Shiloh Retcon

"It'll be okay, I promise."

Ever heard of Murphy's Law? According to the old adage, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. For those of you that don't understand this, don't try to. Enjoy every living moment of peace and tranquility you can while it's still there for you to take.

"It'll be okay, I promise."

No matter how hard we try to stop fate, to change our clear-cut destiny, we always get drawn to that one inevitable moment when life comes crashing down around us. We get to watch, helpless as time and space itself comes to a grinding halt. The gears of reality begin to screech as they tug against one another, unable to maintain the balance and tranquility of life itself.

"It'll be okay, I promise."

In the grand scheme of things, nothing is ever really left to choice in our lives. We take it all for granted, assuming that just because the last seven thousand days of our lives have gone by undeterred that life will inevitably continue on in this manner ad infinitum. This statement is false. Life is like one big, billion-sided die with the vast majority of sides being stacked either neutral towards us, or in our benefit. Anyone who understands probability, however, also understands that no matter what was scored on the previous rolls, the next roll might as well be the first.

"It'll be okay, I promise."

That's what everyone said to me, what everyone tried so desperately to drill into my thick head. They always tried to console me, to tell me that it's all going to get better, that the pain will eventually fade away. But it never gets any better. All I see around me are shades of grey, a listless, lifeless world deviod of hope or colour. They always tell me that life will move on, that regardless of what happened in the past, the odds of history repeating itself is unlikely.

They're wrong.

Their theories on life, on the manner in which we tread through our pitifully short existence, are merely the speculations of people who are but finite beings in a world that is utterly incomprehensible to them. No matter how much we think that we're somehow right, life always comes back to haunt us.

It'd been three days since my mother had finally passed away. My life started to close in around me, the thoughts and emotions buzzing in my head slowly driving me insane. Perhaps it was a bit selfish of me, but the thought of her not being there to care for me left me feeling hollow inside.

Two years. For two years, my mother sat there on her deathbed, slowly waiting for the brain tumor to take her. Like a true champion, she'd fought on even after the doctors told her that there was no hope. She held fast for me, always waiting for when I'd come in and visit her after school.

"Mija, did you finish your homework?" she asked me. I set my bags next to her bedside, reaching down to hug her close.

"Yes, Mom," I always replied. I knew that she wanted the best for me, that she wanted me to have a future.

The days flew past us, fall to winter and winter to spring, and I would drop by every afternoon to show her my grades or to tell her what was going on with Liga MX at the time. It was fairly trivial, really, but we both enjoyed one anothers' company.

There were days when I'd not be allowed in to visit her, days that the doctors did their handiwork. They really put a damper on my day, but they were thankfully pretty rare. Most days were the sort where nobody bothered to interfere with us. My mother and I could converse all we wanted during visiting hours, our bond as strong as ever.

"Mija?" she asked one day.

"Yes, Mom?"

"What do you want to be?"

"I don't know," I said, lost in thought. I honestly didn't have the slightest clue what I wanted to make a profession in. There certainly wasn't a strong desire for marriage yet, but that didn't mean that I had a specific career track in mind.

"Mija, listen." She pulled me closely, her face only inches from mine. "Don't do what I did. You're too restless to be a homemaker, Shiloh. Go out and see the world! If you find yourself a man, don't marry him unless he wants to see the world too."

"Alright, Mom."

"And Mija?"

"Yes?"

"Did you do your homework?"

"Yes, Mom," I chuckled.

The days where I couldn't see her eventually started to grow more frequent. I'd sit patiently outside of her room, working idly on any future assignments I knew would eventually be due. The times were boring and tedious, but there wasn't any choice in the matter.

"Mija," she'd say, watching me enter the room. She came to look so tired, but I could still see that same fire in her eyes. The same kind of fire that told me that death hadn't yet touched her, that it was always kept at bay by her pure obstinance. It was that fire that told me she was still there.

"Hey, Mom."

"Did you do your homework?"

"Yes."

"What do you want to be?"

"I don't know yet."

"Hurry fast, child. Take your life into your own hands and choose what you want to be before life chooses for you."

"I..."

"Mija."

"Yes, Mom?"

"I love you."

I looked down at her, the words catching in my throat. A part of me wanted to say that I loved her too, that I loved her more than anybody else in the whole wide world. I'd told her that many times when I was little, and it always made her smile, that same-said smile that I strived so hard to see in her.

"I..."

