I've seen many strange sights in my short span of life. I've seen things that weren't obscure in their abnormality, I've seen happiness where sadness festered, and I've seen life, where death resided. And I've seen death, where there was nothing but life. I've seen and met people, both living and dead, both hollow and passionate, both joyful and condemned. These sights I've come across in many different situations, all of them valuable memories stored in my brain. But nothing of what I'd learned, no knowledge I'd obtained, whether from those in real life, or from those in the land of the dead, could have ever, for a single moment, prepared me for what I came upon one lonely, crisp day in the woods.
There are those moments in your life, where everything that should have prepared you for what you came across, suddenly seems completely and utterly, irrelevant.
What do you do in that moment?
When the air has left your lungs, when your heartbeat is no longer within your control, when every sight and smell and sound around you, seems to have dissipated into thin air.
Strangeness, I may have encountered before. Danger, I may have touched. Love---I may have tried.
But etherealness, like his as he stood across from me, his regal form surrounded by the majestic forest, seeming to bend the woods to his will, I had never thought I'd ever come across.
It was hard to take my eyes off of him. I was afraid that if I did, he'd disappear, like an angel from a dream. Words failed me, as did my body, my bones suddenly seemed rubbery, and in my shock to keep standing upright, I stumbled back, grasping rough tree bark with my bare hands to steady myself.
I don't think there are enough words in the English library to justify his beauty. There shouldn't be. If there were such words then it meant that beauty like his has been discovered before, and that feels like such an impossible idea. Because I was sure to my core that nothing like him has ever graced this earth, and if there has been another like him, then he has never come in direct contact with a human being.
He stood tall, his shoulders broad and adorning a wide chest, long legs that stood steady on the grass. The sun brushed through his caramel locks, the curls that let loose over his forehead shaded differently in certain parts. I trailed my eyes down from his forehead, to his straight nose, his full lips, his pale skin, his Adam's apple, his finely tailored suit that draped over his form like velvet. I looked back up to his eyes, staring mesmerized into the green orbs that seemed to have come from the forest itself.
Is he divine? I found myself wondering.
Something so resplendent could not possibly be real. Someone more beautiful than a vampire, a creature created with allure for the sole purpose of attracting helpless victims. Until this very moment, I'd thought that a vampire was the most beautiful being on earth, simply because he was designed that way, simply because it was how his nature was. But vampires had a skeletal and sharp kind of beauty, a dead kind of beauty, like when someone dies young and beautiful and you look at them when they're in the casket, being lowered into the ground; their beauty didn't hold a candle to whoever this person was.
I swallowed thickly, forgetting everything else in the world other than him; this---creature---who'd tried to lure me into his grasp so many times before.
He too watched me in return, hands in his pantsuit-pockets, head cocked to the side curiously.
Whatever I'd expected to see when I followed the voice into the woods, this wasn't it.
I dug my hands into the bark, feeling myself slip down onto the ground, my eyes trained on his eyes, willing him to disappear like I thought he would.
I opened my mouth, to say something, anything, and yet the only sound that managed to escape was a choked grunt.
Speak, he won't harm you.
How do you know?
I just do.
Well, that's very helpful.
"Rest at ease, Miss Swan, I cannot do you any harm." I jumped from where I was crouching on the ground, every single hair on my body stood at the sound of his voice. A voice so rich and baritone that I felt chills travel down my spine. But this wasn't the kind of chills that Dorian gave me, this was a fearful kind.
"W-what are you?" I whispered, tightening my hands into fists to prevent myself from reaching out to him.
"A being humans are unfamiliar with these days." He straightened up, suddenly looking even taller than he already did. I had to fight the urge to cower away and bow my head. I glued my eyes on him, a distant voice in the back of my head telling me that something was missing from his sublime image.
"W-what?" Was I even here? Or was I in some sadness induced hallucination? I wouldn't put it past my brain to get lost in the intake of alcohol and the painkiller pills I've been taking recently. In fact, it would be one of the normal things that have happened to me.
"Forgive me; I have not been this close to a human for many ages." His lips remained straight, but his eyes flashed with an array of emotions that disappeared as fast as it came.
Suddenly the dam broke.
"Who are you? What are you? What's your name?" I was practically breathless.
Once again he cocked his head to the side, as if studying a rare specimen. I found it strange that not a single lock of his hair moved with the motion of his head, it remained perfectly still, shielding his eyes.
