I barely remember pushing myself across the threshold between the sand and forest. I pushed ferns and bushes aside as I rushed between the trees, desperately running forward on worn-out, broken knees. The wind sent flutters through the branches and leaves, but I dodged every dancing obstacle with ease. I felt with every step that my lungs began to wheeze, but I pushed myself onward as if driven by the breeze. I ran on until I saw a sign which made me freeze. Written in blood were words which stained a sign, “You may enter in peace, but only for a time. Dark spirits will consume you if you stay here for too long; the dead may meet you here, but this place you cannot stay.”
I stumbled into the shallows of a river which flowed slowly through the forest. When I collapsed into the water, I could practically feel the cool touch soothe the sores which stained my skin. The water rinsed my hair of sand. I immersed my green eyes beneath the surface and stared up at the sky. In the rest of the forest up until now, the path was shrouded by towering trees. But in this place, where the wide river pilfered the forest of space for trees, I could clearly see the starry sky. Even beneath the flowing water, I watched galaxies dance across the darkness. Variegated nebulae drifted slowly like clouds. Twinkling stars pierced the sky and forced the river to shimmer even in the depths. Even when I surfaced and felt the water pour from my long hair, I watched a large star tremble as if it fought against its own gravity.
“Do you remember the night we met? We watched the stars together at the edge of the sea,” whispered a voice that sent shivers straight through me.
“Alyssa, is that you? Please tell me this is real,” I whispered to her ghost as if in an appeal.
I saw her stand at the edge of the riverbed, gazing at me, smiling with glee, unfolding her arms as she stared straight ahead. With a whisper through tears, she gasped as she said, “I don’t want to believe that this is all in my head. I brought myself to you, but my body is dead. This is my curse; I wish I was with you instead.”
I could feel her pain, so I said with a sigh, “I will stay with you until the day that I die.”
But she shook her ghostly head and answered, “In death I’ve glimpsed the calling for which we both were meant. Just as you are sentenced to live for eternity as penance, my time in that body was ephemeral; it is an intransient injury imposed by an imperceptible entity—one which could not enter words. We are star-crossed by design and star-crossed now forever.”
“Are we cursed to spend an eternity apart?” I asked as fear paralyzed my hopeless heart.
But she shook her head as she tried to reason, “We are destined for each other like the changing of the seasons. You and I are twin flames dancing in an endless spiral. We are bound by the other but cursed to a cycle; you and I will intertwine infinitely in our past lives and our futures. We are two supernovae dancing for eternity in the other’s orbit, illuminating the universe with the fiery grandeur of a love unbound by time and death.”
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As I set my right hand on her ghostly face, I wiped my tear-filled eyes. I asked with a heavy breath, “But how can that be? I already lost you to death.”
“We are together an ebb and a flow. Just like the tides which dance from high to low, or the seasons which sway from warm to cold, you will find me again if I am to go. My memories may dissolve into the dark fold, but when I find you again, I just pray that we know. Our love is immortal just like an echo. I am your echo, I am your twin flame dancing in this endless spiral, and I will cycle back into your life like the afterimage of a past life lost to shadow. We shall defy time itself in our infinite orbit,” she whispered.
“Does that mean one day I’ll have you back?” I asked as I held her closely.
She smiled and answered, “In another time, in another place, perhaps in another life. My soul is not bound to my body or this world; it is bound only to you. So when we meet again, you will not recognize me. I will not recognize you. The memories of the life we shared are the price I must pay to join you again in life. But when we meet again, we will defy and defeat our star-crossed curse. You and I will stand together, hand-in-hand, shoulders facing forward, hearts beating in unison, when we arrive at the edge of eternity.”
I trembled as I wrapped her in my arms and said, “I truly believed that this would be my end. I thought since I lost you, I might as well be dead. I was a dying flame which never could be fed, until I learned that I could still see you again. Your ghost is a gust which blew away my doubt, but will you fan the flame or will you snuff it out?”
“It will be my next life that forges our fire and follows through on fate’s command. Meet me by the ocean’s edge. Find me on the shore at Ember Bay, my love. I can see our reunion in space but not time. Can you meet me there, Asivario?” Alyssa asked.
I nodded and held her closely with one foot on the sand and the other in the starlit river. She stood as a ghost in my arms, struggling just to stay cohesive; she had drained the warmth from the air just to summon her spirit. Ice crystals formed upon the surface of my skin, and the shallow edge of the flowing river froze over in her presence. Prisms of ice shimmered in the light of the sky. She smiled sweetly in our immortal embrace, but it was then that her form started to evaporate. The details of her face slowly faded into frozen moisture.
“I will wait every night where the water meets the sand until the day we meet again. If you are to return this world, then I will trade everything for you. I would sacrifice my very soul and force the world to pay the price in my place. After all, every inch of this world is ours—both the land and the sea. We are destined for each other but condemned to pain until the day we are rejoined. We said goodbye once before, but it was only in a dream,” I whispered as she faded into the frigid air.
With the last of her energy, Alyssa struggled to say, “We will meet again in Ember Bay.”