Everywhere I looked, all I could see was smoke. Every direction I faced, there were people running. People were screaming, crying for help or yelling the name of someone they loved. No one, not anyone, could make sense of this chaos. Buildings were burning down, ashes were covering the ground. The city, the place I had once called home, was now destroyed. But I couldn't think about that. I only had one thought on my mind: Arden. I've got to get to Arden. I was running with no sense of direction. There was no telling where he could be, but something told me he wasn't okay. That he needed help. The smoke was thickening, the fires brightening the night sky. People were running everywhere, not knowing where to go. Bodies, either dead or almost dead, laid all over the ground. Some had people weeping over them, others had been forgotten and left to burn in the ruins of our city. I could only pray that Arden wasn't amidst all these cold, lifeless bodies.
I was running with no sense of direction, taking random turns, until I saw him. Laying motionless on the ground. His blonde hair glistening in the fire's light. "Arden!" I screamed. "Arden, please! I'm coming!" I had no idea if he was even still alive to hear those words. Sprinting, I approached him. I knelt, almost falling, to his side. His chest rose in quick, rapid motions. "Arden, you're alive," I whispered, leaning in to kiss him on his cheek. His eyes fluttered open, revealing the vibrant baby blue color underneath, looking even more blue that usual compared to his dangerously pale skin. I could tell he was unable to focus on anything, but at least he could hear me. "Sarah?" he said, in a barely audible tone. "You found me." "Of course. I wouldn't have given up until I did. Are you okay?" I asked, although it was very obvious he wasn't. "Everything hurts," his voice cracked. "I can't move." He could barely talk. Blood stained his ash covered body, terrible burns were all over him. I wanted to help him, to take the pain away from him. "I need to get you out of here," I said, my mind racing. How? I wasn't strong enough to carry him. Running with him would be impossible. The fires were growing bigger and spreading. We didn't have much time until the whole city would be burnt down to the ground. My home would soon no longer exist.
"Leave me," Arden whispers. "Leave me, you can't get us both us out alive." My heart broke at hearing those words. I knew that he was probably right, but I was not leaving him here to die on a the cold, stone road. "No," I answered. "I'm not letting us die without putting up a fight first." "Sarah, please, listen to me," he manages to say. People would run past us, not offering to help us. I wasn't prepared for the words that were about to come out of his mouth.
"I want to die." His voice was as strong and clear as he could possibly make it. Too strong. Too clear. The voice he used as his way of telling me what he was saying wasn't a suggestion, not a question, but a demand. And I knew once he made up his mind, there was no changing it.
"Arden, no!" I sobbed. "Sarah, look at me! Can't you see, there's no way I'm making it out of here alive?" His chest was moving quicker, his breathes were becoming shorter. "All I want is to feel human again, one last time, and what's more human than dying?" His voice was weak, cracking at every word. I knew he was right, but more importantly, I understood what he meant. For years, we had been ruled by the people who made us work more than any person should, who would kill our family members, who would starve us, just because they could. For years, we had been nothing to anyone. Only people who have been seen as worthless beings. People who's families were alright to murder, who were okay to starve. For years, all they have done to us is slowly kill us. And now... now they were making their final move. Their final move in hopes to kill us all. I understood what Arden meant, but I couldn't bare the idea of letting him go.
"Arden," I said, a tear dripping down my cheek. I grabbed his hand. "Stay, please. I love you." "Let me die, Sarah. I'm asking you." He squeezed my hand hard. Like he was saying goodbye. "Please, it's what I want." His eyes slowly shut. I knew he wouldn't be with me much longer. "Sarah, I love you more than anything." He was barely talking. "Don't forget that." And with that, his chest stopped rising. His heart stopped beating. His hand went limp. He was dead. He was gone.
Arden was gone.
"No, don't die," I whispered. "You can't be dead." Tears were steaming down my face. "No, please! No!" I looked at him. How could they take him away from me like this? How could they make him suffer, make me suffer? Why did they do this? I was angry, I was hurt, I was confused. But then, I understood something I had never had before. I realized then that people can do worse things than kill you. They can take away the person you love most. Nothing would ever make that okay. It felt unreal. It felt like a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from. "You can't die," I said, sobbing. I threw myself over his lifeless body. "No!" I screamed. "This isn't how it's supposed to end! Take me instead! Let him live!" I yelled to no one in particular. At the sky, at the ground. To anyone, anything that would listen. The people who had ruled me all my life had taken away the one person I loved. The one person I cared about. And that was something I could never forgive.
Without Arden, what was the point of me living? He was the one thing that kept me going. He was the one person who I felt was worth living our miserable, hard life for. And now, he was gone. I loved him too much to keep living without him.
I made up my mind. I wouldn't let them take him without taking me, too.
If the world thought that they could keep us apart, then they hadn't been paying attention. Because there was absolutely nothing I wouldn't do just to be by Arden's side. And in that case, that meant death. If that is what these people wanted so badly, then let them have it. If it would make them happy, so be it. All I wanted was to not have to live without Arden, and if dying was what it took for me to do that, then let it happen. I was done with everything this cruel world had to offer.
"Don't worry, Arden," I told him. "I'm coming." I wrapped his body in my arms, squeezing him tightly. The fires were growing. The smoke was making me cough, light headed, and dizzy. Good, I thought. Maybe I won't have to lay here for too long. I was proud. I was proud that I was leaving this world. Proud that I had fought for my life for so long. Proud that this was how I would end. And soon... soon I would be with Arden again.
And before long, the fire was too much. I was coughing, my chest was throbbing. It looked as if the earth was spinning, so fast it could never stop. I continued to grab onto Arden. And then I said it. With my hoarse voice, I managed to say the words, "good bye." Good bye to this awful world. Good bye to the ruthless people who were our rulers. Good bye to the pain. Good bye to suffering. Good bye, I knew, were my last words.
And then, the world went black.
Some people may say that I gave up that day. Some people may think that I should've fought harder. But I think that in the end, this is what I was supposed to do. Because when everyone is dead and gone, you miss both the people you loved but also the strangers. The people who made your life a little bit fuller, a little more worth living. If I had lived, no one would have been left. And I would rather be in a room with one hundred strangers than on my own for good. Death is what people would say humans fear the most. But really, I think that death wants you to be terrified, and the scariest thing is wanting death.
The war I had been fighting all my life was finally over. And it's not a matter of surviving the war; it's the matter of finding the right time to die.
And for some people, death is only a shortcut.