"I don't remember humans being this inquisitive." He said analytically, sounding as if he was examining every twitch of my body and storing the information away.
"Answer any of those questions in whichever order you like." I replied, glad that at least I regained some stability in my voice.
"I suppose I should," He murmured, "I did spend many opportunities to get you to speak to me."
"Why?" I breathed out, slowly standing up using the tree behind me as support.
"Because I wished to speak to you." I exhaled, blinking a couple of times after I realized that I'd been staring at him.
"Why did you need to talk to me? Why go to such effort? Why haven't you shown yourself to me earlier? What are you?"
"Definitely more inquisitive than I remember." He muttered under his breath, the way he was watching me making me feel like an animal in a cage. I stood up straight and wiped all emotions off my face like I'd done so many times before. I wanted to regain control, no matter how handsome he was or how powerful he seemed, I did not want to be the weak girl who cowered away. I was Sophie Swan, and I was not afraid of souls---in the off chance that he was a soul.
"But why? Why did you go to so much effort to talk to me? Why did you torment my mind for so long?"
"I do not torment, child," I bristled at the title, "And I would hold my tongue if I were you. It is not wise to insult me, my wrath is not merciful."
"Sorry it's just---are you a soul? Do you want me to help you, is that it?"
"You help those beyond your reach?" He asked, sounding like he already knew the answer but was trying to figure something out.
I stared boldly at him.
"They're not so far out of my reach," I replied, the arrow in my stomach telling me that there was a soul approximately two miles from where I was standing, southward, and two a mile east.
"Forgotten souls are not yours to tamper with."
"I don't disturb them," I said defensively, "I help them. They call out to me."
"The dead call out for nothing but mercy." He said stoically, leaving no room for argument.
I got fed up with our back-and-forth routine, realizing that he was using it to avoid my questions.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
"I have no requirement from you, nor from any human being." He replied flatly, his face still holding the same merciless blankness.
"Why did you call me here?" I took a step forward, surprised by my own courage. Everything about this person both drew me in and scared me.
He was silent as he regarded me, lips pushed together and eyes fixated on me, staring at me as if seeing my naked soul through my bones.
"I wished to speak to you. Face to face." His mouth curled upward at the edges. "Miss Sophie Swan, the Defect."
What?
You tell me.
I drew my eyebrows together at the strange title.
"The-what? What does that mean?" I stared at him hard, trying to gouge out the answers.
He stayed silent as he looked around him and at top of the enclosing trees, as if just realizing where he stood.
I took another step forward, the sound of sticks crunching under my boots returning his attention to me.
His gaze returned to me.
"You should not call upon those whose time has ended; it does not do well to dwell upon returning souls. They are out of your reach now."
I felt a sudden need to defend myself.
"But they come to me," I stressed, "They call out to me, they ask me to help them."
"You cannot help the dead. Only their choices must save them. Do not disturb their peace; some are not so lucky to receive mercy."
There was no logical way to decipher what he was saying, and the more he spoke, the more confused I got.
"Why are you here?" I changed my question.
His stillness spread unease in me, and I failed to hide my discomfort when he started to speak again.
"I have been assigned many humans," He started, "Across many lands, and many ages. Kings and Queens. Knights and maidens. Sinners and saints. None as strange as you, none who could see me the way you do now, none who followed my call the way you did---many times."
He paused.
"None who evaded death like you did."
I let his words sink in, realizing with a wash down of dread that this---person---whoever he was, was more than what I previously had bargained him for. He was not human, of that I was sure, but he was also above the monsters I already knew, a higher being.
Suddenly I realized what was missing from his image. Wings.
My tongue failed me; I remained unmoving within his direct gaze, helpless to the display of emotions across my face.
"What are you?" There was no denying the tremor in my voice.
"Someone who has been alongside you for a very long time." He answered simply, watching as I trembled before him.
"And why have you decided to show yourself now?"
His eyes rose to meet my own, searching, softness coating his voice when he spoke the next five words.
"Because the time is up."
***
Days dragged on, without any real meaning to the passing hours. Night turned to day, and day turned to night, and meaning still evaded the minutes and ticks. I suppose I should be grateful, I asked for peace for so long, and here, at last, I was granted the silence I wanted.
Except, I didn't want it.
