Tasteful Darkness

Chapter 39

Balendin - Now

If I had a heart, it would have surely stopped beating.

I crumple to my knees beside Peter. His face is so still it could be a statue I would have spent centuries studying. Loving.

I place my shaking hand on his chest, feeling for any sense of a soul.

I feel nothing.

The loss inside my chest is filled with a blinding rage in an instant. I stand, my hands curling into fists. A sound, far from anything a human could muster, escapes from my throat as I approach the edge of the room. My fist collides with the stone, and the entirety of the wall disintegrates and crumbles to the ground.

The moment I retract my fist, everything comes washing over me like a tidal wave. I fall into a crouch and cover my ears with my hands. Every part of me is trembling, and the breaths I don't need to take are rushing in and out of me so quickly I can't control them.

There is nothing I can do now. There is nothing left for me now.

My mouth opens to release a guttural scream, but no sound comes. All I feel is pressure building inside my head as my hands press harder and harder against the sides of my head.

I drop my hands and jerk my head in the direction of Peter.

He's silent.

Still.

Dead.

Gone.

The fire crawls towards him, and I force myself to go to him. I can't bring myself to look at him. My body does not allow it, even as I slide my arms up underneath him and pick him up.

My body turns numb as I carry him through the rest of the bookstore, the building dying around us. I make it outside just before the structure can crumble completely behind me. I don't spare it a second glance as I lay Peter down on the ashy cobblestone.

The old woman approaches me and starts speaking the moment I'm outside, but I can't hear her.

There's a voice in my head that I can't get rid of.

His voice.

"Vincent," he whispers to me.

The name that was never mine.

His voice feels so real. As if I could reach out and hold onto the sound to make sure he never leaves me again.

I sink to my knees, the old woman's voice still too distant to hear. I lean forward and place a single kiss on the mark on Peter's cheek.

My ability to speak is stolen by the silence that hangs in the air.

I lay my head down on his chest and let out everything breaking inside of me.

It hurts. I thought that my kind had the gift of never being able to feel pain, but this is worse than any stab wound I could ever receive. This is a pain that ruptures my insides and leaves me broken.

This is the pain that will kill me.

This is the pain I get for loving a human, and now it is my burden to bear for the rest of time.

Something nudges my arm. I look and see Amelie presses her head against me, her eyes wide and almost caring.

Something flickers through the darkness.

An idea.

I snap my head up, as if I can spot the idea forming in front of me. After resting my hand on Amelie's head for a moment, I stand and start running.

"Come back!" The woman's voice finally registers, but it's too late. I'm already gone, searching for the gate that will lead me back to Peter.