TRISTFUL. GRUVIA

XXIV. NOTHING

j.l —

I was upfront along the slim boundary that was left to protect me, barely able to keep enough distance between me and that single, horizon line, that securely held my entire destiny in scope.

Weakness coated my little ounces of strength that remained, my breaths at an almost peril rate due to my lack of energy. I could feel my chest close up, its piercing screams, tugging at my emotions, setting an unsympathetic memorandum in my mind.

And as much as I wished to reside to admitting it, death was obviously to come - it would only be a matter of time until my nightmares would become an actuality.

For the one time in my life, I would've rather been dipped into an everlasting solitary state which would be drooped of anxiety, of melancholy, I would've rather been bewildered upon the truth behind my past, than to have been dragged into the situation that I was currently in.

The spell's grotesque creation, now millimeters away from me, made my heart begin to pound at a rapid pace. It was as if time was beginning to slow down, the nostalgia I felt embracing me with the same amount of heavily painful weight of a truck that could've ran me over.

My attempted preparations for this expected moment - it was all beginning to dismantle. The helpless expression, the one that I had tried to disregard countless times before, now found its way to my face again. I had failed to persevere, I had failed to endure the tonnage.

I closed my eyes, a faintly heard clinking of a shoe vaguely catching my attention for a few moments. At this point, I could practically envision the event of my death at this point - the way I would slowly drift towards the ground as the agony intensified, the way I would impede my last fragment of oxygen, the way the darkness would engulf me at whole - it was all shaping together.

Goodbye, world.

A groan raged aloud, my eyes instantly recoiling back open. Black streaks of hair aligned with my perception, my pupils broadening, the familiar figure colliding with the with a bright, yellow, light, filled of magic, that was supposed to hit me.

"I'm sorry but, who are you?"

And everything clicked.

Memories began to feed in, restoring the gaps that had made me so clueless before. My mouth agape, guilt hovering over me while his gaze met mine, the storm of my emotions releasing into the atmosphere. I could sense the air stiffen, a single word escaping my desolated lips, "G-Gray-sama.."

He provided an anemic smile, the four words I had always wanted to hear, reverberating through my ears.

"Juvia, I love you."

The ice mage then descended onto the ground, his eyes fluttering completely shut.

With a trembling hand, I slowly reached out near to his still body, my fingers unsure if they'd have the courage to dare brushing against his skin. Cautiously, the worry building up by the second, I quickly reached for his pulse.

Nothing.

I swore my heart just stopped beating for a few seconds at the disheartening news, the volume of the beats increasing at the throbbing of my emotional wreckage.