Hollow
12 Days of Fiction 2019, Day 4
Why? Why?
All that’s left of you is a body, and there’s no life in it, no light, no soul. You’re gone. When I saw you lying on the ground, my heart stopped. I ran, fearing the worst, and hoping you were joking like so many times before.
But you were not joking. You simply were not.
I scream. I hear the howl and there’s nobody else, so it has to be me.
Why, it sounds like, and I get no answer.
Is it because we weren’t made for each other? That much we knew, pretty much from the start. I had been sent on an errand, and errands from Hell are never light-hearted. And there you were, so pale and beautiful and blind.
What did you wake up in me? Why didn’t I kill you then and there, like so many of my former victims, and thus I’d have saved me from this suffering? But I didn’t, and then you extended your arms, and your fingers touched me, caressed my face, ran over my features, explored me.
I had to close my eyes. The fire I felt is unknown in Hell.
I felt your touch, softer than a feather. Your fingers seeing me as I am. As I was, long ago, before the Fall. And then you reached my horns, and I heard you gasp, yet you went on. Oh how long you spent on my spine, my bone thorns, and above all my wings.
I spread my wings and scream again.
My wings, the wings you loved because they embraced you like no-one else could. My wings, that you said were soft and tickled you, when to me they were rough and harsh. My wings, that allowed us to fly away together, to feel free together.
I hold you in my arms once again, but you melt away. Your arm falls, and I see it: the note, tied with your blue ribbon. I pick it up, and read.
My love, I read it, and I hear you again. I hear your voice, crystal on water, telling me how much you love me, and how useless it is. Telling me that we cannot be together, that you will soon fade away and I will leave you, that it is in my nature and nothing can change it. That you would be left suffering, and I would too, and this way was the best for me to move over soon.
No. It cannot be. There’s something else. I can sense it. Someone, Above or Below, has discovered out, has found out about our plans, and has taken action. Yes, that’s it. Because you cannot be gone like this, no. Not you.
Not you.
My wail roars and thunders and clamours, and I feel empty. So empty.
Your note is wet.
I didn’t know I could weep.
This is my entry for Day 4 of my annual 12 Days of Fiction 2019. Well… a happy ending was really difficult.
