Chapter 16B: Array of Infinite Emptiness

Aeliana said as she strived to soothe my regret, “Your soul has been on fire since the moment we met. Please be careful what you wish for because it might just come true. You don’t have to destroy the world just so that I can have you. Even with my dying breath, I will whisper that I love you.”

As I held her in my arms in the space where I completed the Array too little too late, I could not help but feel as if I were witnessing the afterglow of an imitation. I had ardently raced toward an unreachable reality where we would break our cycle of heartbreak, but that destination was nothing more than a daydream. Reality had proven that Aeliana would not be the one to walk with me into eternity. But as a last-ditch effort to stop my tunnel-vision from collapsing and crashing down upon me, I rewrote the reverie and deferred the destination. By telling myself that I would claim infinity with her next incarnation, I extended my tunnel but retained its fading light.

But in that moment, an idea struck me like an asteroid upon a fragile planet. And in the calamitous impact which followed, I realized with a jolt that I still had everything I needed to save Aeliana. I could salvage our eternity with my savage hands at the small cost of only one more heartless kill. I had already conquered my conscience with the crimes I committed to keep her by my side. I had already accepted the reprehensible reality that Aeliana would bleed out in my arms and waste the little she had left of life on a front row seat to my breaking heart, but I could reverse and rewrite the reality even if I could not reject it. All I had to do was prioritize my failsafe and implement my backup plan. Aeliana danced now at the edge of death, and I could not stop her end. But if I could kill Claire and steal her power to bring back the dead, then I could recreate Aeliana in this open cemetery. Betrayal was a minuscule cost if it meant I could have her back. Distant lava would light the crashing waves which would witness my merciless murder.

I said to her as she struggled for each breath, “I swear I will save you from this unfair death.”

But Aeliana answered as she shook her head, “I need you to accept that I am already dead. I know that it hurts and I know it’s not fair; this tragic world has only ever given you despair. We will meet again one day in another time and space. When we meet again, I will wear a different face. I will speak to you then with a different voice, but the stars have left us with no other choice. But when you wander this empty city alone, please try to remember that this once was our home. It was on the shore of this city where we first fell in love, our feet in water which shimmered from the light above. The moment we met was a monumental occasion, and then somehow I became a factor in your equation. And all along I dreamed we could seize the future that we sought, but I should have known by our curse that that was all for naught. I should have held you in the shallows and never let you go, let the world burn around us and dance in the afterglow. Please don’t waste this last time we have trying to make something more. Please just hold me in your arms so we can dance upon this shore.”

I held her tightly in my arms as I stepped with one foot in the shallows and the other on the sand. Even as she struggled just to breathe, she poured herself like rain from a storm and crashed upon my shore as if giving the water of life to my sands of desolation. I danced with her there in the starlit shallows, holding her in my arms as the end approached. As heartbroken as I felt in that moment, I could not help but recall that moment of relief which manifests after waking from a nightmare, when you realize that the disaster which devoured you was only an illusion. It is the opposite for Aeliana. Instead of escaping from a nightmare into a tranquil reality, she had sailed away from the bloody shores of a merciless life. She had suffered from the moment she stepped foot into this worthless world. She stayed just long enough to lift me from the abyss of my self-inflicted misery, like a rainstorm descending upon a wayward wanderer lost in the desert.

But she is not a rain which pours once and then simply drifts away. She is not a rain which simply delays the death of a weary wanderer. She is the hurricane which strikes the land and changes it forever; she has the power to transform everything she touches. She is the snowstorm which strikes the city and smothers it in ice. She is the whirlwind which warps the world in her wake. She is a sandstorm which strikes through space and time. She has left a mark upon my mind and a scar upon my heart which will stain me now and forever – I will never be the same. I could waste the rest of my life rejecting reality to relish in reveries of the time I had with her. And with every second that we danced together on that shore, I both feared that it would be the last and prayed that we would have another. Her blood dripped into the steaming sea and sent a scarlet cloud into the shallows.

Hope and fear danced in my mind like the seasons and the tides. I wanted more than anything to reverse her injury and hold her in my arms as the city perished around us, but she would not see the black inferno even if I brought her back with a stolen power. I would stand alone as the sole survivor of this smoldering shore, standing in the ashes of the desperate daydream that set this tragedy in motion. I kissed her gently as she struggled just to breathe. Her fingertips dug into my shoulders for support as her ankles splashed through frozen waves.

Aeliana held me close and weakly said, “I wish I could lock myself inside your head. We met as mourners who were lost lovers in our past lives, locked without the memories with which we could find each other. But I gambled on the cosmic dice against all odds and found my way to you. Now we stand at the end of all things, and I can’t help but wonder if I’ll ever get to hold you again. I wish more than anything that we could find our forever in this embrace. I would do anything if I could force fate to let me stay. Asivario, my love, please kiss me slowly in these timeless shallows. Let me taste your lips one last time so that you’re all I see even with my eyes closed. I want to set sail to a soothing slumber and see your face as I fade.”

I said as I felt the last of her life fade away, “I swear that you and I will meet again one day. I know at your end you wish not to know of my pain, but I believe I am the ocean while you are the rain. But across life and death, our love will burn both red and blue; it will light the shadows of this world until the day that I find you. But until that day I’ll dance with guilt and sorrow, wasting away each day just to await tomorrow. From the day we first met to this last kiss we share, our love burned with a brightness that will reach everywhere. You are the girl for whom I would commit any crime, because I will love you from now until the end of time. Because I was too weak to keep you in my arms, I will grow strong enough to seize you back from the stars. You are the reason my heart beats inside my chest. You are the way that-”

It was in that moment that she collapsed in my arms. I could feel my heart race in agony as her death cast a cataclysmic transformation across this world. Her body became the source point from which time catapulted back into motion. The Array of Black Fire activated in the moment time resumed, igniting to unleash a scourge of black flames to descend upon the helpless people who congregated for their gathering by the sea. Most people watched with shock as black fire engulfed everyone they knew and loved. Some stood stunned and stared at the shining symbol in the sand. Mothers embraced their children as if they could in any way protect them. Lovers exchanged one final kiss so they could die the same way they lived. A heartbroken father sprinted through the burning crowd in search of his family until the forces of fire fed on his soul.

(There are still 2 more parts to this chapter)

(Also! As this story starts to near its conclusion, I intend to post some of my other stories on my blog, on WP, and RR. You can find me under JMAshwood or ScarsAndCinders. Hope to see you there!)