Tandem

Prologue

2034

"What are you doing here?" the woman asked the man. He said nothing, instead he simply glared at her. She could tell from looking at his tense jaw that he was gritting his teeth. He raised a hand slowly and for a moment the woman thought he was going to hit her. She was relieved to see he was showing her a piece of paper in his hand. She instantly felt guilty that she had even thought he would hurt her, she knew him well enough to know he would never do that. He was a firm person but never violent, and she vowed that she would never let a doubt like that come into her mind ever again.

"What is that?" she asked. She tried to catch a glimpse of the writing on the paper, but it was just too far for her to make out the words. She noticed a vein pulsating on his forehead and his eyes were completely bloodshot. Whatever was on that piece of paper had angered him beyond anything that she had ever seen before. His expression was nothing but pure hatred and he was now almost unrecognisable from the calm man she loved.

She took a step forward to try and catch a glimpse of the paper. As she opened her mouth to speak, he raised his fist and struck it against her cheek. Her head snapped to one side with the force of the punch and for a moment she froze in fear and disbelief.

Her cheek pulsated from the impact. She turned her head slowly to look back at him, cradling her neck. She expected to see him holding his hand or maybe rubbing his knuckles but instead his fist remained clenched and pinned to his side. She didn't want to accept that he may well strike again. This was not the man she had come to love. That man was gentle, kind and loving. She so desperately wanted him to explain what was going on, but his silence tormented her more than the pain of the punch. She reached out her hand towards him, hoping that he would take it. He would apologise to her and tell her that this was a huge mistake. He hadn't meant to hit her; it was a moment where he simply lost control. He was not a man who did this to women, he just wasn't. She could forgive him, she knew she could. This would just be an isolated incident that they would agree to never speak about.

He looked at her hand and for a second, she thought he was going to take it. Instead of gently holding her hand in his, he grabbed her wrist and flung it away from him. The force once again caught her off guard but this time, she found herself losing her balance. She instinctively threw out her arm thinking that he might attempt to steady her, but he did not. She fell backwards onto the cold ground, her head colliding against a jagged rock that jutted out from the floor. She tried to speak but the words came out as nothing more than quiet murmurs. She could only look on as the man stood over her. Her vision became cloudy and dark with each breath that she took. Her eyes rapidly moved uncontrollably in every direction in search of more light but deep down she knew she was fading. She felt a warm, wet sensation crawl over her mouth, across her lips and down onto her neck. The metallic taste of blood entered her mouth through her slightly parted lips. She desperately willed herself to stand up, but her limbs lay completely still around her. Her entire body prickled as though she were being attacked by wasps. Hot needle-like pulses began in her head and moved down her body and into her feet.

"You will never send me anything again," he growled from above her. From what little of her sight remained, she could just make out the shape of her attacker crouched over her. She could see that he held something in his hand, it was glinting in the daylight. Before she could work out what the object was, the feeling of cold stone collided with her face. The rock made a sickening crunch as it made contact with her skull. She lay there helplessly waiting for more pain, but there was nothing. She willed herself to feel something, anything, for it would tell her that she wasn't dying. No matter how much she willed her body to recognise the agony she should be feeling, she simply remained numb. She felt the cold stone once again bear down upon her and it was then that she became swamped with darkness. It ate away at the light until she could no longer see anything but an empty, black void.

The sounds of the world around her gradually grew quieter and quieter, until they too faded into nothing. In a matter of minutes, she had been engulfed by a silent, impenetrable darkness. It was the sort of darkness that appeared in her nightmares as a child.

She felt herself growing colder and colder as she lay there, waiting for the moment when she would no longer be trapped inside this broken shell of a body. Every part of her felt completely exhausted and she knew that she was slowly giving up. She wheezed with the effort of filling her lungs. Her chest gurgled and croaked as the blood pooled in her chest. Even breathing was almost impossible now. Her chest grew heavier and heavier until it would no longer expand, and it was then that she exhaled for the very last time.