AVENIR

P R O L O G U E

Darkness.

My story begins and ends with darkness.

Now that I think of it, doesn't everyone's?

From the start, you spend a month or so after you're born with absolutely no sight. A while later, you just see hazy blobs, then those hazy blobs come into focus, and then you start to see in color. Your world becomes full of light...but during your first few days of living, your eyes need time to open and embrace the new world that you have suddenly entered.

That's what Combeferre taught me.

Or, as you die, and as you gasp your last breaths, your heart slows down by exactly .587 beats per second.

That's what Joly taught me.

And then, you are once again taken by the darkness that had you in its grasp from the minute you were born until the minute you were able to see.

Yet, you're never really gone. Your heart might have stopped, you might not be able to hear, see, touch, smell, taste... Yet, you are still able to love. So long as you have loved before, and by before I mean when your body could still move, and those three words could fly off your tongue and someone could be moved by one look, one sound, and it was all there, all that there ever was in the words I love you.

Those feelings stay within your spirit, wherever you go – to a heaven if there is one, or into the ground, covered by all that remained of your past life, you remember, what you used to run barefoot in, the pleasures and memories that only the green grass could hold.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Yet your spirit would still remember the love between two young strangers, insignificant in the bustling and brewing world that some would call life. You could still love. For once you die, you can still feel the love another feels for you and what you feel for them. Once all the memories have faded away, all the triumphs and failures, all of the trials and successes, once only your spirit was left, you could still love. And be loved.

If all was taken from nothing, there would still be love.

There would always be love.

That's what Enjolras taught me.