Page 91 of All Saints Day
Everyone holds their breath. No one knows what to expect.
For all we know, Louise could fall to the floor—dead in an instant.
The Saints remain still for a long moment. It's Sébastien who is the first to dart forward—the loud blast of one of the turret bots heralds the shot to his chest within the blink of an eye. Luckily, the laser slug wasn’t powerful enough to break fully through his Kevlar vest—but the molten material leaves burns on the skin beneath, even without making it all the way through.
Still, it takes both Quentin and Caz to steady him on his feet—the tiny green dots of the other turret bots still trained on the Saints.
Compton stands somewhere between breathless horror and delight, his gun trained on Louise as he waits for some sort of sign.
It starts slowly at first, then washes over me all at once—a wave of light—bright and searing like molten gold.
Along the bond I cry out, worried that I'll be burned away from the inside by the luminous explosion.
Somewhere—vaguely I can hear the others. Quentin, Sébastien, Caz, and Dennis—the Saints—all crying out.
It is only once the searing heat begins to subside, and the blinding light starts to fade that I realize that I have not witnessed the end of all things—but rather, I have been party to the birth of a new star.
Chapter 34
Louise
So many movies, books, and songs have spoken of the phenomenon of one witnessing their entire life passing before their eyes just before the moment of death.
I had been prepared for the eventuality somewhere in my mind—even as a child watching as a beloved cartoon character viewed his entire life in clips, from cradle to looming grave—that eventually I would see my own reel.
Maybe that's why I assumed that everything was over, that I was getting my last look at my life before I left it behind forever.
It all began with my earliest memories of being by the ocean at the cottage, followed by the pink sparkling paint job and pale blue streamers on the handlebars of my first bicycle—my father whooping and cheering as he let go of the plastic banana seat for my first ride without training wheels.
It's as if I'm standing alongside my parents, watching my younger self ride triumphantly down the drive.
Suddenly I’m getting my first period in junior high. One of the older girls in the dorm bathroom smoking a cigarette with her cracking black lipstick, and offering me a pad from her purse covered in pyramid studs.
In the blink of an eye, I’m at my senior prom. The three girls who used to be my best friends dance in a circle with me—all ofus holding hands. Three women who now have their own babies and husbands and lives I know nothing about.
There is no time for tears of regret—I’m already on my first date with my college boyfriend at the Beinecke Library. I loved the books more than I would ever love him.
No time to think, it’s undergraduate graduation—my parents and I pose for the photo that will later be used as the background for the infamous, storage-unit laptop.
Each event continues on, time—relentless in its passage.
My graduation from Harvard, my parents' bodies and so much blood crowding our dining room—Uncle Martin, who had killed them hours before, rushing to my aid as if it hadn't just been him who played his brother’s reaper.
Susan, holding me in her arms as I cry in her office—my first day on the job.
Susan, raising her glass of champagne to me at her retirement party.
Susan, her lips pressed into a tiny ‘O’ of surprise, a ruby rivulet of blood running down the bridge of her nose from the hole Frank put between her eyes as she free-falls toward the floor.
The sands of time become more fluid and malleable. The Saints capturing me from the Diamond Center, runs together with Caz and I the bath, Quentin and I on the couch, those magical few days at Goosewing Lake, and the bonding on the yacht, they all overflow into the horrors that follow at the Windmill.
Before my reunion with my Saints and Dennis, before we broke Frank's shell open to allow the light to shine on all the fractured pieces of his inner reflections.
Everything hurdles by faster and faster until the moment the syringe Compton plunges into my neck rattles empty, discarded on the floor.
It is as if I am seeing the world again for the very first time.
Everything surges with color, light, and sound.
