Killer Chemistry by Turner Stephanie

Author:Turner, Stephanie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent
Published: 2022-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

Mere Mortals

Sloane’s door opened with an ominous creak, and an eerie, rippling blue light flooded the doorway. Sloane himself looked haggard, exhausted, and not at all surprised to see us. “I thought you’d show up.”

“I thought I’d return your favor.” Nigel said.

My spine stiffened, wondering what he meant. “What time did you come into the lab?”

“Why?” Sloane wondered.

“Answer her.” Nigel prompted. “Please?”

“I’ve been here all night,” Sloane glared at us both, but especially at Nigel. “I came straight here after the party.”

“No detours or deviations?” I pressed.

“Certainly not.” Sloane insisted.

“Did anyone see you?” I asked. “Was anyone else here when you arrived?”

“Why?” Sloane asked in return. “What’s this about?”

“A relapse.” Nigel said; I turned a sharp eye on him. What was this?

Sloane swore. “What have I done this time?”

“A petty inconvenience.” Nigel said. “Nothing more-”

I shot him a dirty look, but it was mild in comparison to the one Sloane was wearing.

“Nigel, you swore-”

“I haven’t told her.” Nigel told him. “I haven’t told anyone.”

“Not yet.” Sloane huffed.

“As we agreed.” Nigel said. “I gave you my word, and I have never broken it. Bethany’s about ready to kill me for it.”

I didn’t disagree.

Sloane laughed as he considered this, then slumped a little. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

“It matters,” Nigel countered, “but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Isn’t it?” Sloane said bitterly.

“It’s part of who you are,” Nigel said. “Concealing it has only ever caused problems.”

I didn’t know what they were talking about, and was therefore annoyed. I pried what little context I could grasp from between the lines, and made a guess: “Schizophrenia?”

“Dissociative Identity Disorder.” Sloane corrected. “Fantasy blurs with reality, when it doesn’t replace it entirely. I’m not always myself, and some of my personalities can be a little…”

“Megalomaniacal, last night.” Nigel told him.

Sloane swore, and opened the door wider to let us enter his lab. The source of the rippling light made itself apparent; a wall of fish tanks holding what looked like jelly fish swimming around. The antiseptic smell in the halls was drowned by the cloying, too-sweet fragrance of flowers past their prime, roses and lilacs all clinging to bloom - not wilted, but sickly and faded in their vases.

“The flowers outside,” I pried up some more context, “they’re your handiwork?”

“They’re my attempts…” Sloane’s voice trailed off, his eyes warily watched Nigel.

“Immortality?” Nigel theorized.

“Eternal youth.” Sloane amended.

Nigel tapped a rose, and the petals dropped to the counter, the stem drooped before our eyes as if it couldn’t bear to be upright without them. Maybe it was relieved it didn’t have to hold them anymore? “Blaze bright, and burn out just as fast.”

“A short life, but a glorious one.” Sloane countered. “So far.”

“A sterile one.” Nigel countered. “They vanish without a trace, with nothing given of themselves for the future.”

“All that matters is the now.” Sloane insisted. “Wouldn’t you want to stay at your peak, at the height of your vitality, for all the time you have?”

“What does that vitality cost?” Nigel wondered. “What does it profit? Who does it help?”

“You always have to question-”

“Someone needs to.

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