Among the Fallen.

PROLOGUE.

"What a funny little thing, this heart.
On some days, I feared it would stop.
On other days, I was terrified that it wouldn't."
                                        – Prapti.

 I've always been afraid of love.

I've also always seen love as a cursed trick.

Speaking of curses, sometimes I believe the day I met her I cursed myself without even noticing it.

Love had always been something so out of reach for me, maybe because I used to push it aside, convincing myself that I didn't need it. It's overwhelming how as you grow up there is one common link between every single person on the planet: Love.

But what is love, truly?

According to the dictionary, Love is known as an intense feeling of deep affection. Deep. I also googled that one, it has two definitions, 1) Extending far down from the top of the surface. 2) Very intense or extreme. Again with the word intense. Shall we look for it in the dictionary too? Well, it seems that intense has by definition 'having or showing strong feelings or opinions; extremely earnest or serious.' It appears they are all connected to each other. Meaning that love can be known as an intense, passionate and deep feeling or affection over someone.

If you ask me, I have an extremely different definition of love. To me, love is known as an utterly heartbreaking breath of fresh air. A drug. Something that once you taste it you crave it for the rest of your days, just as vampires crave for blood to survive if you want an example. Love, a feeling that once is gone, it's more likely to leave a whole in your chest. One that's unable to fill no matter what you try. It leaves you empty, without guidance, without purpose. What are we without love? Are we still worthy of being loved if we cannot love?

Love is extremely hard for people who feel too much. Love is traumatic for people who love too much. Love is excruciating for people like me. My fear of being loved was the murderer of my almost inexistent love life. I always thought I was protecting myself from love but now that I think of it, I wasn't protecting myself from love itself but from what comes after the love ends.

Heartbreak.

The thing is, my love for her never ended.

And I know for a fact that the love she had for me didn't have a finish line.

It had always been me. Harry. Then it became Harry and Annabeth.. Annabeth and Harry... to finally go back to Harry.

Shaping my life around her was my biggest mistake.

And when she left me I would still feel haunted by her ghost.

Time. We measure it with months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Most of our lives are ruled by it, but does it really matter? Is it possible for it to stop? Tik.. tik.. tik.. that's all I hear, but I can't move. It's like I'm paralyzed in my own body. I can't think, I can't sleep, I can't breathe. I can't live. How much do we risk just to be loved? Our hearts, our feelings, Jesus... our own sanity.

Can't you hear me screaming your name, Annie? Can't you hear me crying? Can't you hear me mumbling how badly I want to be with you? How hard do I want to feel your arms around my body?

How long will people sympathize with me? How long will they feel sorry for me? How long until everyone forgets her? Every memory I had with her is what gets me through the day, wishing, hoping, and praying that when I wake up she'll be laying next to me. The blue of her eyes being the first thing I see in the morning, her hands on my hair being the first touch I feel, her soft lips on mine reminding me that I'm hers, and she's mine.

She used to be mine.

Dying. This is a broad term, but I found the correct definition of it on google. Dying stands for 'gradually ceasing to exist or function; in decline and about to disappear.' Or as I like to call it, the Harry state because that's how I feel. Are we really scared of death? Or are we just scared of people leaving us? Are we afraid of being alone? Do we really cry for the death of our loved ones or for the fact that they won't ever be next to us? Do we really know how to be alone? It's a bit selfish, if you over analyze it. But is it still selfish if I want to die just to be with her? Should I just stop with this hurt?

Sometimes I would like to go back to the day I met her, if my past self knew that it would hurt this much would he still risk himself? Or would he change courses so he wouldn't meet Annabeth?

Love, Time, Death. Three little words that have been connected with each other for centuries. Time ceases to move when you love, but it also ceases to move forward when someone dies. 

Death is a natural process, I can comprehend death, it's what is keeping this already overpopulated world to keep existing. Some would say that you can even prepare yourself for death, there are actually seven stages of grief: shock, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depression, and acceptance. Not everyone knows but these stages were made for terminal patients, those that can't recover from their illness and have to accept that they are, in fact, dying. They are not helpful for those around, for those who have to keep living, for us. There is not a subject in school about death, there are no books that tell you how to survive the loss of a loved one.

Annabeth went missing on December 3rd, 2020. A year ago. 365 days without her.

Unknown. An adjective, 'Not known or unfamiliar' That's Annabeth's current location. Unknown.

How does anyone live when half of your heart is out somewhere you don't know?

What if she's still alive? What if she's suffering? What if someone is hurting her? What if there was something I could have done? What if she had never left on that plane? What if... she hates me?

What if she's actually.... dead?

I can still smell her perfume sometimes, I still find myself looking for her when I'm sleeping. I think I feel the traces of her hands on my tattoos just so minutes after finding out that it's my own hand doing it.

I was right about being afraid of love.

Two hearts that beat as one, one of them stopped beating when the other one died.

Except that days after, one had to keep beating without even knowing how. 

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It's out!! I've been holding onto this story for so long and I'm so happy to finally be able to post it. Special shoutout to anna, thank you from the bottom of my heart for always encouraging me and for supporting this story as well as being my very first reader!! 

atf readers, thank you. I love you. I'm sorry for what's coming, hopefully I won't break your heart. 

Hopefully. 

Dariana.