Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Is she doing this? Or at least. . .did she trigger this? Or am I. . .dead?
Sight continued with distortions of impossibilities. The blood on the cabin floor lifted, drawing up off the metal floor in long, red, shimmering ribbons. And those blood ribbons rose slow, like silk pulled out of water.
They traveled the wrong way through the air.
Rewinding.
Until, every drop that had sprayed off Yuki rose and went right back into him.
I tried to yell or move on my own, but couldn’t.
I don’t understand!! Someone help me!!
The pool of blood dripping from Aki’s throat began to zip back into him.
And everyone appeared in their early positions and began to rewind too.
Wait. . .what?!
I wanted to get a closer look, but my body moved on its own passing Reo as he stood frozen in the wrong direction. Earlier, he had come back through the cockpit door. Now he was walking backwards. The door swallowed his shoulder and his foot came up off the threshold and his breath went back through his teeth.
And he disappeared back into the cockpit.
I passed Kenji.
For the twins’ deaths, my brother's face traveled backward through every expression it had made. The grief left first, peeling off his mouth.
Next, the war returned.
I wanted to reach for him. My arms wouldn't take the order. This cold sensation had me, inside my chest and around my heart. It was driving me backward through the cabin and I could only watch.
The baby girl giggled.
Where are you?
Then the top half of Yuki’s body rose off the floor.
The round in his skull traveled out of it, through the air, and into the muzzle of the gun in his hand.
Wait! What?!
The wound in the side of his head closed. The gun lifted from his temple. His hand came down. His face un-broke.
And he was alive.
The sound of the baby’s giggling rose.
Then, I watched the decision on Yuki’s face. The grief went out of his eyes and the shock came up under it—the shock of a man who had just felt his twin go still in his arms. His mouth moved around the words I'd heard the first time. Who am I without him. They ran backward and were gone.
Then the palm.
They’re. . .coming. . .back. . .alive. . .
Yuki's hand lifted off Aki's hand. The childhood gesture undid itself. He stopped rocking. He had been rocking the body, and now he held it still, and then he wasn't holding it at all, because things blurred backward even faster and Aki rose into Yuki's arms instead of out of them.
Yuki's hand traveled up and set the kitsune mask back onto his brother's face, gold teeth, silver whiskers, the grin the artisan had carved.
The bullet left Aki’s throat.
The hole in Aki's throat closed under the collar.
My little niece giggled, so tickled with everything.
Dear God! What are you doing to me? Please don’t let this be a dream. I will break if this is a dream. I will crumble.
And then Aki was on his feet again.
Aki!!!! Can you see me?!
Time carried me back in a blur and the Little Tiger giggled, and I came back to my earlier position, close to my father. The coldness turned me around even though I didn’t want to deal with this memory again. My father lay on the floor, dead on his back, sliced up by my knife.
Suddenly, his throat closed.
Dear God! I’ve really lost it.
The blood that had run from his throat traveled back up into the wound, and it knit itself shut.
I fell down next to him, holding my blade against my will and the blade lifted off his throat and traveled back and the blood on it cleaned itself, drop by drop, lifting off the steel.
Then all of my father’s tendons that I’d sliced and named began to reverse too. All the names returned to me—Hiroko, Riku, Nao, Sora, and Nura. Every name I had carved with a blade and a breath came up off the Fox's skin in the wrong order.
The cuts closed.
The tendons stitched.
The blood went back into his veins.
My voice ran the wrong way in my own throat, the names ungiving themselves, and the Fox sat back against the bulkhead with his face whole and his eyes alive.
And time kept on rewinding.
It’s all. . .happening again. . .
I passed Nura’s ghost.
She stood between me and the Fox in the white gown. Her eyes met mine through the reverse.
Then she was gone.
Time kept running backward while the baby giggled.
I passed Akiro's death.
Kenji's chain came up off Akiro's ruined face. The dented panel un-dented. Akiro rose off the floor and the smear he'd left on the metal traveled back into his skull and his eyes came alive.
He stood. The kusarigama's weighted ball swung back out of his face and into Kenji's hand.
I passed the broken arm.
The chain-ball lifted off the Fox's gun arm. The bone un-cracked, wet and loud in reverse.