Because with every minute and every hour the pain my chest grew and festered, like a plague. The bottles emptied, and filled, and emptied again, with their doses upping each time I went back to the pharmacy for a refill. The last hurricane of spring came and went, and soon the sun became a familiar sight in the summer season of Forks, with the occasional rainy day interrupting every now and then. More days passed, more and more, until a month had almost passed over graduation. Bella would appear in the doorframe of my room, every morning and every night, the same concerned expression adorning her face, creasing her brows.
She would ask me if I wanted to go out, "The weather's nice today," She'd say, "We could go to Seattle, buy you some new canvases and paint, you always like buying new paint."
I'd turn to her from my seat on the floor, my back to the door and my face toward the window, a sketchpad clutched in my hands.
I'd agree.
The first time. The second time. The third. The fourth---I saw him, he was there, he is alive, he is real, he is real, he is here, he sees me, he doesn't see me, I'm not there but I am, he doesn't see me, I'm not there, I'm just a shadow pressed against the wall, he's smiling, and oh God it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. MAKE IT STOP!
Needless to say, I never went back again.
I had many phone-calls from Odette, she reached out to me when I disappeared from the hospital that day, that cursed day, and she kept trying to contact me. But you can only call someone for so long before you get the hint. She stopped, but I don't blame her, she finally has her son back, what concern should she have for Strange Sophie Swan, the one who tried?
Tony tried too, but even he couldn't ease the pain. He and Bella both tried to get me out of the house, to feel the sun on my skin, to stop being so alone.
But how could I leave my room when it was my only safe haven? Everywhere I went, there was the chance of him being there, and I didn't have the courage to risk it.
And I was never alone. I always had him with me. My guardian angel.
I suppose I should find it extremely concerning, what he told me, but it was something I'd already known, something that confirmed everything.
It was merely an explanation to all the madness.
***
The tree-house creaked with every step of my feet; the rain drizzled outside relentlessly, droplets falling on my face from the cracks and holes the roof had. We'd tried fixing it, Dorian and me, we'd made this our safe haven, and for a while, it was. Every secret, every whisper, every kiss, it was all shed here, here to stay and wither and die---here to be forgotten by all but me. The tree-house was now empty of life, dust having settled on each surface. All the hopes and dreams I'd spilt here, inside these four walls, now seemed like the idle fantasies of a little girl.
It held a sickening nostalgia, a reminder of times that I was the happiest I'd been. A reminder of all that has happened. A heaven turned to hell.
An atmosphere of Juliet's tomb.
Claustrophobia rushed over me like a surge of icy water being dumped on my skin. Two strong hands were wrapped tightly around my neck, squeezing and digging to the point of crushing my throat. My lungs felt like they were filled with water, my nostrils were blocked and my eyes dripped with tears as low sobs pathetically slipped past my lips.
I guess a breakdown was imminent in my place of safety.
A sudden rage took over my senses, like a kaleidoscope of red slid over my eyes. I hated it all. I hated Forks, I hated the Cullens, and I hated Bella and her secrets. I hated fate and the universe and every reason out there that made me the way I am. And I hated myself, my weakness for him, my need for him, how much I let myself depend on him when deep in my mind I knew that his departure was inevitable
What was it about him that loosened my guard? Was it his immediate acceptance of my flaws, or was it his fascination by them? Or was it my stupidity? Was I so seduced by the idea of love that I allowed all the red lights to pass by?
Stupid. I was just stupid. So incredibly naïve and stupid.
I was so sure of it in the beginning; I denied every flutter and twist I felt whenever he smiled my way. I told myself over and over again that I would not fall into that trap, I would not fall for someone who was a flight risk, I would not fall for a ghost.
And yet here I am, crying pathetically in a tree-house that's about to fall fifty feet in the air in the middle of the woods in a hurricane. Because it happened. Everything that wasn't supposed to happen happened and it's destroying me slowly and painfully. Like a white, hot burning brand of metal constantly burning through my heart and poking it.
It was stupidity. My own stupidity for thinking I deserved him.
And in the end, I was just a human, drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal my brokenness.
***
I left the sketchbook there, the one that I drew in when Dorian was still with me. It was our story, in a way, everything that drew my attention I'd sketched. It was a book of sorts; the first few pages were little curiosities, drawings of Abigail and Forks, the woods that I saw through my window, the strange ghosts I met in the graveyard. Then the drawings take a dark turn. Pages filled only by the dark atmosphere that surrounded me when I was haunted by the beady-eyed girl, sketches of her following me, of her standing in the middle of the road, the fear I held of her spelled out in the angry lines of her sketches.
