Your Last Words

(Challenge: Last Words.)

The words echo with a soft, gentle ring, almost as if said to awash the burnt weeping of a pulsing heart. Her caress is feather-like, yet fiery lasting strength lies hidden within. Her fingers are light and firm, unbelievably smooth against the wetness on his cheeks, leaving numerous trails of black sorrow clenching his heart. He tightens his already trembling fists by his sides, his eyes closed away from her kindness. It is too glaring for the tainted eyes he possesses. The eyelashes lying on his warm skin are sodden with the onslaught of undeniable tears welling up in his eyes. Her seeking fingers –so beautiful, so weak– carefully catch the hushed tears flowing down his cheeks, the long digits trying to soothe the thudding hurt inside. He is trying not to cry, not to be weaker than he has proved to be, but the slowness of her fingers calls forth the sea of despair from his eyes, the twin trails of wetness flowing at an unstoppable pace. His breath hitches from the strenuous effort of maintaining the silence, as if the blanket of quiet was all he had to keep his treacherous weakness from betraying him. He does not dare to open his eyes to look at her, but he wants to. He wants to inhale her sweet, comforting scent; wants to cup her face with his quivering hands; wants to hear her soft, croaky voice; to press his lips to her dry yet so beautiful ones, to feel her, to taste her, before she disappears, before she is forcefully snatched away from a being who was not meant to touch her– not yet.

He is kneeling on the floor before her, a mockery of the seeking of forgiveness he should possess. Though his eyes are closed, he feels her silently regarding him, fingers never leaving the tears on his cheeks. His breath hitches the second time. He loathes the eyelids of his that separate him from the breathtaking sight of her form, but it is this protection that allows him his calmer demeanor, this layer of self-comfort that when he opens his eyes she will still be there with him. His hands travel up to his face to clutch her hands fervently, as if the connecting touch would allow him to pretend for a while that she was his, that she was incapable of vanishing from his warmth. He is too gone to realize that he is trembling more than she is.

She allows the contact, hands never revolting away from his unforgivable weakness. He does not open his eyes, but he knows she is sitting in her wheelchair, legs uselessly swinging out from where she sits. He knows the lengthy chocolate hair that cascades down the slenderness of her small back, casting deep shadows yet carefree as one with the soft winds. He knows she is looking at him with her soft, liquid-warm gaze, eyes watering slightly with which was inevitable. He feels that heart-wrenching gaze cast upon him as he slowly cups her frail, thin hands to his heaving chest. He wants this moment to stretch across the dooming length of time, transcending all possible logic just so he can feel her against him. The slight drizzle of rain merges with his sorrow, just managing to cover the tears that she can no longer wipe away from his cheeks. The raindrops hit them, numerous but soft. Their darkness seep into him, unable to cleanse but only to expand the heaving hurt within, soaking his soul through with a dampness his eyes had already proved. He cannot hide anywhere away from the passing of reality, and the hatred-filled ticking of fate. Realization slams into him, digging invisible claws deep, ripping and tearing, not holding back.

He does not have much time to cherish her. He is granted too little to feel her, to think her, to love her. The sobs rise bitterly in his throat as he clenched her hands tightly against his chest and its fluttering heartbeat. Fate was a cruel beast lurking in the night, waiting to devour their last moments into blankness because he was nothing but a fool. He wants to kiss her, to protect her, to absorb her warmth, but he had not the strength to carry the both of them on his already weakening resolve. His heart is lodged in stone, and he knew it was too soon to lose her, too soon before he could even chase after her left-behind dust. In a blink of an eye, a second of out others’ mundane passing time, she would be nothing but another seared memory, another picture on the rooted gravestone.

And so with mustered courage he would embrace their time now, in this very passing, in this very moment, to fill the void that would cross the expanse of his life, devouring the unforgettable brightness of her soul. He would not weep now, not in front of her. He would stand, even trembling, to meet her strong, warm eyes with his own sorrowful ones and wrap his arms around her thin, weakening body as tightly as he would dare. He would smell her and remember the scent, he would grab her hands in his as the shine in her eyes slowly melt away into his feared nothingness, as her hands slowly lose their strength to hold on to him, as her body slackens in his death grip, as the hollow resounding of her heart starts to halt. He would cherish her in these moments, because he the last moments were the only moments he had left.

He opens his eyes.