Echoes of Yesterday

Part 18 - Moonlit Descent

As we walked, flashes of Tristan and me swirled in my mind like fragments of a shattered memory. The sight of his lifeless body haunted every step. I tried to hold onto something real, something of him, but all I could picture was that horrible, mangled corpse. The Tristan I once knew was slipping away from me.

I stopped my voice barely a whisper. "Maya... can you show me his picture? Please, I can't remember him, not properly. All I can see is..." I trailed off, my voice breaking.

Maya glanced at me, her eyes filled with concern. "Daisy, now's not the time. We need to get out of here."

"Please," I begged, locking eyes with her, desperate to hold on to any piece of Tristan that wasn't drenched in blood. "Just one last time."

She hesitated, then sighed, knowing I wouldn't let it go. "There's barely any charge left on my phone," she said, but I could see the resolve in her eyes falter. She pulled out her phone anyway, quickly navigating to Instagram. When she finally opened the picture of Tristan, the sight of his face—alive and smiling—hit me like a punch to the gut.

But then she scrolled, and there it was: a picture of Tristan and his girlfriend from just a few weeks ago. They were together, beaming at the camera. The image blurred as tears welled up in my eyes. And just like that, the lines I'd written in my Artsy Diary, the ones I'd scrawled out in pain when I first found out about them, whispered through my mind, echoing in my ears:

"We were just kids when we fell in love, not knowing how it would end. I tried to hold on, but I lost you to her in the end. But you look perfect with her tonight."

Those words had once carried a depth I could barely fathom. Tristan had once sung "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran to me, his voice weaving a tapestry of emotions that felt unbreakable.

Back then, it was our song, a promise of what we thought we'd become together. I remembered the way his voice would soften whenever he sang it, how he'd smile at me as though nothing else mattered in the world.

But now... now that memory felt like a cruel joke. Tristan had moved on, found someone else. He had fallen in love again, and the song we shared was nothing more than an echo of a broken promise.

I stared at the picture of Tristan and his new girlfriend on Maya's phone, their smiling faces almost glowing under the dim light of the screen. His arm was draped casually around her shoulder, the same way he used to hold me. It was surreal, like I was looking at a version of him I never knew existed.

My mind struggled to reconcile the Tristan I remembered with the one in the photo.

I felt hollow. Everything that had once seemed special between us—his words, his touch, even that song—felt distant, as if they had belonged to someone else all along. My chest tightened, and the tears threatened to spill again.

How could I still hold onto him when he had let me go so easily?

It felt like the universe was mocking me. I clenched my fists, my heart aching as if it were being torn apart all over again.

At least he could've just lived with her happily when he finally got the one he deserved. I wanted to be angry—angry at him for moving on, angry at Sarah for being in the picture—but all I felt was a deep, suffocating sadness. 

He should have been there, laughing, sharing moments that would fill his life with joy. 

"Instead, he was just ashes of memory in both mine and Sarah's lives."

The thought twisted in my stomach like a knife. Tristan deserved happiness; we all did. And now, all I had left were fragments of a love that once burned so brightly. I remembered the laughter we shared, the dreams we whispered to each other late at night, and the hopes that we had for our future.

But now, those dreams lay scattered, like ashes in the wind, carried away by the reality that he was gone. I glanced at the photo again, my heart aching at the sight of his carefree smile. How could he look so happy when I was drowning in grief?

It was my mistake; I didn't make him feel satisfied when we were together.

I replayed every moment in my mind, every conversation that drifted into silence, every time I let my insecurities push him away. Later, I realized that "The distance between us was like sky and ocean—two beautiful elements that could never truly mix. No matter how much we tried, the gulf remained, vast and unbridgeable"

I should have fought harder, should have shown him how much he meant to me. But instead, I let him slip through my fingers, and now he was lost to me forever.

The darkness of the cave felt like it was closing in on me, mirroring the chaos inside my head.

The vivid memory of Tristan's laughter echoed in my mind, yet the picture in front of me was a reminder that I was left behind in a world that had moved on without me."Daisy, we have to go," Maya urged, her voice cutting through the fog of despair. "We can't stay here." Her words stirred something deep within me, a flicker of determination. 

Maybe I couldn't hold on to Tristan, but I could hold on to the memories—those fleeting moments that made me feel alive. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself, and nodded, ready to face whatever came next.

Eric stood near the cave entrance, his face lit with a mix of relief and excitement. "I see an exit! There's light up ahead!" he shouted, his voice echoing in the darkness. I could see the glimmer in his eyes, a flicker of hope that felt almost contagious.

But even as his words reached us, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were just avoiding the gravity of what we had witnessed. Maya nodded, still gripping my arm tightly. "Yeah, we're coming!" she called back, her voice steadier than I felt.

As we stumbled out of the cave, the cool night air enveloped us, a stark contrast to the stifling darkness we had just escaped. It was nearly midnight, but the moon hung high in the sky, casting a silver glow over everything. 

The waterfall sparkled like a cascade of stars, illuminated by the moon's reflection, creating an ethereal beauty that felt surreal against the horrors we had left behind.

For a moment, the sight took my breath away. I wanted to savor the tranquility, to believe we were free from the nightmare inside. But in my heart, I knew the truth—we were still haunted by what we had found. 

The beauty of the night felt like a cruel joke, juxtaposed against the darkness we carried within.