Hello Sarah by Robert Loggains

“Hello Sarah.”

I stared at her. She had come to me as I knew she would.

“Hello Ryan.” She answered me.

“That isn’t my name anymore Sarah and you know it.”

“Does that have to be true Ryan? You can still be who you were. Come back to us and we will help you.”

“Juniper is dead Sarah, Anastasia is dead, he killed them Sarah! Michael killed them!”

“We didn’t kill them Ryan, we will still take you back.”

“No you won’t Sarah, I won’t let him win. That is what he wanted.”

“Michael is dead Ryan. Don’t let his actions determine how you live your life or else he really will have won.”

“No, he has lost Sarah, look around you and tell me that Michael hasn’t failed.”

She looked around at the bodies and didn’t blink.

“You have committed evil Ryan, I see it all around us, but you can still return and do good, atone for your past sins and forge a new path and name for yourself.”

“I already made a name for myself Sarah, Ryan isn’t it.”

She laughed without humor as she walked towards me.

“You would actually have me call you that name?”

“Yes, Ryan died with his wife and daughter.”

“I will not call you that name. Ryan is my friend, Ryan. Jordan. Anderson.”

She said the last words with such force it made me quiver. I wanted to go to her so badly, to let myself forget what had happened…

“MY NAME IS RED DEATH!”

I screamed this as I lunged at her at my full speed.

She dodged The Scythe but she knew she didn’t have the strength to parry my strange blade, and not enough speed to dodge me once I was ready for her.

“Is that who you are now Red Death a man who would kill his best friend?”

“You know that as well as I do” I spat.

“This is your last chance Ryan, come with me and we can hide you forever from those you have wronged!”

She was afraid now, I could see it in her eyes, she didn’t think I would actually be able to kill her when it came right down to it, and she was right in her own way.

Ryan could never have killed her, but I was Red Death.

And she saw it in my eyes.

“Curse you Red Death! Curse you for all the people you have killed! Curse you for every family you have rent apart! Curse you for letting Juniper die!”

The last one burned inside me.

“You are a monster Red Death! You will find no redemption now for we will never take you in! You will never be redeemed now, you will wander the Earth forever, you will never find what you are looking for.”

“I already know that Sarah.”

She flinched at those words now.

“Then why do you still fight Red Death?” She knew she was about to die, and she was afraid.

“Because if I stop they died for nothing” I whispered to her.

And I killed her with a single blow from The Scythe.

And I started to laugh madly, I knew I was Red Death now and that I was nothing else, I was the boogey man of a thousand nightmares for a thousand years to come.

And it was all for nothing at all.