She frowned at me, waiting for me to say it. I stood there, unspeaking as I tried to put voice to my words. We had just each other, just me, her, and Dad. Why the fuck couldn't I just say it?!

"I..."

"It's alright, Mija," she said, looking suddenly tired. "I'd like to rest now."

There was a week when I wasn't allowed to see her at all. I grew very anxious, wondering whether she was going to make it or not. I sat there, thinking endlessly about it until I remembered that Death wasn't strong enough to take her. Not while those eyes still held that fire.

It was a Tuesday morning when I walked in, looking down at her bedside after coming in from school. She looked so frail, a mere shell of what she used to be. It broke my heart to see her there, looking like she was held together with nothing but thin strings, the puppeteer waiting above with scissors ready to end the show.

"Mija..." she started, looking at me lovingly. "Did you..." I watched as a confused expression crossed her face. "Did you..."

My mother sat there for a moment, utterly baffled as to what she would normally be asking me. A piece of my inner strength died when I saw the fires finally smolder and die in her eyes.

"Yes, Mom?"

"I...I can't remember."

Three weeks later, and she was gone.

All of those close times, all of that care and love came to a close so abrubtly. I spent the next few days looking into the mirror, wondering why I could never tell her that I still loved her. Was it me that killed that fire in her?

I'd always hoped that she'd pull through. I knew pragmatically that this wasn't the case, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd failed her somehow, that there were words that went unspoken that were meant to be said.

Three days and one funeral later, and I was standing outside of the Greenlawn Cemetery. Just like that, my mother was gone.

"It'll be okay, I promise."

I looked up at my uncle, brought out thought by the same words that everyone told me. I tried to hide the pain inside of me, but I might as well have been an open book. No matter how strong I tried to be, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that I was, I knew the truth of it. I hadn't asked for life to pull down my panties and buttfuck me. It seemed that life didn't really care about that fact.

I'd thought that knowing what was about to happen would somehow dampen the effects it had on me, but I was wrong. I thought that a stiff upper lip would be the solution to everything. I couldn't have been more fucking wrong.

My mother's death had been hard on me. At least in my father's case, a swift death in a street mugging came as a surprise, much like ripping a band-aid off of a latent, gaping wound. It stung, sure, but the shock of it all hadn't meant the end of me.

Instead, I got to sit by my dying mother's bed day after day, coming in every day after school just to watch her slowly drift away. Where the one was a swift punch to the face, this was the lingering effects of a weak poison, slowly pulling away from me the last remnants of my tattered life. I was about to graduate high school and my "Welcome to Adulthood" present was the death of both of my parents, tearing apart my entire world in a matter of months.

"No, it won't."

"Shiloh..."

"You know it won't."

"Just have a little faith."

Just have a little faith, Shiloh. The future is looking up at you, smiling down at you from the heavens on high! Yeah, sometimes there are some bumps in the road, but that doesn't mean that life isn't still good and beautiful!

Fuck that.

"What the fuck do you know?!" I snarled. "You weren't there when she was dying, were you?"

"That's not fair, Shi."

"Life's not fair!"

"Calm down."

"Like you even care!"

"She's my sister! I damn well cared!"

"I showed up every day after school just to watch her slowly wither and die! Where the fuck were you?"

"I was...I-"

"In your basement, wasting away with your pathetic videogames, that's where."

I watched as he flinched back, looking like he'd been slapped. He stared at me with hurt for a moment before his eyes hardened.

"You think it was easy for me?! She's the only person I know that matters! I couldn't sit there and watch while the only person I care about died!"

"You piece of shit, how dare you-"

The sharp sting of a strong backhand burned across my face. I looked back at my uncle wide-eyed as his sides heaved from exertion. My hand drifted unconsciously to my face as I rubbed the mark he'd left.

"Don't you ever fucking talk to me like that again, you pathetic cunt." He sneered at me. "You're nothing but a two-bit bitch that some pimp will pick up and sell for chump change. You're a filthy little pig and it shows. Your mother was never like that to me. She'd be ashamed of you."

"Go fuck yourself," I said. "You're just a looser who sits around on disability you didn't even earn. If you love my mom so much, why don't you go join her?"

There were things I'd done and said that I wasn't too proud of. The first time I got laid in the back of a ratty Skylark was one of those times, and that day when I'd beaten the shit out of my former best friend when I'd blown my fuse was another. None of that rivaled how much regret I have for what I'd just said.

