.
“Stay away from my baby! What have you done to her, where’s that teenager? I need to speak to a manager, NOW!“
I grinned, and quickly got out from behind the machine before I grew too large. I ducked down the hallway until I found where my clothes had fallen, and I quickly pulled them back on. As I passed, I checked on the baby I’d left behind the trash can. Still sleeping like, well, a baby.
With every security guard swarming the woman and her rapidly growing baby, it was easy enough to slip back to my flight, and in another few minutes I was on board, teenaged again. I still didn’t let myself relax until the plane began to pull away from the gate and the captain’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is flight oh-twelve-seven from New York to London. Please fasten your seatbelts, we’ll be beginning the flight shortly. Hope you like the person sitting next to you, because you’re gonna be sitting next to them for a while, heh.”
He crackled out, and I allowed myself a smile. I could already feel myself getting older as we pulled away. It would slow down the further I went, but I was going a long ways.
Finally, I was ready to die.
Leave a Reply