The Everlasting

Prologue

The boy paced furiously. He hadn't stopped it, he fretted. Years upon years of misery he had endured and yet, it seemed, time would continue to make him pay for his betrayal.

    And no matter how much he hid, ran away, or tried to deny the pull of its call, it always seemed to find him; he could not deny it, for one cannot deny his fate.

    When the great Alexander was making his empire stronger, he had ran to a soothsayer, needing to know how he could change his future, and it had back fired. When the Titanic had pulled off the dock to make its first and last voyage across sea, he had risked one night with her, only to leave and find out that, fate could not be tricked, it would still have its way.

    The boy could have collapsed in his sorrow, but he was no longer a boy, no, he wasn't even sure if his soul still remained human.

    His body racked with shivers, he pulled his fingers from his hair and wrapped them around his shaking body.

    It was going to happen again, and no matter how many times it happened, the pain was still the same; it still ripped him open to the very core of what remained of his soul. For weeks, months, he could not move, not taking food or drink. He couldn't be human, he thought. No human can live as I do, endure this pain as I do.

    He had tried, many times, to end it for himself, but he was here now, and no matter how many times, he knew now that it would never work, not until the cycle was broken.

    He stopped abruptly in his pacing. Maybe this was what fate wanted, maybe this was fate giving  him another chance to end it, make things right.

    If he didn't end it now, the cycle would start again, and he wasn't sure if he could live through the loss, but he had to try, and if he had to wait to try it again, he would.

    He pulled his mask back on as the girl entered the room, wearing a silver and black mask that only covered half her face. The boy could see a turquoise eye above rosy, high cheek bones set against pale, soft skin, and plump pink lips.

    What a beauty she was, he thought, and only he knew the real reason for her half faced mask.  it added an element of mystery to her beauty, a curiosity or a treasure that must be found out.

    He wanted to unmask this treasure, but he knew what the consequence was if he went about this wrong.

    The girl smiled at him, and said, "I witnessed you down below, while you were on the balcony with your friend."

  The boy closed his eyes behind his mask, savoring the sweet innocence of her voice. Every time he met her, it was a little different, a bit higher, a pitch lower, sultry or sweet, bubbly, or sometimes irritated. He could spend all of his lifetime listening to the cadences of her voice.

    He nodded at her statement and asked, "you were watching me?"

    Though he already knew the answer; they had met like this many times before.

    Her cheeks darkened, and her eyes flitted down before meeting his again.

    "It was hard not to."

    She came closer and placed her hand on his arm. She had known him for quite a while longer than she had before. It had given him hope that maybe this time was different, that the cycle was ending here finally. But then Katrina had shown up, and the spell was broken. He knew what she was here for. To revel in her victory that she had won again.

    And his Ana, his beautiful Ana, was going to pay for his failure.

    A ruckus from down below, something was happening at the party.