Fiancé

The house was not very well furnished. The different rooms were separated by ice walls. The only fireplace in the house was near the door, which was always burning. The house remained cold and freezing nonetheless keeping those ice walls always up.

Outside the house's door was a diamond path. Entirely made of diamond, the pathway led to the burning sunny side of the earth. The sunny side was a place that was inhabitable. But the night side also wasn't much of a home.

After the Earth stopped rotating, the world turned into a monster. A large monster that would kill you no matter which side you were on. The sunny side turned you into a mindless monster and the night side froze your blood in your veins with just a breath in the atmosphere.

Jia sipped from her cup of warm drink. She looked at the picture of her graduation party. They were on a beach. The blue sky and bright sunlight with all that life in that picture made her heart heavy. The person right next to her in that picture was her boyfriend.

No, he wasn't just a boyfriend.

They grew up together. Seo Yoohan. Little Hani.

He used to call her a hamster because of how small she was from him. In that picture too, he was lifting her up in the air while laughing. He confessed that very night to her, on that same beach.

Her parents and friends were so happy for her.

Jia chuckled. Her eyes started to wet and a gush of tears rolled down her cold red cheeks as she tried to remove the blood stains on that picture.

The apocalypse was a shock to everyone. Nobody believed that the world would end in simply just three years in the beginning. Jia didn't either. She was too indulged in her happy life to worry about the world.

That weird feeling of detachment, as if it was none of their problem, was the whole world's reaction.

But Hani believed what was being told. He told Jia they needed to leave.

But until the end, Jia was adamant. The perfect life was just too hard to leave.

But when the sky became black entirely and the blue hue never returned, reality began to set in. And then it came. The first flare. That first wave of solar wind was predicted to vaporize anyone who came in contact.

Hani bought tickets for them after selling every last property they had. The flight ticket prices skyrocketed after the flare was announced. The oceans dried up on the sunny side and froze over the night side. The airway was the only escape.

The day they left their home to go the night side, Hani had the brightest smile. As if he had saved the world. Jia never had the slightest idea what that bright smile was hiding behind itself.

Jia boarded the plane, but Hani never did. There was just only one ticket they could afford with all they had.

Until the moment Hani waved her goodbye at the airport security and disappeared, Jia had no idea that she was the only one leaving.

She resented him. If they were going to die, they should've died together. Why must he go alone? Why was she the only one to survive? Why was she supposed to suffer? Why did Hani save her, not himself? Why was there her name on the ticket but not Hani's?

Jia looked out the window on the night side. White fumes of fog came out of her mouth. As they cleared, she could see the figure of a man slowly trudging towards her house.

She jumped up as she ran to the door on the night side with her mask on and charged out of the door. It was the first alive human she had seen in five years of living in that rundown house at the edge of the sunny and night sides.

It was one of the awakened ones. Those who survived the solar flares and gained superhuman abilities were called the awakened ones. All the awakened ones were gathered and sent to the sunny side to get rid of the monsters.

This man was the last one alive of them. No, he was the last human alive other than herself. There were just the two of them now.

He had partially blonde and mint hair with deep blue eyes. He was pale and well-built. But the most beautiful were his pale slender hands.

His name was Frank Adams. Jia shared the house with this man from then onwards. She had no desire for possessions. There were just two of them left on the whole planet. Just waiting and watching each other slowly age to death.

They talked a lot. They both had a lot to say. Being alone makes you value conversations. Frank would remark on how happy Jia looked with Hani in her pictures. Jia would ask about what they saw on the sunny side.

Lines between personal space were blurred. They both craved human touch and warmth. They both wanted love. They both wanted to feel that they were not alone. Their relationship twisted into that of siblings. Siblings with a lot of deep affection and care for each other. They never indulged in sexual contact. More like they never felt that for each other. Their lingering attachments to their loved ones were too strong.

They would hug each other to sleep and kiss each other's forehead to give comfort. They looked out for each other. They were each other's home.

Jia was Frank's first and last reader.

Frank wrote a novel while his expedition on the sunny side. Jia would daily read a chapter before they cuddled to sleep.

It was called 'From Darkness to Darkness'.

"Why did you name the villain after yourself?" Jia asked while reading.

"There just wasn't a name I could think of at that moment," Frank had replied.

"I feel like if I died right now, I'd have no regrets," Jia smiled.

Jia had truly felt safe and comforted with Frank. All the loneliness and sadness from before had found acceptance inside her.

"Is that so?" That was all Frank had said in reply to her.

And the next day she reached the end of the novel and somehow transmigrated into the novel's world.

She was a bit sad for Frank in the beginning. Because she knew very well the feeling of being the only one left behind alive. But then, she just wished that he would too find a different world than that wretched one.

"My lady! Sir Hale is here!" a maid came in shouting as Evelyn raised her head in shock to see who died.

"What?! Who?! Hails?!" she murmured in the stupor of her sleep.

"Your fiancé is here!!!! Get up for God's sake!!!," the maid shouted.

"My what?!!" Evelyn shouted with equal intensity, shocked out of her wits.