(Rachel’s explanation.)
I swallowed my pride and told my aunt what happened. I knew she’d think differently of me. I knew she’d assume that if I could do these things that I would make excellent monster hunting material. I don’t think she knows I’m here because I damaged my own soul to do this and killing monsters isn’t really why I’m here. I was placed here to help her with her mission, but my mission was to learn to set aside my pride and my anger and find my humanity for the person I’ve targeted for death. Maybe then, instead of choosing to hurt them, I’d actually see them and find a way to save both them and who’d they victimize.
This of course was not something as simple as killing my uncle instead, or the long line of abusers that seemed to somehow effect my family… even if they weren’t actually related. I did not learn this until about the eighth time I’d killed my cousin Clint. He wasn’t a bad person per se. He did bad things. If someone had reached him at a young age to help him overcome the fear of telling his mother, who would have in turn told her sisters, who would have told their father and between the four of them either scare him straight or protect them during a divorce… none of the abuse my sister endured would have ever taken place.
You would think that being older and wiser would have helped me not be so blind to the fact that saving my sister meant not saving her specifically, but rather her attacker that I’d grown to hate. That hatred was a poison, and like any poison… it has to run its course if not treated immediately. Which is wasn’t.
So, the first time I killed Clint I was five and he was almost one year old. We were walking in front of my grandmother’s house. Well, really, I was walking in front of my grandmother’s house and this little pesky kid was following me. He almost walked into the road as a car was coming along and I picked him up. I remember having the strange thought of not saving him as a child when this happened. Maybe because I did re-embody myself at that age and throw him in front of the car. I wound up in a mental facility and my mother thought it was her fault. Like something was wrong with me genetically… and she never had my sister.
Take two: I was nine and he was five. We were swimming and my aunt had gotten out of the pool to have a cigarette. He didn’t listen, went past the three feet sign to about halfway into the four foot area. I remember thinking about how much trouble I’d get into if I didn’t rescue him and I didn’t want a spanking, so I went and got him in real life when this happened. But, not today. I dove under water and swam like a mermaid so I’d be technically busy and since my aunt was supposed to be watching her kid anyway and no one had told me to watch him or stay with him I just waited.
Auntie was hysterical, he wasn’t breathing, CPR didn’t work. She went to jail. I thought my sister would be saved but what wound up happening is that my broken hearted uncle wanted to use me and my sister as sort of surrogate children due to his loss. He abused my sister until she was sixteen and committed suicide.
Take three: I was eight and Clint was four. Grandpa was driving us somewhere on the freeway. I think grandma was working and had car trouble and he had been watching us. I remember the story of how she was angry at the car he picked out for her and he had to go get her and how she felt bad for using bad words in front of us. We’d heard this story a thousand times. Only today was different. What you have to understand about grandpa is that he died a long, slow, horrible death called multiple strokes while suffering from Alzheimer’s and basically shriveled up and died at home on a hospice bed in the fetal position. So, I felt like I was sparing him that when I waited until a semi-truck was just across the lanes, unbuckled, grabbed the wheel and slammed us all into it. He didn’t suffer a long horrible death, Clint died, and unfortunately so did I.
Which sucked because we were only a mile away from grandma and she saw the whole thing. Everyone spent so much time dealing with the triple trauma of our deaths, and helping grandma that no one paid enough attention to my sister who got pregnant at 17, went to live with the dad’s family, and because they were young and dumb they did drugs and she overdosed a few weeks before the baby was due.
Take four: Do I really have to? You get the picture.
So, I ran into Angelica Skylar, yes the one that was in love with Alexander Hamilton, and she gave me a piece of advice that changed everything. Angelica told me that she lived in agony her whole life after meeting Alexander wondering what might have been and convinced that he loved her too. When he cheated on her sister she was hurt because she always thought she would be the one he’d cheat with, and she never fully forgave him for breaking her heart twice. She said all of that agony could have been avoided if she had just talked to both of them when they first got married or even right before. She’ told herself a story. She told herself her truth. Unfortunately, she wasn’t telling herself THE truth.
She spoke to Alexander in heaven and finally had it out with him. She told him how she’d felt. He told her that he always loved her as a friend and that he knew she was in love with him. But, what she didn’t know was that he never wanted to marry her. She liked to argue and match wits. He had to argue with everyone in politics and wanted to marry someone who would make his home a peaceful haven and that’s what Eliza did. Angelica wanted to change the world before the time of women having influence came about. His ideas would be questioned as being hers and she would insert herself where a woman was not allowed at the time. He knew what he was doing when he married her sister. He was never going to be with her that way. She was broken hearted again, but this time it was because she felt robbed of the chance to be free of him and be happy with the man she married and it was too late because she spent her whole life in love with Alexander.
Then she spoke to her sister. Eliza explained that she wrongly assumed that if Angelica had told her she was in love with her man that she’d give him up. She did know her as well as her own mind… but they’d never fought over a boy before. She wouldn’t have given him up and be silently resigned like Angelica thought. In fact, she knew how her sister felt and Eliza was actually pretty proud to have won a man’s heart when Angelica was in love with him. That never happened. Everyone always overlooked her.
Angelica explained that if she’d have talked to either one of them then she could’ve been happier and that I should do the same. So, I followed her advice and spoke to my sister Amy. As it turns out, she was given a choice in heaven before she was born. Amy said that God sent her to see an angel in charge of birthing who told her what her purpose in life was, but also told her about the abuse she would go through. The angel explained that she would not fulfill her purpose without going through this horrible tragedy and that if anything altered the bad parts, then the good parts wouldn’t happen. Just as Jesus knew why he’d been born and what he would suffer, so did she. But, unlike Jesus, people don’t retain a sense of purpose past a certain age and they forget until they return to heaven everything they’d been told. Amy chose to be born knowing what would happen.
That broke my heart, blew my mind, and made me feel horrible because by then I’d technically killed fifteen times. How can I save her when she chose this? How can I save her when I’m taking her purpose from her and that’s why nothing I tried worked? I let myself be consumed with saving her at all costs and now I’m a murderer inside. How do I fix this?
So you can imagine my reaction when I was told this monster hunting thing was the answer.
Flatliner Books 