Kent Kelly - The Girl Who Bled Forever

CR: Yes, yes. I did. To the extent that the interrogators let me, but they were flabbergasted both at what Josie had said and what I was getting out of her.

AM: And what more did she say?

CR: I said, “It’s secret time. You tell one, then I’ll tell one. Okay? Do you really die every night?” Josie pouted, thinking about how to explain it all to me. Then she said, and I remember this very clearly, “I did soon.”

AM: Somehow, she knew. The reflections.

CR: Yes.

AM: And then what?

CR: I asked her to repeat herself.

AM: What happened when you did?

CR: It’s kind of confusing. Everything happened then all at once.

AM: Explain it to me as best you can, Alan. Please. I love you. In the order of events that you remember.

CR: I… I love you too. She frowned first, and looked at her bear. Then she dropped him for the first time, the MPs couldn’t even get that bear away from her, and she snaked an arm out from under the restraints and clutched her right shoulder, and she was screaming. Somehow she slipped entirely out and hit the floor, a seizure. I tried to rise out of bed and my IV got tangled in the MP who was rushing to restrain me. One of the agents… the suit-men… was holding his earpiece and saying, “What? What?”

AM: Who was on the monitors at this time, watching for the appearance of the reflection?

CR: I don’t know. I think Commander Frierson. But remember, I had been knocked out. It isn’t very clear. The other, other agent, he was rushing out the door with his gun drawn. One MP got out of his way in time, another got bowled over and for some reason his safety was off. Three shots were fired at the ceiling. The noise and chaos caused Josie to scream. Scream out words. Like a revelation, like shrieked-out words of God. It was horrible.

AM: I don’t want to know.

CR: Oh, you do.

AM: What did she scream?

CR: She screamed, SAVE ME. And then, OH GOD THE ICELIGHTS.

(Silence.)

CR: Ask me, Anna.

AM:… Did she scream, “Mommy”?

CR: No.

AM: Why not?

CR: Because then, she was bleeding from the gaping wound which appeared out of nowhere at her right shoulder. It was like stigmata, like someone invisible was cutting her with a scalpel. Then blood, so much more blood, fountaining. It was everywhere. Her arm eventually… it came off.

AM:… The first, the “Save me.” When did that screaming begin?

CR: I think you know. It was 05:14:57.

[Deleted]

AM: I’ve had some time to go over the logs from that day.

CR: Many people have.

AM: Here at the end of all things? Do you know what I’m going to ask you?

CR: I think I do.

AM: Then why don’t you tell me?

CR: “Did the reflection appear at that exact moment, as it had every morning prior?”

AM: You know me very well. And?

CR: No.

AM: No?

CR: No, that is the only day that the reflection never appeared, the day when Josie was in the infirmary with me.

AM: That’s too perfect. Too merciful . You’re making that up for me.

CR: I swear to you that I am not. Commander Frierson later revealed that to me when I had the one chance to question him. He “told” me by his eye movement and inference only, and he almost got demoted for it.

AM: Alan?

CR: Yes?

AM: When did the Josie that you got to speak to really die?

CR: I don’t really know. I was shot then, you know. After the screaming trying to lift up Josie, one-armed Josie and get her out of there. The one agent had come right back, with more people in the doorway. Salinger included, although he had apparently been forbidden until then. And after I had taken down the other agent, who I know now to be your trainer, that’s when I got shot, rolling. I went for his pistol. All trying to get to Josie.

AM: And now I know.

CR: Now you know almost everything, everything but the one thing I can’t say. You need to get me out of here.

AM: You know I was speaking out of emotion. It’s impossible.

CR: You promised to try.

AM: They’ll kill us both.

CR: You must try. Let’s at least try a faked hostage situation, me with your gun, dragging you in front of me. Anything . You know I need to go back.

AM: Back to the station? You’d never make it, even if—

CR: No. I do not want to go back to the station, Anna. I want to go through the sky, to the Null, to where Josie came from.

AM: Don’t talk like that.

CR: You know I need to. If I don’t, then Josie is forever dead, an innocent who never had a chance, hated by her own mother. Every day, the reflection comes out. You know it started happening again, that’s the last honest thing Joyce ever told me. She smuggled me a fucking videotape, Josie crawling out of the hole, the day after she died in my arms in the infirmary . Every day now, it’s all over again, another endless murder of that very same child.

AM: Alan, please. Stop this.

CR: Don’t you see?

(A gap.)

CR: No nnn… nnnnnn…

AM: Guards, I need you now.

CR: Please!

AM: He’s close to another seizure. Fuck, you can’t hear me. Hey! Over here! Get in here!

CR: Nnnnno. No . Don’t you see, Anna? I’ve already gone through. In the future, I already have.

AM: Get in here! Here! Help us!

CR: Oh Anna, no. It wasn’t someone in Command, I was so wrong. Cause-effect-cause. Such a fool, the fucking lines in circles. The circles! What if I caused it, Anna? What if by going through and saving her life, I made all of this happen? Holy God, what if something terrible is going to happen if I don’t go through? Invasion. The Nulls, the Nulls are coming. War. World. They’ll fix us, they’ll fix everything… gnnn… nnnnnn …

AM: Somebody help!

(A confusion of voices.)

VOICE 1: There. Take her.

VOICE 2: No. Get clear. Get clear!

VOICE 3: Don’t move!

VOICE 1 OR 4: Out of the—

VOICE 2, 4 OR 5: The restraint, it’s choking him, it—

AM: Get me out, get him out –

VOICE 3: Christ he’s bleeding, he—

VOICE 2: Captain, lie down! You are going to be restrained!

VOICE 1: Shock, he’s going into shock. Get me the—

CR: (Screaming at the top of his lungs through some kind of fluid.) OH GOD ANNA, WHAT IF I KILLED HER TRYING TO STOP THIS? WHAT IF I SET UP THE CAMERA? WHAT IF I’M THE ONE WHO MADE THE CALL?

(At transcribed timeframe 05:14:57, the session record ends.)

[End the training now. Initiate detention and selection protocol. Fresh Counter-Insurgency Agents to fight in the Holy War against the Null-Gaunts are desperately needed. Submit all authority for the remainder of this session to the ranking Commandant.]

[Several relevant sessions are still being decrypted and/or are highly sensitive; we hope to include them hereafter. Questions concerning protocol issues, any conflicting referendums and/or up-to-date clearance matters should be directed to Sub-Archon Sakai in writing only.]

[I stand. Until we meet in the fields of battle of the many worlds, my beholden Brothers, beloved Sisters. Be strong. Death is nothing. Sacrifice is sacred. Unity is eternity. For Saint Anna, for Saint Alan. For the Eternal Martyr Josie. Fight well and die for one another. ~SKS.]