Death of a Character

With a click the door opened.

Cece waited for something, a warning sign, a threatening yell, or simply the presence of another soul. She sensed nothing.

The interior of the room smelled like a garden. She recalled the view, the beautiful space Gavin had created for her. What was the extent of his love that he transformed a whole room for her? It happened in stories, apparently, it happened in real life too. It was just Cece who never experienced that kind of love.

She entered the room with some hesitation. Now that she was in a better state of mind, she could spot the similar gadgets and structures in the room, which were concealed behind the plants. She recalled saying to Gavin once, "When I dream, I see myself in a place filled with different plants and flowers, like a garden."

He had joked, "It's the effect of the fantasy romance you are so obsessed with."

Given the recent findings, it might have been another of Ruby's memories that she had borrowed from her.

She took a good look at the room at first. It was bigger than the other rooms. Two walls were made of glass, which made the room look even more spacious and open.

There was a desk in the corner of the room. Curiously, she picked up the papers in her hand. They all seemed to be unfinished manuscripts. She sat down on the chair and started reading them.

The first one was a simple romance between a young girl named Ruby and Gavin. It was a half-baked love story, which had good potential, but it felt somewhat rushed. The next one is a female leading slice of life, with Ruby once again as the main character. This was better than the previous one, the characters were well-written, the author created a realistic world, and it was not overflowing with romance.

"That one was my favourite."

The sudden interruption made her jump with a small scream.

"I am the only person who can come inside this room." Gavin looked exhausted. His dull face didn't show any emotion, not anger, not annoyance; Cece didn't know what hurt her the most. His rudeness or his indifference. "How did you enter?"

Cece put down the manuscripts and stood, maintaining a decent distance from him. "I tried to use my birthday, and it worked."

"Why would you try your birth—" mid-way, he understood why she tried typing her own birthday. It was there now, the emotion Cece wanted to see. Grief clouded his face. He nodded, "Of course."

"You wouldn't ask me why I entered this room without your permission?" Cece asked. Her feet were stuck in the same place, refusing to move to a safer distance. She still couldn't trust this man's temperament or his actions.

"I know why you have come here."

Cece raised her face to see him, but she could only see his profile. The room was dark, the only source of light was the streetlights and the shining billboards outside. A pretty girl showed off her pearl-white teeth on one of the billboards.

Gavin took off his blazer and dropped it on the floor. His left hand aptly undid the top three buttons of his shirt. "Come on," he said in a normal voice, something one would avoid in the presence of a tired, sleeping soul.

Cece glanced at her with worry in her chest. She was not doing anything wrong, yet it felt as if she was guilty of something unspeakable.

"Don't worry, she will not wake up. No matter how much we talk, scream, or make noises. She has been sleeping more and more since the past couple of days, and—" he stopped abruptly. His sharp gaze fell on Cece.

"And what?"

Gavin looked away. There was no disgust or contempt anymore, but there was defeat. Cece's heart wrenched at the sight of his pain. She didn't know where this pain came from, but she knew that she had to do something with it. She also noticed how each of her thoughts was punctuated with at least one uncertain word, like something. She knew nothing, and she was not able to understand anything.

"Cece and I were dating. It was the happiest time of my life. I pursued her, worked hard to prove myself to her, and finally one day she was my girlfriend." He walked near the bed. His hand rested itself on her forehead, causing no response at all. He pulled the blanket neatly and covered the small exposed part of her shoulder.

"What happened next?"

"One day she fell sick. I wanted to go to the doctor, but nothing worked. Then Grace came up with an idea. A ridiculous, utterly nonsensical idea that she didn't bother to share with me or her. She claimed that it was to save her. I don't know whether it was to truly save her or to prove her power."

"Grace, her mother!" Cece exclaimed. She shivered in her place. Maybe wanting to know everything was not a good idea.

"Are you ready to hear what happened after that?" he asked, voicing the same fear she harboured in her mind. Cece nodded. She was not ready for many things but fate had pushed her towards the unexpected events, and people at times. She had survived before, she would survive now.

"After that, you appeared. And the first thing you did was to cause her to fade. Grace said it was assimilation. 'Soon they will be one, and our Cece will be healthy once again.' That's all Grace said."

"What is assimilation?"

"What does the word mean? You are a writer yourself, the daughter of a renowned author, what do you think assimilation might mean?"

Cece remembered the Chemistry classes from her school days when she would hide from her teacher in order to save herself from humiliation and misery. She knew what the word meant, she thought, but what did it mean to Ruby and Gavin?

"The process was meant to bring her back to life, but the reverse happened. She continued fading, while you became more and more lively. It was like watching a vampire sucking out all the life from a perfectly healthy person. One night, you tried to kiss me."

"You're bulshitting me. I know I may have done something very wrong to you and probably also to your girl, but these are just unacceptable." Cece hissed. She would have yelled, but, regardless of Gavin's disclaimer, she still found it difficult to yell in the presence of a sleeping woman.

"Then you blamed me for your parents' death. If only you knew the truth."

"Stop it, Gavin. Please," Cece said, being conscious that it did not sound like a plea.

"You wouldn't remember any of your initial days, Grace mentioned that. I didn't take many things seriously at that time. I should have. I shouldn't have let you go three years ago."

Cece straightened her back and watched him with a mix of apprehension and curiosity. While one part of her wanted to hear more, the other part of her senses had started screaming at her to not entertain Gavin anymore.

"What do you mean by that?" Cece asked, with a feeling in her mind that she was not going to like his reply. Her suspicions stood corrected.

"I let you leave that night because I thought there was nowhere you'd run. My priority was to keep her safe," he gestured towards sleeping Ruby, and continued, "What I didn't understand was that she was never going to recover again."

"Gavin, what happened to her?"

Gavin tilted his head and gestured her to move forward, closer to Ruby. he gently removed the blanket she was draped in. Under the blanket lay a woman so thin and delicate, that Cece was scared to let the air touch her. She did not understand it at first. She looked at Gavin inquisitively.

"I don't understand."

"Look closely," Gavin said.

Cece followed his instructions. Ruby wore a pair of shorts and an old, oversized t-shirt, much like herself when she went to sleep. Her limbs were completely lifeless, very pale. She observed her face first, then her eyes trailed downwards.

And then she saw it. With a gasp, she took a step back. Her eyes were fixated to the spot she had found on her thigh, a small spot that was pale, too pale, and transparent.

Transparent like a piece of tracing paper. It was not her skin, she could not see what was under her skin, the blood vessels or the muscles. Cece could see through her thighs, and trace the geometric designs of the bedsheet. As she observed Ruby, further down, she realised what she had missed at the first glance. Both her legs were transparent, some parts were completely transparent, like a dragonfly's wings, some still bore a semblance of human anatomy.

"What the hell am I seeing?" Cece could not control her tone, or her volume. "What is happening to her?" When he said she was fading, Cece didn't think Gavin was being literal.

"This is the demise of a fictional character. They stay alive with their creators, with the memory of the ones who love them. When their memory fades away, they fade away."

Cece couldn't believe her ears. She turned to Gavin, whose grim countenance stopped her from reacting, but it could not stop her from showing her disbelief.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Gavin smiled sadly, his bloodshot eyes stilled on Cece's face. "You are seeing the death of a fictional character. Someday, your life is going to end like this too."

Cece's entire body went cold at the last sentence. "What did you just say?"

"You will end like this too, because, like her, you have also been written to fill in a void. Some day, this is how you're going to fade."