"Lo…ne…ly…"
A low, guttural sound escaped me. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I couldn't feel.
All I had left was sight, flickering in and out, like a candle dying in the dark.
"...Wh…y…"
I didn't remember what came before this. Who I was. What I was. Everything—gone. Swallowed by a fog so thick it smothered thought. But I could still hear it. That voice. That presence.
Move.
Obey.
Destroy.
It whispered to my soul like an old friend. I watched from deep inside as my body—a thing no longer mine—followed without question.
There was only darkness.
And when the world blinked back into view... I wished it hadn't.
Crumbled buildings. Streets drowned in blood. Shadows crawling like insects across the ruins. Monsters that wore human faces. Familiar ones.
Screaming. Crying. Begging. None of it reached me.
Only silence. A silence so deep it carved scars into my mind.
And me—always me—standing above the wreckage. Another city. Another sea of red. Another graveyard I had made.
It was always the same.
A calm and almost joyous look on the faces of those that would see me. Then, their faces warped into despair, a river of crystalline tears streaming down their faces. And finally, the clear river turns into a crimson hue, pooling beneath my feet as they breathe their last.
"Emp…ty…"
I felt nothing.
No fear.
No sorrow.
No rage.
Just numbness.
And confusion.
And this... wrongness.
"Ti…red…"
So tired.
Of what—I couldn't say. Even asking the question felt distant, unreachable. But the moment I gave in—when I let the darkness return—it wrapped around me like a quiet sea.
Cool.
Still.
Peaceful.
"Sea…"
That word lingered.
Then—light.
And her.
A girl with rose-colored hair that shimmered like sunlight through glass. Eyes of sapphire and starlight. She was laughing, twirling through the air above me, untouchable. The sight stayed, even as the world blinked away again. She was always there.
Always her.
"Warm…"
Like the final glow of sunset. She was a memory I didn't know I'd clung to. Precious.
Is precious.
She mouthed something—no sound came. Her lips moved, and when I failed to understand, she pouted, then huffed, then smiled again.
She danced around me, laughing when I missed her by inches.
Scolded me when my strikes cracked the walls.
Yelled when I grazed her skin.
But smiled every time I looked her way.
Blood on her lips. Light in her eyes.
"Smi…le… Bri…ght…"
That damn smile.
A wave hit me. A flood of memories. All of her. Our first meeting beneath the night sky. The wind in her hair. Her voice in my ear. The warmth of her hands.
The sun had set again behind her.
Just like that day.
"Ely…sia…"
My voice, or what remained of it, rasped through the heavy fog as my body rumbled forward, one trembling hand outstretched, cloaked in soot and dried blood.
I could move again.
And then she was there.
"Took you long enough, you big dummy," she laughed—a sound too bright for this ruined world—as she leapt into my arms, wrapping them tight around my broken form.
I could hear again.
Her voice, sweet and clear, like sunlight glancing off ocean waves. "I love you… so, so, soooo much." Her fingers traced the lines of my face, gentle, loving.
I could feel again.
"Please… never forget me, okay?"
The warmth of her breath. The tremble of her lips against mine. The salt of her tears.
And the searing agony—
As her hands, still trembling with love, plunged the arrow deep into my chest.