"Y-you..." he started. I could see his eyes tearing up, knowing that both of us had said things that we wanted to take back but never could. The shots had been fired and that was that. I kept my face hard, even with how much I wanted to take it all back.

"Go," I said. My voice was so cold and dead that it sent shivers up my own spine. "Live your worthless life in your smelly little appartment. Fap to girls who you'd never have a chance with and feel like you're amazing when you unlock another World of Warcraft achievement."

No, stop.

"Feel satisfied in what a great man you are, knowing that you'll conquer the world from your armchair."

Please, just stop.

"Just stay the fuck out of my life, you creepy pervert. I don't care if you beat off to images of girls my age, it's no longer my concern."

Shiloh!

"I'm surprised Mom ever saw anything in you."

I turned around, walking away without even bothering to look back at him. I didn't need to see with my own eyes how much he was hurting. I didn't need a psychiatrist to tell me what a monster I'd just been.

"You play with fire, you get burned," I muttered to myself as I slammed the door behind me. My face darkened; I probably would've given just about anything to have an excuse to let off some steam. Sometimes getting your wishes isn't such a good thing.

I was walking down the hall when a man wearing a nice, snazy tux walked up to me. I was exiting the cemetery when tried to hand me some milk-white little card from his clean, well manicured hands.

"It's hard, losing a loved one. Do you know what's even harder?" he asked. "Having to bury them without money! Try our new life insurance policy in the eve-"

I slammed my fist into his mouth, throwing my full weight into the blow. The man fell down on his ass, and I snarled as I grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him up against a wall. His beady little eyes were wide with apparent fear of me. Good, motherfucker deserves it. I grabbed his jacket and pulled him right up to my face, breathing into it as my eyes met his own.

"Do you know how pissed I am right now? I don't even think the fucking dictionary has a word cut out for what I'd like to do to you! My parents are dead, you slimy little bastard, and you ask me to buy life insurance?" My voice cracked at that last bit, and I started to feel my tears welling up. "You're the worst kind of greedy, self-interested little shit."

Irony, your name's Shiloh.

The dude was practically pissing himself as I moved my face within millimeters of his own. My eyes seemed to peer deep into his soul as I sought for the words to say. "Oh, I want to hear you scream at night, the way I've been for the last three, to feel your heart burst as all that matters in your life is taken right in front of you." By now, the dude was starting to breath heavily. "But I'm. Not. You. I won't stoop to your level and take pleasure out of exploiting others' misery. So get the fuck out now, before I change my mind."

I threw him to the ground, stepping back as I watched him scramble to his feet and run away. It was only in that moment that I noticed that my uncle had come outside. He didn't say anything, only looking sorrowfully at me, his eyes looking utterly pitiful. I tried to meet his gaze, but I just couldn't.

I left him standing there as I walked over to my car, hopping in and turning the key without another word. I felt the engine come to life, and I didn't hesitate to drive off. Running away from the problem had never been easier.

I didn't actually enter the front door to my house until well after midnight. It really didn't matter what time I walked through the front door anyways; it wasn't like there was anyone home to ask why I was out so late. The hallway was dark, casting an eerie shadow along its length from the moonlight. I walked towards my bedroom, barely managing to resist the urge to visit my parents' room to say goodnight. I knew that the habit would fade away in time, but for now I had to work to break it. As I entered my room, I paused in the doorway.

"Goodnight, Mother. Goodnight, Father," I said, wishing that they were still there to reply. It was rather odd, not having anyone around to love or to be loved by. The the house I resided in was just an empty shell, a shadow of the place I grew up in. I knew that it would probably be best to move away from there eventually, but for right then graduating was my top priority.

I stripped down from my day clothes and hopped into my bed, not bothering nor caring to wear anything. It wasn't exactly like anyone would be there to see my womanhood or anything. Sleep came soon enough, and with it a moment of peace. All in all, sleep is really the only peace that anyone can truly know.

"It'll be okay, I promise."

I woke up to the sound of a light rapping on the front door to our...my house. I got up slowly, still rather groggy from the little sleep I had actually managed to receive. Without further ado, I walked over to the door, muttering, "can't let a girl sleep."

"I'll be right there!" I shouted before flipping the deadbolt. "Just a sec."

I opened the door to find a pair of officers standing outside.

"Miss? Is your name Shiloh Johnson?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

Both the cops were staring at me. It took me a moment, but then I remembered what an interesting wardrobe I typically used when I slept. They seemed to notice too, and my birthday suit didn't go unappreciated.