And then it comes to the point where he saved me, except, I never drew him.
I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't capture his full image. Something always didn't satisfy me and I would throw the drawing away. The only drawing that indicated he saved me from the beady-eyed ghost was a shadowed sketch of a man standing in the way of something, blocking her from me.
And then the drawings become more and more strange. Athena and Jeremy starred in a lot of them, but so did Abigail, and Quil and Jacob and the rest of the pack, their tattoos and scenes from the story Quil told me, of Taha Aki and his wife's sacrifice. There was no real set out to the drawings; it was a chaotic pit of art. I drew everything and everyone.
There was nothing to the sketchbook that would tell anyone anything of relevance, but a part of me, a toxic one, hoped that one day, when I was gone, he'd see the drawings, and he'd remember.
Of course, there was only one drawing at the end of the book that would tell him that he actually knew the person who drew the images.
And who could tell if he ever even remembered Strange Sophie Swan and the time he spent with her in his tree-house.
But I could not keep all those memories on paper with me, my brain was tormenting enough.
Here was my last gift to Dorian.
***
"A-are you an angel?"
It was a strange question to ask a person, more-often-than-not it was used as a flirtatious line to ultimately get closer to someone and eventually hook up with them.
Except this time it wasn't.
"I have a feeling you've decided that for yourself."
"Are you here to help me?"
"I'm here to tie up all the threads."
***
I watched his stealthy form, as the light drizzle of rain went right through him like he wasn't even there. I'd seen that kind of transparency in my ghost friends, but never in a being like him.
"You've been here," I spat out water as the light rain coated my hair. I was sat on a jagged clump of rock, shielded from the soft rain by a large branch of a tree. Droplets of water rolled down my face, and I clutched my new sketchpad in my hands, angling it so that it wouldn't get wet as I tried to capture his image.
He was standing a few feet away, his back to me as he observed the forest.
"Since the very beginning." He replied, looking at me from over his shoulder.
"And when is the beginning?" I asked.
"The day you were born into this world." His left hand was in his pant-pocket, the other dangled by his side. I angled my head to the side to get a better look at his hand, sketching out long, slender fingers on the paper in front of me.
I looked up when I processed what he said.
"That's the beginning?" I asked.
He nodded softly.
"You were a strange infant," I almost snorted at the frequently used statement.
"Hardly a sound escaped you," He said softly, "Made your parents fret with worry. But I hardly think that is the thing they should have been concerned about."
He was still looking at me from over his shoulder; I sketched up to his shoulders and started on his neck and jaw.
I bit my bottom lip before speaking.
"The memories." I muttered lowly.
He nodded.
"You knew about it from the beginning," I stated.
"I've known everything about you from the beginning; it was just a matter of letting the events play out."
Could have bloody done something about it.
"You could have stopped it," I ground my jaw, gripping my pencil harder in my hand.
He turned around sharply.
"It is not within my interest to stop what cannot be stopped." And with that, he turned his attention back to the forest. I stopped shading his long coat and chewed on my bottom lip.
"Why me?" I asked, feeling brave. It was a loaded question, something I'd asked myself since I could comprehend my abilities, but there had never been anyone to reply back.
Ahhh, the million dollar question. Sure you should be asking something so serious this early on? Wouldn't want to scare him off.
Why don't you shut up, hm?
He cocked his head to the side as he observed me.
"Why was I chosen to see memories and ghosts?"
"You were not chosen, there was no choice in the matter. Some humans are born with strange abilities, some are not, it is not within my power to dictate who gets what," He then stopped, as if deep in thought, his piercing green eyes raking over my curled up form.
"And seeing ghosts is not a gift you were born with," I watched his lips purse.
"It is your punishment."
And he's gone bonkers too, great job, love!
"What?" I whispered, my face frozen with whatever expression was already in place.
His entire aura was commanding as he took slow steps towards me, his feet making no sound as he moved.
He stopped a few feet away from the boulder I sat on.
"Haven't you ever wondered why you can see the dead? Why they appeared to your eyes when you were still a child?" My veins filled with ice with every word that escaped his mouth.
He continued.
"Have you never thought of what really happened that day on that road?"
The air left my lungs in one gush; I sat before him, my eyes trained on his, entirely uncomprehending.
