Did Love Overcome?

Prologue

The air was a fraction too chilly as embers from the glowing fire spread across the mountain ranges, carried by the wind and subsequently hidden by the dense fog that surrounded the mountain peak. "Dust to dust and ashes to ashes", I heard the minister say as he closed the book of common prayer and looked straight into my eyes, smouldering with pity and overwhelming sadness.

"Everything is going to be alright". I simply nodded and looked up with a sigh. I knew that definitely, it was never going to be okay. Not with what had happened these past few years.

Real life kickstarted for me at eighteen years - when I realized I was a full grown youth. Still under my parent's care, life was the usual; boring and frustrating, but I still managed to make the best out of it. I was the good boy, never hanging out with the bad boys, taking books seriously kind of guy. Completed elementary school with flying colours that could reach space if need be, struggled in high school a bit but still came out among the top and successfully graduated from law school with distinction.

The day before graduation was the very time that everything changed for me. You know there's this moment where you feel that one moment, one decision, one encounter set the pace for a massive string of changes, yeah...that's the moment right on that day.

That day, as cliché as it sounds, started out like every normal day at Yale. Woke up at thirty five seconds past three-thirty am, took a shower and dressed for the final presentation of my thesis. I left my apartment - shared with my parents - at exactly five-forty five and twenty-four seconds about the dot. I scanned the crossroads for my pest pal, Jophus. Seeing that he was being late as usual, I strolled towards the burger king stopover and ordered a peach punch with a family sized chicken burger. Knowing the gravity of the task ahead of me today was no easy one, I simply didn't want to take any chances with my stomach, which being be a ravaging beast if provoked.

I bought enough burgers for two and stood by the road to flag down a taxi. In that very moment, out of nowhere, a beautiful lady in a resplendent dress whooshed past me. I stopped right there in my tracks and stared and wondered and fantasized; a feat not of my nature.

In my fantasy I totally forgot I had waved a taxi. The driver, annoyed at my aloofness, honked his loudest at me. Surprised as I was, I tripped and fell down right by the sidewalk, hurting my head in the process. The only I remembered was the girl turning back to look at me, eyes filled with surprise, then horror before I was swallowed with engulfing darkness...