All Wild Roses Have Thorns

The Incident

“Wait, Dakota, What are you doing?” Sage took her last step back before she would meet a fall into the waves of the ocean. Her eyes begged for an explanation as I moved closer with my signature knife in hand and tears streaming down my face. Lucky for me, the pouring rain hid them.

“You wanted to know what my job was and now you’re going to find out. I’m so sorry you had to find out this way,” I tell her, my voice shaking as I try to hold a cold attitude about the situation, like every job that I’m assigned too. She looks at me stunned through the storm.

“W-Wha-?” She tries to stamper a question but I come close enough and put my knifeless hand on her face, rubbing the hair that was plastered to her face away to reveal the warm cheek, “I love you, I’m sorry. I have too.” I lock our lips together and plunge my knife into her stomach. She doesn’t scream, but what she does is worse. She always does this when it’s not her fault. She starts to apologising profusely as she slides down my body to her knees.

“I’m sorry, I am hurting you,” She sobs, but somehow managing to keep that as she struggles to keep the blood inside her, but it spills around our feet and off the edge of the cliff. I scrunch my nose in a growl, hiding the hurt with misplaced anger. The Moon dimension has never been so dark.

“Stop talking Sage, Please, stop talking,” I snarl, my voice cracking. She doesn’t hear me. She won’t stop. Before long, I stop begging and just snap, slashing my knife across her neck and screaming, “Shut up, Sage!” She gags on her words and blood spills from the opening in her gullet. She looks up at me with now clouded eyes as the life leaves her and coughs, “I l-l-love y-.” She couldn’t finish her dying words, but the wind finished it for her and cut through my heart worse than any knife could have. She falls limply to the side. A rock drops in my stomach like her body to the mud ground and the tears choking me turned loud. My eyes grow clouded and everything fades to blurry patches of black and gray until lightning strikes like it was given the script to the scene and timed it perfectly. To the sound of the bolt cascading towards the ground, I follow it’s lead and fall to my weak knees. My body shakes as I throw my head back and let out a howl, the tone low and mournful. The pitch grows higher as my voice loses whatever is left of its stability before it abruptly stops and my head falls forward and hangs. My fangs are visible as my lip curls like my own clawed fingers into my thighs.

“I’m so sorry,” I managed to say as I lift her body into my arms, hugging her head close to my own chest, “Please forgive me…” I push the mud off her cheek with one hand along with her brown strands of hair. Her now lifeless green eyes seem to stare into my soul but I can’t bring myself to close them as I sob harder, my body turning weak and dizzy from being up past the twenty-four hour time limit in each dimension. I knew once I woke up in the Sun Dimension there was no way I was going to see her again, her body would disappear before I could return. Because of this, I struggle to stay awake, pushing our bodies together and trying to keep her warm before finally, I lose the battle and pass out with her in my arms.