I didn't question how he knew about that day, the day Athena died, he's known everything so far, this wasn't a surprise. What did surprise me was the way he was insinuating that something else happened that day.
"That day. . ." I breathed in, gripping my sketchbook in my hands.
"That day," He continued for me, "A soul was returned, but not the chosen one."
What. . .
"Truly think about that day, Miss Swan."
I did as he commanded, as painful as it was. I closed my eyes and envisioned that day. The events coming to life before my eyes.
***
I remember it was sunny that day, a strange feat for Forks. It was one of those sudden, out of the blue sunshine filled days, that came as fast as it went. Athena wanted to take advantage of the good weather. She'd run up to my house's porch, where I sat on the wooden stairs, my fingers deep in jars of acrylic paint.
She had been wearing a light purple woollen turtleneck that used to belong to Tony, with washed down blue jeans that were rolled up in the bottom, and brown ugg boots. I could vividly recall the green ribbon she wore in her hair; I remember it clashed with her blue eyes.
"Sophie!" I'd looked up, a deer in the headlights look on my face, my hand knuckles deep inside a jar of blue paint.
"What are you doing?" She'd stopped in front of me, her eyes bemused as she stared at my hands.
I'd shrugged.
"Painting." And I'd turned back to what I was doing.
A small smile had settled on her pink lips.
"Come on, Sophie, the weather's great,"
"I know,"
"Then let's go do something in the sun! I bet the rabbits will be out today."
"No,"
"Please!"
"No,"
"I'll hold the rabbit for you while you draw it," At this I'd looked up, interested. I'd wanted to draw a rabbit for a while, but it never came out or stayed still enough for me to do so.
After that I'd put on my gloves and taken my backpack, allowing Athena to drag me into the forest. I remember I'd laughed, and smiled, and true to her word she had held a brown fluffy rabbit in her arms while I drew it.
But then, she'd asked to play tag. And I hated it because I could never catch Athena; she was always faster than me, her brown ponytail in my vision as I ran after her.
We took turns chasing, but I always tried to get out of it.
It was my turn to run and for her to chase me, but I'd been too tired and out of breath to continue. I'd asked to stop, to go back, but she had---she asked for me to chase her one last time, and then we'd go home.
I'd agreed.
***
Horror hit me like a huge boulder, and I found that there was an ache in my stomach that grew with each breath I took.
It had been my turn.
"It was---it was my turn to run. . ." The words escaped in whispers, and my eyes widened with dread when I looked up to meet his.
He was staring at me, waiting.
"It was your turn to be chased," He said, "And then something happened. A shift in the axis."
He narrowed his opulent eyes in my direction.
"You changed the course of events."
I felt like everything I knew was crashing down to dust, and I could do nothing but watch.
"I was supposed to. . ." Everything was starting to make sense, a terrible twist that connected all the facts and finished the puzzle to show the truth.
There was a cotton ball in my throat, and my mouth was dry. Suddenly my entire body felt ice cold and sweaty.
"You were supposed to die," He said with enough finality in his voice to make my entire world crumble.
"But you didn't."
He stepped close enough to touch me, raising his hand as if to caress my cheek.
"Strange Sophie Swan, the Defect."
I suddenly realized that his sudden appearance might not be in my best interest.
"Why did you show yourself now?"
"To deliver you back to death."
Sophie . . . I think you should leave now.
Quiet.
"Deliver me back to death?" I questioned.
"Eight years ago you defied death. And you were given a punishment. To always have one foot in death's door, always see what you thwarted. Your punishment was to live with death on the daily." I listened to him speak carefully, each word settling a stone in my stomach.
"I suppose the right decision would have been to take your soul too, that day, when your little friend bled out in your arms, in your stead." He cocked his head to the side. "But I was curious how you would turn out, and I let things carry on when I shouldn't have."
I swallowed a lump in my throat.
"And now, you're here to kill me?"
"Not kill you," He said sharply, "I do not kill. I deliver. When the clock has run out, I deliver the soul back to where it came from, just as the body returns to the earth."
***
I stared at her grave, at the ivy that surrounded it like a blanket. Nature had grown to protect Athena, even in death.
Her bright blue eyes, radiant even in death, stared back at me, concern drawn around the edges.
"He left."
I did not reply to her, I couldn't. I'd long accepted the fact that he would not come back or remember me.
