“Was it fun?”

You snapped to your senses and slowly shifted your sight to the right. Though you don’t hear anything, you know it’s a feminine voice. You tried to see, the shapes blurred and mixed, but you know it’s a woman’s figure.

For a moment, you don’t know what she’s talking about, so you face forward again, and you see a familiar sunset before you. It was one you had only witnessed for a week, but it was a week you can’t ever forget. For better or worse, and you hope it’s better, the sight of that sunset has been seared into your mind.

“It’s beautiful. We could’ve watched this together.”

The voice beside you spoke before you. You see the blurry figure of a child, but you still recognize who she is. You always will recognize her, even in the crowds she isn’t in.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Trying to be mysterious again, hmm?” The voice, now of a higher pitch, teased behind you.

You turned around, and you saw the classroom you were always in. You don’t see her smile, but you know it’s there, right in front of you. It’s clear as day, but you have no hand to touch her. Suddenly, you experienced a light tapping on your forehead.

“You should make more friends, you know. I know how big your heart is. You can squeeze in a few more people in there, heh.” The voice spoke, the figure before you lowered her gaze back on the table, and you saw her familiar, golden hair.

You want to speak, but there are no lips on your empty head to convey the words. All you can do is watch her scribble in her notebook. Her sketches are just an inch too far from your sight, but you see it in your mind’s eye anyway. Fantastical drawings of another world, a world where--

You blinked. That was your mistake. Always so blinded by work that you often only see her between your blinks, between the darkness and the drab world. The colors drained from the scene before you, and you’re back on the desk you detest. Another man touched your shoulder, sending volcanoes of tar through your body.

“Are you alright?” She asked, her worried face in the mirror on the desk.

You stepped into the kitchen, eyes dreary, shoulders slumped. Coffee is poured into the cup below you, and you hear her footsteps approaching from behind. Silently, she hugs you, and her cold warmth stirs the coffee within you. Of course, you’re not okay. No one in this goddamn world is okay. But with her, with her…

“Oh, now you’re just imagining things.” The detached voice rang in all directions as you saw her silhouette passing you by in your middle school’s corridor.

“You didn’t even like me, remember?” The figure of a crying young woman sat on the staircase before you. Your feet were locked in place as your view of her grew smaller.

“Why didn’t say it back then? You know what I am, you know what you are, but you didn’t say it in the end. Is it because YOU’RE A COWARD?!”

You fell backward, down and down without an end. A weightless descent, it was, and you felt the hair on your cheeks, just like what happened that day. You closed your eyes, and you see--

“What’s with that smile? Are you really that happy about this?” The voice chuckled from your left, and you turned to her. She was wearing her ugly but favorite rainbow bikini. You weren’t wearing anything better yourself, but does it matter? When the edges of your heavy lips lifted against the gravity of existence?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Oh, you swam. You still remember you almost drowned in that pool, but she saved you, as she did many times before and after that. The fear that your days with her will end slowly melts in the water, and she stares at you, beaming. You lay your hand on her cheek, and you kissed her.

When you blinked, you were on the bed. Ten minutes had passed. You experienced the journey back home, her figure luring you into a futuristic yet fantastical room. You stripped, she stripped, and both of you conjoined. Oh, the pleasure was intense. Not only that, the world didn’t end at any point in that process. You’re amazed, and you know what’s truly going on, but you’re still there, inside that room, with her.

Then, you’re back there again. On the beach, basking in the twilight. You sniffed, and the stench of smoke filled your lungs. You turn to your left, and you see an unfamiliar face you’ve been staring at for the past week. She turned toward you, but spoke with a voice you’re much more familiar with, the one who had been speaking to you

“What did you want me to say? That it’s not your fault? That I should indulge you a little because you managed not to mess things up more than you usually do?” A blob stood beside what your brain recognized as a window.

It was that night again. The fateful night that never came to pass. Or did it?

“May the stars never shine on us again.”

She stood beside you, wanting to kiss you one more time, but couldn’t. Her empty touch shattered you into a thousand pieces. You know the pain as you watch remnants of yourselves fall through the tunnel of time, but you can’t feel it. Not anymore. They’re no longer yours.

Then, you blinked again, and that unfamiliar face beside you on the beach became less unfamiliar. You want to touch her, so you know you still exist, that you’re still breathing, but you hesitate. What if the ouroboros ate its tail again? What if the stars still refused to watch you, like they had been for so much of your life?

Without warning, your hand was grabbed, and you struggled to keep your eyes open. You feel the water surrounding you, and the gusts pressing against your cheeks. Your arm was in pain, and you want to let go. You want to be free, but you can’t help but look up, to see who was risking their life for you.

“Don’t let go, detective.” The face you came to take a liking to over the past week shouted at you in a detached, calm tone. “I have you.”

She was wincing, planting herself on the boardwalk as she tried desperately not to let the violent waves sweep you away.

“I don’t know what’s left for me tomorrow.” Words regurgitated from your throat alas, but now, you wish you could speak.

“Then you must live to see what surprise it holds then.” The background noise you know exists does not echo in your ears, only her voice. Delilah’s voice. Yes, that was her name, wasn’t it?

“What if it crushes me again? What if The Miracle never comes?” You asked wearily, staring at the hungry sea swallowing you.

“Then I will sit beside you until the day after tomorrow, and the day after that, until it comes.” Delilah releases your hand as you slowly levitate into the air.

“And if you say no when I ask you to? What then?” You stared down at her, your tears dripping on her cheeks.

“You’ll just have to find out, won’t you?” Delilah grins faintly.

Words escaped your mouth and--

You woke up. Pain paralyzes your body. You blinked, staring at the fan above you. Then, you blinked again, and it’s still there. The leviathan of reality has subsumed you once more.

Slowly, and painfully, you turned your head to your left. Your sight is still blurry, but you see a woman in glasses reading a book.

She detects the sound of your movement and reveals a faint smile at you. With the closing of her book, she utters, “Sunrise, parabellum.”

For a moment, seconds stretch into eons, and you, the soul, wonder what to say. However, you, the body, have already spoken. Perhaps there was something better you could’ve said. Something poetic, something profound, something that mattered.

Then again, what matters more, at that moment, than

“I’m alive…”