The Story of Aria and the Slayer

Epilogue

"Why are you still here?"

Slowly, White lifted his head to glare at the figure standing by the door. Her form flickered for just a moment, but the sad, disapproving expression never faded. He wanted nothing more than to swipe a hand through her and make her, as well as that damn look on her face, vanish for good. But he knew by then that he would never be able to get rid of her until the day he met his own end.

"Must you continue to haunt me like this, Aria," he muttered dryly, leaning his elbows further onto his knees. Instinctively, he cast a glance over his shoulder at the bed he'd long since destroyed—her old bed.

The dead irregular followed his gaze, her expression only seeming to intensify. "You are the one keeping me trapped by your side, White." Her voice was just as he remembered, just as it had always been since her soul had first started to appear before him. "I couldn't leave if I wanted to. You took away my chance of having an even remotely peaceful death."

A laugh escaped from his lips, his shoulders jerking alongside the release of the bitter sound. "Oh, I'm aware. After all, you're not really her. You're just what I remember of her. You're only saying what I believe she would say to me." White twisted the dagger in his grip, once, twice. The letters along the flat edge were barely visible in the shadow-filled room. PSYATHÍ, it read. "You're only accusing me of things I've already concluded myself. So just leave me be. You're not needed right now."

He threw the blade in his hands towards where she had once stood. Right by the entrance. Right by his healer's head. Though Miraan's gaze wasn't on the sword that nearly stabbed her. It was on his own which laid, coated in blood, on the floor by his feet.

"You know this is the last thing she wanted of you," the red-head murmured softly. "She didn't want you to use her death as an excuse to sink further into your old habits. She wanted you to keep trying in the way you did while she was still here."

His response was immediate. "I can't do that."

"Why not?"

He grit his teeth, remaining silent. His fingers twitched, itching to grasp onto his blade. It took a considerable amount of effort to force himself into stillness, to suppress his rage.

"Why can't you?" the healer pressed on.

"Because she is dead!" he snapped in a tone so viciously hopeless it made even Miraan wince. "My only reason to want to be something other than a monster is gone. She left me with my horrible existence."

"White..."

With a deliberately slow shake of his head and a twisted half-smile, he concluded, "With her here, I am the villain of the story ... but with her gone, I am nothing more than the monster everyone makes me out to be."

It'd been two months since Aria had left him, two months since he killed her. And already had his blade massacred so many more. Already had he begun forgetting the faces of each of his victims all over again. The only one he could clearly see in his darkened world, as he slaughtered again and again and again, was her. Her and her disapproving stare.

But that had only ever further infuriated him, further pushed him to take more and more lives. Because no matter how upset, no matter how horrified, her expression became, not once had she reached out. Not once had she stopped him. She was nothing but a fragment of her soul that was left behind, that he'd stolen and kept with him against her will.

And the healer ... was just another painful reminder to him. She was just another disapproving stare. He wasn't sure how long he could handle it. So he hadn't hesitated in drawling, "You should leave too, Miraan. If you don't ... I'm afraid I may end up doing something I'll regret."