I Don’t Die Until I Can

In a place where the world was but a whisper, where souls hid and never revealed themselves, there existed a sliver of land untouched by ruin. A realm where the mountains stretched their arms toward heaven, where the sky reigned above all, and below it, the earth sighed in quiet agony.

Where birds did not sing out of joy, but out of longing. Where even the flowers, fragile and fleeting, hummed melodies of life. A sacred place, untouched by corruption, where sunlight did not simply fall upon the grass—it was cradled by it. Where the river did not merely flow—it sang, its voice weaving paths toward the Great Ocean, whispering secrets to those who listened.

And beyond this place, the rest of the world seemed…

…suspended, as if reality itself were a veil, thin and delicate, ready to tear at the slightest touch.

At the heart of this sanctuary stood a cabin, its walls woven with golden straw, gleaming beneath the river's watchful waves. And at the window, framed in soft light, sat a woman. An ethereal presence, like a painting left unfinished by the hands of a hesitant artist.

Her dress, white as untouched snow, absorbed the day's pale glow, and her auburn hair cascaded in perfect disarray, a contrast too vivid, too otherworldly to belong. But it was her eyes that bound the universe to her—an emerald green so striking, so alive, that even the grass dared not rival them.

And in her arms, a child.

A boy, his skin the color of burnt honey, as if he were carved from the very trees that stood eternal. His hair, shifting between silver and storm, a battle of light and shadow caught in an eternal waltz, where lightning seemed to whisper its secrets. And his eyes—red as embers, burning with an unquenchable fire, a hunger that had yet to be named.

Together, they gazed out the window, pleading with the landscape to remain. To never end. To defy time itself.

A beauty so profound that even Da Vinci would have laid down his brush, admitting defeat, knowing no art could ever capture such a moment.

— Kaelen, she whispered, and his name did not merely leave her lips—it sang, weaving itself into the air, as if the world itself were listening.

The boy turned to her, his attention unwavering. His only joy was to be by her side.

— Shall I tell you a story? A story of a Writer. He was no Shakespeare, nor any great master of words, but a man who held a thousand talents—though they all seemed to flee from him.

Kaelen did not answer. He did not need to. She already knew.

She pulled him closer, as if the mere act could anchor him to her forever, as if the universe itself could not conspire to take him away. The house, the wealth, the world itself—none of it mattered. He was all that she had brought into existence, the only being she had cradled with hands blessed by the divine.

And so, she began.

— Once, there was a writer. A man, perhaps of your shade, only reflected in a mirror darkened by time. He was obsessed with words, and his soul poured into every sentence, unstoppable—even by the one who had forged this universe. Every character, every image, every thought belonged to him. And yet, no matter how much he wrote, his stories were never enough. They betrayed him. They left him incomplete. And so, in his moment of despair, he began to wonder…

What if it was the stories that were writing him?

Kaelen's breath hitched. His fingers curled against the fabric of her dress.

— One night, she continued, a night absolute, where the sky had devoured even the stars, the writer awoke in a place he did not recognize.

A room lost to the world. Desperate for life.

A space with no doors, no windows, where the light came from nowhere, and nowhere bled into nothingness. Shadows so vast they seemed to breathe. To speak.

She tilted her head slightly, her auburn waves spilling over her shoulder like a slow-moving fire.

— And there, before him, they stood. The characters. The ones he had written, the souls he had woven into existence. But they did not look upon him as their creator.

No, Kaelen.

They looked at him as one of their own.

A gust of wind wove through the room, carrying the scent of distant rain.

Kaelen bit his lip, a small shiver crawling down his spine.

— And what happened to the writer?

She ran her fingers through his storm-kissed hair, but her hands trembled, as if she, too, had seen what lay beyond the story.

— No one knows. Some say he became just another character, bound within his own pages, trapped within his own tale. Others whisper that he still writes, though he no longer knows if the words belong to him… or to someone else.

She hesitated. Then, softly—

— But before he disappeared, he said only one thing.

Kaelen looked into her eyes, into the green that held universes, searching for the answer.

She smiled, though sorrow lingered in its edges.

And she whispered—

— I will not die until I can.

Her words faded into the air, unraveling into thin strands of memory, no longer sound, but echoes of something deeper.

Kaelen did not yet understand. Not fully. Not the story, nor the weight of the words. But something stirred in his chest—something ancient, something nameless.

An invisible thread, connecting him to the tale, to the writer, to a truth that lay just beyond his grasp.

She held him close, her warmth the only anchor against the unknown.

— You will find me, she whispered, her voice dissolving into the night. In your dreams, in your memories, in everything that makes you who you are.

And then—

Reality shattered.

Darkness.

Everywhere.

Nothingness swallowed the world whole.

And from the void, a single sound emerged—

A whisper of something that no longer existed.

Kaelen's eyes flew open.

The ceiling of his room. The same ceiling he had seen every morning, every night.

A shadow slipped through the crack of his door.

A cold breeze brushed against his skin.

A single tear traced the curve of his cheek. He did not know why.

His lips parted, moving without thought, without will.

As if something older, something deeper, something beyond him had spoken first.

— I will find you.

A vow.

In the end.

In a happy ending.