“Why me? Just what did I do to deserve this cruelty?”
Briar screamed until her throat burned, her voice raw with agony. She clutched his body against her chest, her fingers digging into his lifeless shoulders as if she could anchor him to this world. Her lover—the light in her darkness—was gone. His once-warm smile that could pull her from the deepest pits of despair was now forever absent, leaving her in the cold, suffocating silence.
Her cries echoed through the empty streets, bouncing off buildings that seemed indifferent to her pain. She begged for him to wake, her voice breaking with each desperate plea. “Please... please come back.”
But there was no response. No flicker of life in his eyes. Only the dull, hollow quiet of death.
She looked up at the sky, and as if the heavens themselves were mourning, the rain began to fall. It wasn’t just a drizzle—it was a torrent, a flood of tears from above. The cold droplets mixed with her own tears, soaking her to the bone, but she didn’t care. Her world had shattered.
“See, my angel,” she whispered, her voice trembling as she cradled his head, “even the sky will miss you too.”
briar closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against his, as the rain poured down harder, each drop a cruel reminder of the world still turning without him. The memories of him—the way he made her laugh; the way he held her when she was afraid—flooded her mind. The pain was unbearable. It was like her heart had been ripped from her chest and crushed beneath the weight of her grief.
What had she done to deserve this? To lose him, the only person who had ever truly seen her.
briar screamed again, this time at the sky, as if the universe owed her an answer. But there was only the sound of rain.
Briar dreamt again. But it wasn’t the dream of holding her lover’s lifeless body—it was something else. Something that felt both familiar and strange at the same time.
In the dream, she was dressed in a flowing gown, standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking a vast sea. The wind whipped through her hair, and she could hear the crashing waves below. But she wasn’t alone.
He was there, just like he always was.
His face was different, his clothes ancient—nothing like the man she had known in this life—but his eyes were the same. Deep, warm, and filled with a love that transcended words. The same eyes that she had looked into countless times before.
He reached out to her, and she took his hand, their fingers intertwining as naturally as breathing. She had loved him in this place. She had lost him here too.
“You have to let me go,” he whispered, his voice laced with pain.
“No,” briar choked out, shaking her head. “I won’t lose you again.”
“You can’t change it, Briar. It always ends this way.”
I tried to hold onto him, but just as their hands touched, he began to fade, disappearing like mist in the wind. “I’ll find you,” she cried. “I’ll find you. I promise!”
But it was too late. He was gone. And the cliff beneath her feet crumbled, sending her tumbling into the icy waters below.