Author Games: Panemdemic

The Death of Edelina Renova

She was one who had seen death all her life.

Never had she imagined that she'd be a part of its endless chorus so soon.

As the fountain exploded in a shower of rat entrails and toxic green liquid, she felt her head give one more internal stab, delivering the umpteenth rolling wave of pain through her weakened body, before her limbs gave out and she collapsed. She could barely feel the rough-cut stone beneath her pierce through whatever remained of her skin, opening little stinging cuts that oozed out the tiniest droplets of blood. The stings have long dulled, the disease having numbed what external pain she should have felt. Instead, as she laid on the ground like a limp rag doll, all she could feel weighing her down on the ground was defeat.

So much for her being a strong young woman. All she had ever been in her life, now that she looked back upon it, was simpleminded and naive. If she had at least taken time to comprehend what anyone who didn't have her medic skills went through, she probably would have been better prepared for death when it made its inevitable appearance. Alas, the time for regrets came much too late for her. She had no more life left to live.

Her flame, the flame she had been tending to for so long, was already dying, and there wasn't anything left to keep it alive.

Edelina turned her head slightly to look at her right arm, covered with the colourful flowers she had painted so long ago. Her vision could no longer make out the individual lines that defined every petal and leaf, every individual colour that gave the flowers a life of their own. What was supposed to be individual blossoms that illustrated nature's impeccable beauty became a meaningless colourful puddle, slowly losing its saturation with every breath she took. If there was no meaning to life while she lived, then was there really a point to living when there was a lack of meaning in everything around her?

No. There was no point to staying alive when all she once held so close had all but left her clutches.

She closed her eyes as a single tear trickled from her eye to her cheek, a final exhale leaving her lips in a low sigh.

She never got the chance to say farewell.

---

It was not in the world of the plague where she woke, much less the ephemeral world between life and death, but in a vast world of white stretching for miles beyond the eye could see. With a slow inhale through her mouth, the oxygen passing into her lungs without the slightest heave or wheeze, she sat up and raked her fingers through her tangled knotted red hair in contemplation and confusion.

"Where am I?"

It felt like the training session all over again, except instead of starting in darkness, here she was, bathed in a light so pure. She glanced down at herself, at her arms and legs once riddled with tumours and miniscule spots of festered flesh but were now flawless, smooth, just like they were long before the Games held her captive. How could this be? Did she somehow find a cure before she slipped away? She was so absorbed in wondering what had happened to her until she felt something hit her head with a dull thud and clatter on the floor.

"What the..."

She slowly rubbed her head and looked around, a look of confusion settled over her face. A large silver basket sat a few feet away from her, and she frowned as she approached it and picked it up, lifting the flap open without hesitation. Confusion soon converted into awe at the sight of a huge wooden artist's palette and several tubes of paint and a variety of paintbrushes sitting in a small sealed tub of water that sat in the basket. Without hesitation, she dumped the contents onto the floor, entranced even if for a moment by the rainbow of colours that were scattered about the white platform, and she quickly uncapped the tube of paint closest to her but then paused, her smile slipping away in thought.

Draw me a picture.

Their message couldn't have been clearer. They had given her the one thing she had always loved doing so that she would forever cherish her memories, the ones she always held dear, the ones that defined her to be more than just another sick corpse already expired long ago. Vivid images of her entire life flashed through her mind, and she closed her eyes briefly, a faint smile tugging at her lips as she recalled them all once more. The easel where she would always place her unfinished paintings in her small plain bedroom. The vast Meadow dotted with buttercups in bloom that glowed with a hue almost like that of the sun in the golden afternoon. The coal dust sprinkled over the cobblestone paths in her district. The white butterflies that fluttered through the fresh spring air. She saw her parents, her mother with her raven black hair and twinkling brown eyes and her father with his unkempt red hair under his miner's helmet, beaming at her with smiles so wide. She saw the tributes from the Games, all of them healthy and strong and determined in their own way.

Her body may be going to waste, but she would not allow her memories to suffer the same fate.

So she picked up a large flat brush, already moist from its time in the tub, then squeezed a dab of grass green paint onto the palette. Dipping the brush into the paint, she began to coat the ground with the light green hue, swiping her brush this way and that in long even lines. A light blue and golden yellow and pristine white and rose pink were soon added to the palette, and before longs, flowers began to bloom from the grass where they grew. With a shade of stone grey, a cobblestone path was paved beneath her feet, the fine layer of coal dust defined with light applications of obsidian. Bit by bit her memories were fleshed out by nothing other than the paintbrushes dunked time and time again into the vat of water, by the hues she had seen in her lifetime, and under her expert hand she had turned the entire expanse of white into a canvas that everyone could use to paint their picture.

She knew not how much time had passed. Time held no significance to the dead; it was something they could not keep track. When she finally finished the final little detail in the Games that she herself would never forget—the flowers on her arm with their colours so faded—she took a step back and straightened up, her eyes sweeping across the landscape that she had just painted.

To most, it was just another painting, full of colours and shapes and objects that they couldn't care less about. But to her, it was a landscape of memories. With each moment that passed came a memory; which each memory she cherished came a discovery, a discovery about herself that made her stand out from the crowd.

With each memory came a new colour on her palette, a new mark on her canvas that enhanced her unique identity, and it didn't matter if she was dead. Even in death, she still had a painting. Even in death, she still had her unique palette and identity.

You will always be our renewal.

Maybe she wouldn't just be a part of the death chorus after all.