Grave Lies

breath

 Time had stopped.

The world had ceased to turn.
There was only the two of us.
Yet, inside me, colliding universes had just reshaped every single certainty I had.
I couldn't move.
My eyes were helpless and wide open. But inside...
Inside, I was no longer myself.
My soul trembled. Emotions escaped from every direction without me being able to stop them. My feelings raced downhill, faster and faster - and no, no, wait, I wanted to scream to my heart, please, wait, not like this... Not like this...
But it didn't stop.
And it was so insane to think that the world remained unaware of the explosion that had just occurred inside me. As if I were condemned to a torment of my own, silently digging and burning with every breath.
's fingers crumpled the fabric of my dress on my hips.
His hands moved up slowly, wrinkling the fabric along my ribs, and I dared not even breathe. I wanted those hands on me every day.
Suddenly, his lips touched my belly.
Rigel kissed my skin through the dress.

 My breath caught in my throat. I was overwhelmed, hypersensitive, and burning, but I couldn't react quickly enough. Another kiss, this time higher up, a rib that would burn forever. I trembled, and his hands pulled me closer to him.

"R-Rigel," I stammered as he left me with a long, scorching kiss on my sternum. He seemed lost, bewildered in my warmth, in my scent, in my body so close to his. My heart hammered in my stomach, meeting the caresses of his mouth. I gripped his hair between my fingers, and his breath made me dizzy.
He kissed the bare skin of my chest, slowly, in that way that only he had, with his teeth and his lips. My breast rose and fell rhythmically, and his warm tongue traced a path of passion across its flesh.
I gasped as his fingers trailed along my thigh and tightened their grip. He pulled me towards him, and my heart couldn't resist.
I tried to ignore the sweet tension building inside my belly, but it was impossible. It felt like my heart was being twisted. I felt hot, wet, and trembling. The situation was slipping out of my control. I didn't recognize any of these sensations, and yet they all belonged to me.
A soft moan escaped me.
At that sound, his hands pulled me into his arms, seized by an uncontrollable frenzy. He pressed my thigh against his side and sank his mouth into my throat, biting, torturing, pushing that tension to its limit.
My breath quickened. His teeth grazed the curve of my neck, savoring it like a forbidden fruit. My legs grew weak, and my heart took up all the space.
I wasn't thinking rationally.
I felt my ankles trembling, the bones of his hips grinding against my thighs, my hands buried in his shoulders holding him tightly. He had become my center, the focal point of my universe. I saw only him, felt only him, every inch of me trembled at the mere thought of him.
His lips kissed the pulsing artery in my throat, filling themselves with my heartbeat. I struggled to breathe, overwhelmed by sensations that consumed me.


 His touch grew more forceful, and his fingers tightened around my breast. A powerful shiver clenched my stomach, and that emotion frightened me.

Suddenly, reality hit me like a bucket of cold water. I flinched, the tension broke, and the fear of how true and real what I was feeling was overwhelmed me.
"No!"
I pulled away from his body and stepped back.
's petrified gaze pierced my heart. He looked at me from under his disheveled hair, and each step I took away from him felt like a stab.
"We can't," I murmured, convulsed. "We can't!"
I wrapped my arms around myself, and he saw the flash of terror in my eyes.
"What..."
"It's wrong!"
My voice echoed in the room. That one word shattered something inside both of us.
Rigel's irises changed. In that moment, I realized I had never seen them so bright before.
"It's... wrong?" he repeated softly. It didn't even sound like his voice.
Disbelief transformed into pain, and his gaze darkened as if his soul was wilting beneath his skin. "What? What is wrong, Nica?"
He already knew the answer, but he still wanted confirmation.
"This..." I replied, lacking the courage to give a name to what I had inside, because defining it would be admitting it, and therefore accepting it. "We can't! Rigel, we... We're about to become siblings!"
Saying it caused excruciating pain.
That's what we would be in the eyes of the world. Siblings. The name I had always rejected now seemed like an eternal condemnation.
I remembered what I had read in Alan's book, and it burned like a brand that wouldn't fade.
It was a mistake, we shouldn't, we couldn't - but my soul screamed, an injustice that took my breath away. And the fairy tale now had thorns and decaying pages, and the more Rigel looked at me, the more I felt my childhood desire crush me until I broke in two.

 Two shining orbs now held the balance of my heart. On one side, there was light, warmth, wonder, and Anna's eyes. The family I had always longed for. The only hope that had allowed me to survive when my guardian would beat me and hurt me.