I'm Sorry- A Short Story

I'm Sorry

"I'M SORRY"
The blazing flames of red and orange danced across the pit, spitting angry sparks towards the young man. He allowed them to burn his flesh, tearing small holes in his clothes as they did. He did not even flinch, for his consciousness had left the fireside long before, traveling back across time of whence he came.
The girl across the fire watched him. She had only recently met him, a lost wanderer who needed food and supplies. Or so she thought.
He is unlike anyone she has ever encountered.
At first she believed him to be mad, as all he talked about was of past times, and wars, and cities. Like somehow he still lived there now.
But now she believes him. The wanderer she once thought he was, now the old hero she had always looked up to. And how he's here, sitting in front of her is a story too wild for the average person to believe.
But there was no other way, she had to trust him. For the times had changed and fate frowned upon them that night.
All of humanity rested on his shoulders.
Could he handle it? Again?
She called his name.
"Rake?"
He looked up. Fire light fell across his face, exposing the lines and scars, tales of wars upon his cheek. His expression was full of exhaustion, his black eyes screamed of desperation and pain. Though he was young, he had seen darkness far beyond his time.

"I'm sorry."

The only words his mouth could form. The only thoughts his mind could piece together. He sat by the mud that he could feel seeping into his soul. He knew that all hope had left him. In fact, it never woke up with him.
With her around, he knew he could do it. That somehow they could make it. She was strong and it made him stronger. All the trauma that lived within the confines of his mind seemed to be paralyzed or numb within her presence.
And now he was some hero.
He had somehow saved the world and was looked upon to do the same again.
But this time is different.
He is different.
Nothing was same since he woke up.
The times had changed.
And so had his fate.

He closed his eyes, allowing his mind to drift back to the ice that had once enclosed him.
The coldness that had once saved his life.
Yet it killed the only life he had actually cared about.
Her.
She was gone. And everything she had created without him was going too.
Without him. Yes that's right, he had left her all alone. She was lonely in this darkened world.
Yet look at what she did.
She survived. She fought. She built. She overcame all the darkness within her.
How did she do it?
How could he ever do the same.

Did he even have to?
Would it hurt to slip back into the black lake that had once consumed him before?
Could it somehow take him back to her?
He laughed.
It was not out of joy or happiness but full of scorn and mockery.
At himself.
At his life.
At his blackened, scarred soul.

Perhaps the ice had not truly thawed.
Perhaps its tendrils still wrapped around his heart, sealing all the darkness inside him forever.
He could still feel it. The coldness, the ice that stabbed his heart, sending waves of pain and heat all throughout is body.
Throbbing.
Burning.
Suffocating.

"Rake. Rake. Rake!"

He looked up to find the warm, brown eyes of his new friend Cass. The world was spinning, as he was sprawled out upon the muddy ground.
He sighed, trying to shake some sense back into his head. He had lost it again. He had let his mind slip back into the dark panic that overtook his body, throwing it into unconscious spasms.

He didn't want them to know about this. He didn't want Cass to know.
His weakness that had got him into this mess.
The blackness that had sucked all the life from his soul.
And would now do the same to everyone around him.
As his mind slowly awoke from the deathly trance he had been in, he used all of the strength he had left to whisper:

"I'm sorry."