There was once a chance I didn't take. There was once a song playing that I soon forgot. And there was once a fire that had been glowing hot.
The moon shone down like a spotlight, saturating our vision with white glowing light. The world had stopped for a moment or two, and I genuinely felt my heart act upon something I always longed for. But things can change in the blink of an eye; I knew that better than anyone alive.
But I could feel the minutes ticking away, the spell withering and the glamour fading. The eyes mine bore into grew in shock, and I felt my insides tremble. The truth and magnitude began to weigh upon my shoulders, and my foot found a resting place a step away.
The mouth asked me a question as my body began to shut down. I could explain, I could tell of the tale and the solution, but the disgust present between our hearts collapsed me to my knees. The dress grew larger around my waist and I sunk to the ground.
His eyes searched me for answers, answers that I was dying to give him, but fear had overcome me. Neither of our figures moved to embrace the other, to beg for answers and solutions. Instead, we stared. Water down poured off my lashes as my skin turned blue. Decay filled my nostrils and the layers of my skin.
With nothing to keep him there but his untold feelings for me, a monster from a nightmare, he turned for a moment, his focus stuck over his shoulder at me as if he longed for an explanation, but I give him nothing but silence in reply. He sprinted away, taking away my only chance to return to the surface with him, my only chance to be loved again.
I remember him from my childhood. He would tend the flowers outside the walls I'd been trapped inside for eighteen years, and I'd see him through my window. Every day, he'd care for the lotus dancing around the water's edge as ducks swam on the pond's surface. He'd noticed me one day and waved, a smile blooming on my face. I returned the gesture.
And then there was a man, who, one day, broke into our home. He came through my room first, searching for my parents. He questioned me, but all I could do was cry in terror, begging for someone to help me. I struggled against him and, somehow, the window collapsed behind my back and I tumbled into the closely-placed pond. A terrible pain exploded through the back of my head and I blacked out as the water filled me like a sinking boat. The next thing I knew, I was staring into the eyes of a man, not too much older than I was. A black, whimsical suit covered him from neck to toe, but a terrible, curious smile turned one side of his familiar face into something that looked like pain.
He greeted me, very gentleman-like, and stayed planted before me as my heart crescendoed in my chest.
"That, there, is quite a blessing," he said, nodding to my chest as his hands found residence in his pockets. "It's a wonder sometimes if you want it to continue on with what it was created for."
I said nothing in reply. Fear was blossoming through me as a chill swept through my limbs. I was soaking wet. The last thing I remembered...
My aching stomach churned inside me like boiling soup as my eyes drifted up to my broken window—the one that wasn't broken at all.
I looked back at the man and nearly stumbled into the pond at the backs of my knees. A glow appeared behind me, catching me mid-fall and bringing me back to an upright position.
"It's been two months, princess," he said, his eyes trailing the length of my frame, "they've been searching for you a long while now, nearly convinced that you're dead."
He stole a step in my direction, his smile growing increasingly sad and decreasingly curious, pulling my fear further upward into my neck. I couldn't have been unconscious for two months...
"They never inspected the pond; didn't think the man terrorizing the castle in an hour of crazed lunacy would abandon a body such as yours somewhere so close. But your killer had no knowledge of your final destination as he fled to the next room, ready to destroy your entire family."
Killer?
"My great grandmother once did a favor for someone of lesser status than you. But I've watched you grow, just as I have grown myself, those walls becoming your prison. But let it be said, that by the stroke of midnight, your body will no longer be your soul's, but the Earth's, and there, it will remain. It is up to you on whether you ascend or not."
I found my hands and studied them. How is any of this real? Am I... dead?
"Yes," the man nodded, "death has visited and taken you, but he has been relieved for the next twenty-four hours. Use each of them wisely."
Before I could utter another word, he held up a hand, unnecessarily silencing my absence of voice.
"The only way to fight the call of death until the day you were meant to wither away from age is to receive a kiss from the man you belong with within the twenty-four hour liberation from your final goodbye. Consider this a second chance."
I inhaled, on the verge of speaking once more, when he silenced me again.
"I am aware, yes, of the predicament I've set up for you. Death is impatient, and one can only bribe him for so long. But there is something you must know before you find him, either death or your soul mate. Love is a strange thing. For some, it comes immediately and out of nowhere, but for others, it dwells inside their souls for years, never to tell their other half their feelings." His eyes found mine, filled with pain and glinting with sadness, making me curious as to where his love had disappeared to and why he couldn't express his devotion. "I hope, for you, it is the former, because the latter is a dreadful road one must travel down, and it is a long one. Time is against you, princess."
With one long, last look, he waved his hand and vanished in a cloud of smoke, leaving me to find my own way. At first, I was scared, but I found it: my path.
I searched for my parents, I stumbled upon the Lotus boy, and I felt his heartbeat against mine as we danced at that night's celebration for my return. I knew I'd found him, the one who embodied my love.
