Life to Live

Solaire stared at Janus in a kind of stunned silence.

“…are you being serious?”

Janus gestured the gun at him. “I brought the gun, didn’t I? There are no trick bullets in here, I assure you. If you fire it at her, you will kill her. Which is exactly what you are supposed to do.” He waggled the gun. “Kill her.”

Solaire stared at the gun as if he’d never seen one before. “…I…why do I have to kill her?”

“Because,” Janus began, sounding exasperated, “that is the price you must pay to get into Heaven prematurely. A life.”

Solaire’s previous exultation at being able to join his love in Heaven was now gone, replaced by a heavy, deadened feeling. How was he to join his Arianne if he had to kill an innocent little girl to do so?

Janus held out the gun impatiently, pushing it at Solaire. “Take the damn thing. I’m not going to hold it all day for you.”

Solaire reached out and grasped the gun, his fingers wrapping around the metal handle. When Janus let go, Solaire felt the cold, unfamiliar weight of it in his hand.

A gun. A deadly weapon. Why was he holding one?

“Well, are you going to stand there gaping all day?” Janus sneered at him. “Hurry up. If you don’t kill her you can’t see Arianne again.”

These words snapped him back. That was the purpose. So he could join Arianne again.

Her words drifted back to him. ‘There is a way. It is very dangerous and painful…’

But he had to. He’d promised her. ‘I have to do this. I have to be with her…’

And yet, he was still unsure. Looking down at the little child, he could not think of lifting the gun to her head and…

Sensing his hesitance, Janus sighed. “Don’t think the girl will lose much. She is undernourished and often neglected. Her father would have sold her to the streets long ago if her mother hadn’t protected her. She, of course, knows none of it. All she knows is that she is hungry all the time, her brothers and sisters are hungry. And that she is always weak with sickness and pain. It would be better to end her misery. Can’t you see that?”

Solaire stared at the gun, and then at the little girl.

“And besides…” Janus’s voice took on a softer tone. “…don’t you want to see your Arianne again?”

Solaire was tempted in that direction. He so desperately wanted to see Arianne, wanted to be with her, wanted to hold her in his arms. He didn’t want to lose her again.

Besides, the way this girl lived, it wouldn’t be so much a murder as an act of mercy.

Solaire heard a muffled shouting, and a woman’s crying. He turned his head to the wall, glancing in the direction of the sound curiously. The sound came from another room, presumably on the opposite side of the house.

“It is her parents,” Janus informed him. “They are fighting. The girl is very ill and her many hospital visits cost money. Money that her father wants to drink, and gamble.”

The yelling halted, replaced by the sound of stomping footsteps and then a door slamming. The crying continued, heartrending and sorrowful.

“You hear the mother’s crying,” whispered Janus. “She cries every day for her daughter because the whole family is waiting for her to die. If you kill her now, it will save them a lot of heartbreak and pain. That poor mother will mourn and then forget, because with so many other children she would not have time to remember this little girl.”

Yes, it was simply an act of mercy. He would put this poor girl out of her misery; he would save the whole family a lot of pain, and best of all he could be with his Arianne again…

“Go on,” the whisper continued. “Go on and save her. Make the woman’s crying stop.”

Solaire nodded, his mind set. He had to do this, he had to, he had to help this family, he had to see Arianne, he had to, had to, had to…

He straightened up. His eyes had become slightly glazed over as he strode silently across the room to the child’s bed. Solaire gazed at the little girl for a long moment, regarding her quietly, listening to her rattling breaths, her labored breathing.

“Poor little girl,” he whispered. “I will put you out of your pain, I will save you.”

Lifting the gun, he began leveling it to aim it at her skull. As the gun was falling into place, he could hear something.

The mother’s crying. Only now she was talking in frightened gasps, sobbing and whispering to herself. Words that somehow, miraculously, he could hear, even through walls and distance and the bronchial breaths of her sick daughter:

“I don’t want her to die,” she gasped, crying, “I don’t want to lose her. I don’t want her gone. Oh, God, why, why are you taking her away from me?”

Solaire’s mind froze, processing the words. Even as the gun fell into place, leveled, aiming straight at the child’s head, he could swear he recognized those words…

“God, please don’t take Arianne away from me. I love her. Please.”

His own words. His own prayer, whispered even as he’d watched the blood pooling around her, holding her broken form in his arms, watched the light leave her eyes.

Solaire turned, trembling, his hand shaking at what he had nearly done.

Janus looked at him expectantly. “Well?” he asked. “Are you going to kill her, or not?”

Solaire swallowed. He would hate himself later for this, but he had no other choice. “I can’t,” he whispered, his voice quavering. “I can’t put her mother through that pain. I,” and here his voice broke, “I know what it’s like. To lose the one you love. And you don’t forget.”

“Is that so?” Janus’s expression hardened, as he glared at Solaire. “Is that your choice?”

“Yes.” Solaire was shivering now, hearing the darkness in Janus’s voice. How could he have ever let that voice lead him into nearly killing an innocent child!

The very thought of it was making him cry. Tears streamed down his face at how close he was to taking that innocent life, how close he was to throwing that mother into a hell worse than the one she already lived in.

“Well, then,” Janus smirked now, “you don’t get into Heaven. You’re still dying, but you would one way or another. Goodbye, Solaire. Have fun in Purgatory.”

With that, Janus swiftly moved forward, grabbed the gun out of Solaire’s limp grip, the younger boy barely resisting. The gun aimed right at Solaire’s head, quick and true, and the finger about to pull…