Ardent

"Ar….Ari."

It was Elyon; he wasn't dead.

No, she was seeing ghosts. Elyon was dead. She needed to shake his ghost from her brain but still his corpse spoke to her.

Elyon looked Ari in the eyes and said, "I'm sorry."

He uttered his last words and coughed up blood for the last time, his chest giving one last heave before he passed.

Ari held him in shock, total disbelief, she tried shaking him, begging and pleading but to no avail.

She thought for a few minutes that her crying over his body had wrought a miracle that had brought him back to her, but it was a false alarm.

Elyon was gone and he would never speak to her again.

The whole time she thought him dead he had still been lingering clinging to see her one last time before he crossed over to the other side.

Was it the sound of her voice that made him speak up one last time, but whatever it was it didn't matter because he was truly gone this time.

Tears streamed down her face, it was like losing Marino all over again.