We had been nearing midnight, so we walked away from the celebration and danced over the bridge around the pond, until midnight was upon us and I scared him away, the chance of living once more disappearing in the blink of an eye.
The man who granted me this rebirth... I realized earlier I'd seen him in the castle. Not just several times today as a reminder, but many times in the past. He'd come to my room to play games with me when we were younger. We grew together, but we grew apart. And as his face appeared before me beneath the moonlight, as he watched me fall to pieces, he strode up to me and lifted my quickly decaying body off the ground, carrying me like a bride.
"You let him get away, princess," the man whispered, walking over the bridge, back to the castle. The party continued around us; it was as if no one could see our bodies as we shuffled through—as if we were invisible, even if the party was in celebration of my return. No one seemed to notice that I was slipping away right beneath their noses.
"You're that boy. My friend inside the castle walls," I whispered, witnessing his jaw clench. "You gave up on me."
We crossed the threshold into the castle, the atmosphere changing immediately. No eyes find focus on us as we drift up a flight of stairs, the man having no problems keeping me at his chest; his arms didn't shake from fatigue.
"You gave up on everything inside the walls," he retorted, a scowl contorting his face. "I thought I'd give you a chance to see what wonderful things shifted between them, but you had your eyes set on one thing only, and that was the boy who never stepped inside them."
I could feel my body growing numb and stiff like the castle. Death was beginning to flood my veins and my brain started wandering, unable to focus.
My bedroom wrapped around me as we entered, the man setting my body on the mattress, familiar scents washing over me.
"Was I the girl?" I asked, my voice hoarse and weak, barely above a whisper. "The girl you never told?"
I heard him hesitate as the blankets swallowed my body. A warmth flooded through me, only for a moment, before the cold took back over.
"Was is the correct word." His words were soft, but they did something within me, something like a dull knife cutting through my chest. "No longer is my love for you something of the present, but it's of the past, buried deep somewhere in the world of lost dreams."
Blackness enveloped me; the only thing working on my body was my ears. Even my nerves had closed an eye to the world yanked from me.
There was once a chance I didn't take. There was once a song playing that I soon forgot. And there was once a fire that had been glowing hot.
There was a pressure on my head just before I was taken away to the unknown, and a small shiver made its path through me.
"But that will always be a lie, my princess," I heard, his words reverberating through me. "And as tired as I may be of loving someone who has no interest in feeling the same, my love will always endure, for a love like this could never be forgotten."
My chest was still, my brain was emptied, and everything was silenced within me. All sounds faded away, and I was certain death had greeted me for the last time.
Until I heard the beating of my revived heart.
The moon shone down like a spotlight, saturating our vision with white glowing light. The world had stopped for a moment or two, and I genuinely felt my heart act upon something I always longed for. But things can change in the blink of an eye; I knew that better than anyone alive.
But I could feel the minutes ticking away, the spell withering and the glamour fading. The eyes mine bore into grew in shock, and I felt my insides tremble. The truth and magnitude began to weigh upon my shoulders, and my foot found a resting place a step away.
The mouth asked me a question as my body began to shut down. I could explain, I could tell of the tale and the solution, but the disgust present between our hearts collapsed me to my knees. The dress grew larger around my waist and I sunk to the ground.
His eyes searched me for answers, answers that I was dying to give him, but fear had overcome me. Neither of our figures moved to embrace the other, to beg for answers and solutions. Instead, we stared. Water down poured off my lashes as my skin turned blue. Decay filled my nostrils and the layers of my skin.
With nothing to keep him there but his untold feelings for me, a monster from a nightmare, he turned for a moment, his focus stuck over his shoulder at me as if he longed for an explanation, but I give him nothing but silence in reply. He sprinted away, taking away my only chance to return to the surface with him, my only chance to be loved again.
I remember him from my childhood. He would tend the flowers outside the walls I'd been trapped inside for eighteen years, and I'd see him through my window. Every day, he'd care for the lotus dancing around the water's edge as ducks swam on the pond's surface. He'd noticed me one day and waved, a smile blooming on my face. I returned the gesture.
And then there was a man, who, one day, broke into our home. He came through my room first, searching for my parents. He questioned me, but all I could do was cry in terror, begging for someone to help me. I struggled against him and, somehow, the window collapsed behind my back and I tumbled into the closely-placed pond. A terrible pain exploded through the back of my head and I blacked out as the water filled me like a sinking boat. The next thing I knew, I was staring into the eyes of a man, not too much older than I was. A black, whimsical suit covered him from neck to toe, but a terrible, curious smile turned one side of his familiar face into something that looked like pain.
He greeted me, very gentleman-like, and stayed planted before me as my heart crescendoed in my chest.
"That, there, is quite a blessing," he said, nodding to my chest as his hands found residence in his pockets. "It's a wonder sometimes if you want it to continue on with what it was created for."
I said nothing in reply. Fear was blossoming through me as a chill swept through my limbs. I was soaking wet. The last thing I remembered...