"Sophie. . ." I could hear pity in her voice. I hated it. I hated it so much. I didn't want it. I didn't want any of it, I just wanted to sleep, to let the ground envelop me and make me disappear from the universe because God knows how cruel it has been to me.
"I do not want your pity. I don't want your concern. It's all weaknesses."
"Sophie . . . you loved him."
I let the tear fall, uncaring of how much emotion I showed.
"Yes, I did. And I shouldn't have." I bit my bottom lip until I felt pain. "Because everything I love has a way of leaving."
Could she hear the sorrow in my voice?
I was not meant to love. Everything I loved became ghosts in the wind.
"Do you remember when we were young? When I was terrified, you were by my side. And now that you're not here, I have no place to run. No one to go to. I was never meant to be here, never meant to meet him, never meant to love him. Do you know why, Athena?" She was petrified with fear, I could tell, she'd never seen me this broken, this damaged, and she didn't know what to do.
"Do you know why Athena?" I asked again just to be cruel.
"No. . ." She whispered back as a reply.
I scratched at my jaw roughly, wiping away tears that had unwillingly trickled down. My hands itched to take another pill and make the pain in my chest lessen, but I held back.
"Because Sophie Swan is worthless. Sophie Swan should be dead."
"Sophie?" I stilled, frozen, my eyes locked with Athena's equally surprised ones.
"Sophie? What are you doing?" Tony stepped forward, he reached out to touch my shoulder but I flinched away from him. I hadn't seen him since the night the two of us got drunk and then afterwards I'd met him, my only solution.
Suddenly every rationality I had left in me disappeared.
"I'm talking to Athena." I stated firmly, standing up and staring at him straight in the eyes.
"Sophie what are you doing?" I ignored Athena.
"Talking to Athena?" He spoke the words slowly, like he had trouble understanding them.
"Yes. She's here, Tony, I summoned her." there it goes, the secret I've kept for so long now out in the open.
"You summoned her?" Tony questioned sardonically, his eyes narrowing.
"Yes, I summoned her, just like I've been doing for the past eight years."
"Sophie stop," Athena said from behind me.
"Is that---"He scoffed, "Is that what you think you've been doing all these years? Every time you came here and sat at her grave, you thought you summoned her?" His voice was suddenly full of anger.
"I do not think, I know. Because it is what I've been doing since she died. She's even here now."
"Oh is she?" Tony was starting to shake, "Is she really? Was she there all those other times before too? Were all the others here too?"
He hissed through his teeth when I nodded my head.
"My God, you don't think I ever noticed, do you? How you came here and started talking to thin air, and then acted like whoever the hell you were talking to actually replied. You're strange, absolutely bizarre, but I never questioned it because I thought it was a coping mechanism, I didn't know you were actually crazy!"
"I'm not!" I bit back.
"Tell him something only I would know," Athena said and I turned around.
"Like what?" I was no longer concerned about talking to Athena in front of Tony; I was trying to prove a point after all.
"Umm . . . oh! When I was five and he was six, he broke our mom's antique glass duck that she got from our grandma, but I took the blame for him because they wouldn't get angry at me."
I turned back to Tony, who was getting angrier by the minute.
"When you were six, you broke Connie's glass duck that she got from your grandmother, but Athena took the blame for you, because they wouldn't get angry at her."
He scoffed.
"She could have told you that when she was alive, it doesn't prove anything!"
"He had a stuffed dog numbed Pepper that dad bought for him in Chicago."
I relayed the information to Tony, and though his eyes filled with awareness, his hold on denial did not break.
Suddenly Athena was by my side, her eyes trained on Tony's much larger form.
"I had a nickname for him, it was just our thing. We promised never to tell anyone, not even you." Her blue eyes shadowed with sadness. "Rocket Man."
"You had a nickname, that Athena gave to you," His blue eyes widened and his mouth hung open, his breath accelerating. "It was your own secret, you promised to never tell anyone, not even me."
The next words I spoke, he spoke with me.
"Rocket Man." We both said simultaneously.
"Sophie . . . you. . ."
I stared at my bare hands, suddenly alight with a strange idea.
"Give me your hand." I ordered him. I'd never tried it before, but it couldn't hurt to try.
He held out his hand wordlessly, alarm still on his face.
For the first time in a very, very long time, I interlocked my bare fingers with that of another human.
