Grave or Illusion?

Thrumming heartbeats...

Wavering breaths... Hurried steps...

He's racing against the grave.

When he reaches the entrance of the balcony, the furious gale slams the door rudely on his face.

Pushing open the door, he feels the agony of a soul burning down.

"Neva!"

He sees her—there, standing on the bridge to the darkest valley. He can't breathe.

As Neva stands stiff, he runs to her with an incoherent head, his heart threatening to rip out of his chest.

In this moment—crumpled thoughts, blurred senses, a mania of emotions—Ishmael becomes a plague to himself.

From the slick ledge, her foot skids.

In a single, visceral lurch—Ishmael lunges.

His arms lock around her calves just before the fall swallows her.

Scarlet floods the veins of his wide eyes, agonizing horror numbing his world.

"No.... You can't leave me."

His voice is a whisper, his body trembling.

He can't swallow this suton, this scarlet scene—

Neva wanted to kill herself.

His Neva, wanted to die.

And this was the second time.

Neva is torn back from the glowing dreamscape of wildflowers to the pandemonium of hävitys.

She struggles, kicking to break free, but his grip tightens only further.

Ishmael carries her down to the ground.

She kicks the air, her screams echoing through the woods, scattering a flock of dark silhouettes.

Her legs give out. She falls into his arms.

He holds her close—tight—their tangled forms, limp knees pressed into the wet floor.

She tries to peel him away, clawing his flesh to free herself from his sickening touch. Her fingernails rake deep into his shoulder, drawing blood through his clay-stained shirt.

Beating him with her fists, her cries pierce the silent night.

He won't even let her die in peace.

He holds her still, hushed and trembling.

For right at this thumping, living beats of the heart, her warmth is all he seeks.

"Don't touch me! Don't touch me!"

Screams.

Ragged shouts crack through the night, shredding her sore throat.

"Get away from me!"

She can't move anymore.

His arms have are roped around her weary form.

The sky looks through her pain: black clouds looming over, thunder roaring, lightning bolts flickering like her shredded senses.

As her tears pour like oceans, the rain joins in—trickling, weeping with her.

For this verity.

This haunting reality she wishes to escape.

"Please... let me go." Neva's arms hang limp by her sides.

She cries without fighting back.

She mourns her soul—grieving her fate and of those who had twisted around hers.

The rain drenches them.

Each drop falls like heaven's soft attempt at reassurance.

"I can't." Ishmael murmurs. "I love you."

His fingers clenches into her flesh, clinging to her as though he can fuse their souls together.

Neva shakes her head violently. "You don't deserve to love.

You don't deserve love!"

He was a monster.

It would be a sin to let him taint the purity of love she once believed in.

"You don't know love..." She trails away.

Tilting her head back, she closes her eyes and prays—for someone, for anything—to deliver her from this wretched, ruined body.

She can't bear the hollow bones, the overwhelming burns, the demons hovering, clawing her insides. She's bleeding out all—but the flesh refuses to let her go.

"You don't know how much I love you," Ishmael growls through clenched teeth. "No one can love you like I do."

In one decisive movement, he lifts her into his arms.

Neva tries to push him away with barely any strength left in her.

All her attempts to free away deems futile against his beastly, brute grip.

"Please… kill me. I can't endure this anymore." Her voice cracks as he walks through the mansion halls, the storm outside muffled by the thick walls.

"Is your hatred for me so earnest?" he murmers. "Are you truly so disgusted… even by my children?"

His agonized eyes search hers—but she won't look.

Her head is turned away.

She refuses to see the reflection of her features in his orbs.

"More than you imagine." She breathes.

A bitter smile curls Ishmael's lips.

"I cannot undo the past," he says. "But if that's the price of my sins... I'll carve out a perfect future for you."

That finally makes her look. Her eyes are bleak, confused, scornful.

"I'll make it so you never hurt again. Never remember any of it."

He enters the master bedroom.

Reaching the bed, he lays her gently on the bed. Their soaked clothes cling to them, soaking the white sheets.

He leans over her, droplets falling from his wet curls onto her face.

He grabs her chin, turning her toward him.

She meets his eyes.

Those dark, shadowed eyes that makes her skin crawl.

A soft smile pains his lips, he says:

"I'll erase your memories—with time, with touch, with whatever it takes.

All of them—life with me, without me, the good and the bad."

Terror coils inside her.

Neva's body stiffens, her soul shrinks.

After everything—when she thought it couldn't possibly get worse—Ishmael always reveals the cruelest wrath of hell.

Weaving the cruelest fate.

He always awakens the undermost, the strangest fear she never thought one could ever derive within.

He caresses her bump, gently rubbing his thumb across it.

"I'll be all you have. We'll start a new life—with our children.

And you'll love me. And them."

She stares at the ceiling.

Eyes hollowed.

Every inch of her flesh eaten raw by maggots.

Ishmael thinks he's healing her—peeling the maggots off before they rot her away.

Burn and refresh.

Burn and refresh.

Burn and refresh.

He kisses her—tenderly—lingering on the lips, her chin, her neck.

With each kiss he drinks the rain off her cold skin.

She just lies there. Still.

Bare eyes clawing at the ceiling.

He is erasing Neva.

And with her, everything she was.

Rhett will be just a dream.

A beautiful dream—she can no longer recall.

Everything will disappear.

Their "us" will have never have been existed.

Ishmael will be the forgotten nightmare, rewriting her truth into his illusion of heaven.

And God.

Dear God.

The rain drowns her.

The fire burns her.

She is dying.

But there is silence.

He has turned His face away from her.

---

Elsewhere...

Inside the hustle–bustle of a small, cozy country restaurant glowing under golden lanterns, three men sat at a table.

Every time the door chims, their eyes shoots to the entrance.

"Is the intel even legit?" one mutters.

"Boss, if he doesn't show in the next five seconds, I swear Imma rip my ass outta here!"

"Knight, patience. And drop that glass." The middle-aged man—Elk—gives him a glare.

"Hunter, confiscate that," he tells the stoic man beside him.

"Hunter, choose! Me or the Elk!" Knight cries, guzzling the last of his drink before Hunter ca intervene.

Hunter says nothing.

Knight pouts, slamming his glass onto the table.

"What kind of boss makes a heartbroken man work? I can't even enjoy one sip—"

"Elk, you hearin' me?"

Then he yells toward the kitchen. "Old Granny! Another beer!!"

But the elderly owner doesn't respond—her hearing was long gone.

"Stop this nonsense," Elk growls. "How insolent to get drunk on duty!"

Knight gasps. "Me? Drunk?! I've barely had two dr—" he hiccups.

Elk's face darkens. Before he can deliver a proper scolding, the bells above the entrance rings again—and a sharp look from Hunter alerts him.

Elk stands, following his line of sight—and saw him.

The man they'd been waiting for.

He enters quietly, receiving a kind welcome from the owner.

His sharp eyes scans the restaurant for an open seat.

In his arms sleeps a little boy, nestled close, gripping his hoodie in tiny fists.

Elk's breath catches.

Hunter stiffens. Even he hadn't known.

Agent Czar had a son?

Rhett's eyes locks with theirs. No surprise there. They could never trail him unnoticed.

Elk and Hunter approaches, leaving Knight half-collapsed at the table.

"Oh? The hero's arrived! Cheers!" Knight calls out, wobbling with an empty bottle in hand.

"Czar," Elk says softly, noting the child still asleep in his arms.

"Over there," Rhett gestures toward a quiet corner. "My son needs to rest."

Elk nods, following him silently.

The storm outside is fading.

But inside—answers are only beginning to stir.