My aching stomach churned inside me like boiling soup as my eyes drifted up to my broken window—the one that wasn't broken at all.
I looked back at the man and nearly stumbled into the pond at the backs of my knees. A glow appeared behind me, catching me mid-fall and bringing me back to an upright position.
"It's been two months, princess," he said, his eyes trailing the length of my frame, "they've been searching for you a long while now, nearly convinced that you're dead."
He stole a step in my direction, his smile growing increasingly sad and decreasingly curious, pulling my fear further upward into my neck. I couldn't have been unconscious for two months...
"They never inspected the pond; didn't think the man terrorizing the castle in an hour of crazed lunacy would abandon a body such as yours somewhere so close. But your killer had no knowledge of your final destination as he fled to the next room, ready to destroy your entire family."
Killer?
"My great grandmother once did a favor for someone of lesser status than you. But I've watched you grow, just as I have grown myself, those walls becoming your prison. But let it be said, that by the stroke of midnight, your body will no longer be your soul's, but the Earth's, and there, it will remain. It is up to you on whether you ascend or not."
I found my hands and studied them. How is any of this real? Am I... dead?
"Yes," the man nodded, "death has visited and taken you, but he has been relieved for the next twenty-four hours. Use each of them wisely."
Before I could utter another word, he held up a hand, unnecessarily silencing my absence of voice.
"The only way to fight the call of death until the day you were meant to wither away from age is to receive a kiss from the man you belong with within the twenty-four hour liberation from your final goodbye. Consider this a second chance."
I inhaled, on the verge of speaking once more, when he silenced me again.
"I am aware, yes, of the predicament I've set up for you. Death is impatient, and one can only bribe him for so long. But there is something you must know before you find him, either death or your soul mate. Love is a strange thing. For some, it comes immediately and out of nowhere, but for others, it dwells inside their souls for years, never to tell their other half their feelings." His eyes found mine, filled with pain and glinting with sadness, making me curious as to where his love had disappeared to and why he couldn't express his devotion. "I hope, for you, it is the former, because the latter is a dreadful road one must travel down, and it is a long one. Time is against you, princess."
With one long, last look, he waved his hand and vanished in a cloud of smoke, leaving me to find my own way. At first, I was scared, but I found it: my path.
I searched for my parents, I stumbled upon the Lotus boy, and I felt his heartbeat against mine as we danced at that night's celebration for my return. I knew I'd found him, the one who embodied my love.
We had been nearing midnight, so we walked away from the celebration and danced over the bridge around the pond, until midnight was upon us and I scared him away, the chance of living once more disappearing in the blink of an eye.
The man who granted me this rebirth... I realized earlier I'd seen him in the castle. Not just several times today as a reminder, but many times in the past. He'd come to my room to play games with me when we were younger. We grew together, but we grew apart. And as his face appeared before me beneath the moonlight, as he watched me fall to pieces, he strode up to me and lifted my quickly decaying body off the ground, carrying me like a bride.
"You let him get away, princess," the man whispered, walking over the bridge, back to the castle. The party continued around us; it was as if no one could see our bodies as we shuffled through—as if we were invisible, even if the party was in celebration of my return. No one seemed to notice that I was slipping away right beneath their noses.
"You're that boy. My friend inside the castle walls," I whispered, witnessing his jaw clench. "You gave up on me."
We crossed the threshold into the castle, the atmosphere changing immediately. No eyes find focus on us as we drift up a flight of stairs, the man having no problems keeping me at his chest; his arms didn't shake from fatigue.
"You gave up on everything inside the walls," he retorted, a scowl contorting his face. "I thought I'd give you a chance to see what wonderful things shifted between them, but you had your eyes set on one thing only, and that was the boy who never stepped inside them."
I could feel my body growing numb and stiff like the castle. Death was beginning to flood my veins and my brain started wandering, unable to focus.
My bedroom wrapped around me as we entered, the man setting my body on the mattress, familiar scents washing over me.
"Was I the girl?" I asked, my voice hoarse and weak, barely above a whisper. "The girl you never told?"
I heard him hesitate as the blankets swallowed my body. A warmth flooded through me, only for a moment, before the cold took back over.
"Was is the correct word." His words were soft, but they did something within me, something like a dull knife cutting through my chest. "No longer is my love for you something of the present, but it's of the past, buried deep somewhere in the world of lost dreams."
Blackness enveloped me; the only thing working on my body was my ears. Even my nerves had closed an eye to the world yanked from me.
There was once a chance I didn't take. There was once a song playing that I soon forgot. And there was once a fire that had been glowing hot.
There was a pressure on my head just before I was taken away to the unknown, and a small shiver made its path through me.
"But that will always be a lie, my princess," I heard, his words reverberating through me. "And as tired as I may be of loving someone who has no interest in feeling the same, my love will always endure, for a love like this could never be forgotten."
My chest was still, my brain was emptied, and everything was silenced within me. All sounds faded away, and I was certain death had greeted me for the last time.
Until I heard the beating of my revived heart.
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