Flashes of memories raced through my mind, but I held them back, as best as I could. I focused only on Athena, her small form, her raven hair and green ribbon, how I could see her and Tony couldn't. I wanted to change that. I can change that. He will see her, just as I can.
I blocked everything else, and simply kept Athena's image as she stood next to me in my head.
I was so engrossed in my own mind; the only thing to break my reverie was Tony's large fingers tightening painfully around my own.
I opened my eyes, seeing his blue ones trained on a figure standing next to me.
"Athena?" Tears sprang into his eyes. He was staring at her, drinking in her image, disbelieving of what his own eyes saw.
It was only when she whispered his name that the dam broke.
For the next half-hour, I stood by as brother and sister reunited, wishing I could will myself somewhere else.
At the end of the day, when my ability had been explained, and the past few years were told to the fascinated Tony, he'd captured my face in his hands, his still shaking hands. He'd stared at me, his hands cupping my jaw, fingers caressing my lips, my cheeks.
"Sophie . . . this ability . . . promise me, promise me," Promises, promises. He never did tell me what he wanted me to promise him, but I could hazard a guess.
'Promise me you'll stay safe. Promise me you'll recover. Promise me you'll never leave my side like she did. Promise me that I will never have to feel the pain of your death before a lifetime has been lived and passed, not until we're old and grey.'
But I couldn't promise him any of those, not when my life belonged to Death.
***
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He stepped back while I stepped down from the boulder, settling my shaky legs on the ground. I was feeling strangely weightless.
"There is someone, someone you grieve," I looked up sharply at his words.
"And yet he is not dead." He continued.
"We don't have to only grieve for those who are dead." I said brokenly.
"No, of course not." He said, "And yet it is not in human nature to grieve for the living."
"It is when the person is as good as dead when it comes to you."
"You miss him." He observed, "Your lover."
I felt the pain intensifying with every mention of Dorian.
"Don't. . ." I begged.
"But you know you were never meant to be." He went on.
"Don't talk about him." I said once again, my voice breaking towards the end.
"You should not abuse Life, Miss Swan, when you've already taken more than what you were allowed, you should not expect more from it. Only Death may help you find peace now. Only Death will grant it to you."
I stared into the air, unblinking, unmoving, not breathing. I felt like I was in a dream.
"You do not belong here, Miss Swan, you never have. A soul must return once the clock has ticked its last tick, and yours ran out eight years ago. You've lived painfully all these years in a world you do not belong to, and now, you must do what you didn't eight years ago. You must allow fate to run its course. You must embrace Death."
I breathed in, raising my head and allowing the rain to wash me clean.
Memories flashed before my eyes, of Tony and Athena, of Bella and Charlie, of Mom and Phil, and of him, his blue eyes, his smile, his lips against my skin. His love for me, and my own for him. Of his sudden departure, of the pain of watching him wake up, and look right through me like I wasn't even there.
All the sorrow and heartache and love Dorian made me experience.
"Will it hurt?" I asked at last.
And for the first time since I've met Erlend---as I chose to call him since the name befitted him ironically, as he was a stranger, but he'd always been with me----I saw a soft smile grace his lips, making him seem more alive than I did.
"Death never hurts. Death relieves." He held out his hand, an open palm of comfort and support.
I inhaled one last time, hearing a wolf howl in the distance.
I opened my eyes and stared into Erlend's forest green ones, the decision already made.
"I'm ready." I whispered softly, and then accepted his stretched out hand, gripping his palm with my bare one, flesh against flesh.
Up ahead, thunder rumbled.
And that feeling, of knowing that at last, all the pain and cruelty would end, was glorious.
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There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream
The earth, and every common sight, to me, did seem appareled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream,
It is not now as it hath been of yore,
Turn whereso'er I may, by night or day, the things which I have seen I now can see no more.
But there's a tree, of many, one,
A single field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone,
The pansy at my feet doth the same tale repeat,
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
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Hello, lovelies! How are you all? I have great news, I am on summer break which means that updates will come more frequently. The bad news is that this book is coming to an end, but don't worry, I have big things planned. Big big things planned.
This chapter is more than 6 thousand words long, and that is my apology for not updating for so long. I hope it suffices.
If there are any grammatical errors please tell me because I wrote it all in such a hurry.
Also, tell me your theories now that the book is coming to an end, I'm really interested in what you guys have to say.
Please vote and comment and tell me what you think!
Don't kill me because of the cliffhanger!
Bye!
BL00DAndB0NES