Shit...

"Um...ma'am. Uh.."

"We're here regarding your uncle, Michael Hernandez," the other cop replied, somehow managing to keep his cool despite the obvious blush and boner he was sporting. I really should've been more careful, to be honest. "He, well, I think you should come with us. After, ah, getting dressed, of course."

Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the front of the city's morgue. I knew immediately that there was something really, really wrong. My mind did its best to hide it from me, but inside I still knew. As we walked through the front door, I tried to feign ignorance to myself, and managed somewhat successfully.

The mortician walked up to greet us, talking in the same quiet, comforting tone that seemed the hallmark of those that worked day in and day out around bodies. It was rather unsettling, but I'd unfortunately grown rather used to dealing with them in the last year. I already knew that this guy's name was Keith Hughes.

"Please follow," he almost whispered, calm and reverent in both his tone and movement. We followed behind him as he lead us farther in. "I know that it will hurt, all things considered." He opened the door to the inner part of the morgue, the place where the bodies were regularly stored and packed like meat in a deli. There was a table sitting in the middle of the room, a blanket shrouding a body as it laid there.

He lead me up to it, and pulled the covers back. The body sat there, the head obviously destroyed by a powerful blast from what I assumed was a shotgun. The skin was rather tan, fitting the description of a man who was probably of mixed race, part hispanic and part caucasian. My breath left me as I noticed the green celtic cross tattooed over the left side of his chest.

Oh my God...

It had taken up to that point for it to really hit me. Sure, I'd known what had happened as soon as the officer said it, but I didn't want to believe it. There was no denying what sat right in front of my face, however. I started to back up, shacking my head as I leaned back against the wall.

"No..."

"I'm sorry, Miss Johnson. I know that so soon after your last loss, this must be very hard on you."

"Oh God, please..."

"He was found dead inside his home last night after the neighbors called regarding a gunshot in the middle of the early hours. We found him dead in his home in this current state. This is in fact him, isn't it? The DNA results will show up soon enough, but we'd prefer to know sooner."

"Michael..."

"This note was found on his body," the mortician said, handing me a scribbled note with a speckling of blood on it.

Dear Shiloh,

You were right.

~Mike

I backed up, dropping the letter as the dam finally burst. Tears rolled down my cheeks unabated as I wept openly in front of them. I knew what had happened, and I knew why it had happened. The only thing that was on my mind was the one simple, horrid truth: I killed him.

"Keep her under watch. We don't want any repeats of this."

Life is a cruel, merciless master with no concept of empathy or love. I've always known this, and the last few months only heightened my understanding of it. The world is a fucked up place, and no matter how much we might want it not to be, it still is. I could cry over it, curse life over it, or do nothing but ultimately the results would remain the same.

I was sitting on the generic white bed in the padded room as I waited for my food to come. Many thoughts flew through my mind, but there was one that kept cropping up time and time again.

"Why?"

Because you're a useless, worthless, selfish little bitch who only considered her own pain.

"How was I to know that he'd do this to himself?"

Does it really matter? Your hands have his blood. If you'd known that he'd go through with it, would you have said something different?

"Yes."

Then you're a horrible, horrible person if the only motivation you have to stay your tongue is to keep him for yourself. That's selfishness, not compassion. If your only reason for taking care of those you 'love' is that they'd be taken from you, all you are is a greedy little cunt.

"I didn't know!"

Yes, you did know. You can hide from it, say it wasn't your fault. But you and I both know that it was. Hell, you made this! He was probably close to the edge as it was, and instead of helping him through you told him to go through with it.

"I didn't mean it like that."

It sure as hell came off as if you did. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that it's true.

"Okay, then what the fuck am I supposed to do?"

Well, I would say for you to jump off of some bridge and drown yourself like a sake of worthless blind kittens, but unfortunately, you can't do that. By the time they release you, you won't be hearing me anymore.

"So then what?"

Just shut the fuck up and go to sleep. It'll be better come tomorrow...

I couldn't argue with the logic of it, so I said goodnight to my alter-ego and curled up in the bed they'd provided me with. As an afterthought, I ripped my clothes off and tossed them aside for no particular reason. Why the fuck not? Not like they could stop me, and it was the only form of rebellion I could express for placing me in a padded cell. Let's see how many boners they could grow. It's not like I'm an exhibitionist or anything.

At that, I drifted from consciousness and entered the wonderful world of fucked up dreams.