Page 450 of Eternal
“I miss you, Azra,” I whisper.
Fireworks explode in the sky, bright and loud, for her. It’s for her. I stumble inside the house. I grab the bottle of alcohol and pour it slowly on the couch, on the table, and the floor. I let the liquid soak into every corner of the space I created for both of us to finally be happy together.
The smell burns my nose, sharp and bitter, but I don’t care.
I light a cigarette and take a long drag. Then, I let the ember fall onto the soaked floor.
The alcohol catches instantly, flames licking the walls, devouring everything.
I try to walk up the stairs, but my limbs betray me, heavy and slow, my vision swims, but I keep moving.
She was the one place I could call home, the one person who made life bearable, the only one who made me laugh when everything else was falling apart.
Maybe I never really wanted to stay alive. Maybe I was waiting for something, or someone, to finally let me go.
But she... she was the reason I held on longer than I thought possible.
I crawl to the bed we never shared, lie down, and stare at the ceiling.
A+D = ETERNAL
Stars with our initials.
My breath slows, shallow and steady, my heart… my heart doesn’t hurt anymore.
It’s light. It’s…calm, it was never this calm.
Happy birthday,partner.We’re eternal, I promised.
My eyelids grow heavy, I close my eyes, and let the fire take everything.
EPILOGUE
VIKTOR
“Eternity” by Alex Warren
The cigarette between my fingers burns down to nothing, and I barely notice until it’s gone. Smoke’s hanging thick in the air, but it doesn’t clear anything. It’s like the silence between me and Kat, smothering, suffocating.
She’s sitting beside me, but I can barely look at her. I keep seeingherface, the way she smiled when she was pissed off, the way she laughed after kicking someone’s ass.
It all feels so fucking wrong, like it can’t be real.
We’re supposed to be here together, all of us.
But now it’s only me and Kat, and the emptiness is heavy.
Her death’s like a constant ache I can’t escape. I don’t know if I want to know if she’s at peace now... if she’s not. Who the fuck knows.
“You think she’s at peace?”
I can’t answer, I take another drag. That's all I can do. “I don’t think she ever knew peace,” I mutter, barely loud enough for her to hear. “Not really.”
I can see her face in my head, laughing and hugging me, taking what she wanted without a second thought. And now...nothing.
“Do you think she’s really gone, Vik?” Kat’s voice cracks, but she doesn’t move. She doesn’t look at me either. Her eyes are trained on the ground, on something only she sees. I wonder if she even cares about the question anymore.
“Do you think she’d want us to sit here and feel sorry for her?” I spit out. “She’d tell us to get the hell up and move on, right?”
