Of Light and Shadows

Spring. How peculiar. I could swear I was in the middle of a bone-chilling thunderstorm and now I'm standing, calm, at the doorstep of my childhood home. Stranger and stranger. 

Should I knock?

I definitely should. That is only polite.

Maybe no one is home. But who should be home? I lived here over more than a decade ago. There is no one left to answer the door. And yet, it somehow opened.

There he was. Tall, and graceful as ever in the same dark grey suit he always wore. 

He was mine. 

I've known him almost my entire life and I have claimed him as such. Oddly, this was the first time I was seeing his face. Over the years, I imagined how he would look when we finally meet. The answer stood in front of me in all his glory... rather average. I liked that.

"Welcome, love," he offered me his hand, long fingers ready to feel my touch. He brushes his lips over my knuckles and my knees trembled. "I've been waiting for you."

"It was a long ride." All I could do was smile at those lovely eyes that watched me. "Longer then I've planned it to be."

"It doesn't matter. You're here now."

The first time I saw him was when I was just about thirteen years old. Oh, the irony. Standing next to the headboard of my bed, I guessed, even back then, that he was watching over me. My guardian angel.

I've lost a twin that day.

For a while, I dreamt of him. Every. Single. Night. I was not very fond of those dreams, at the beginning. But I learned to live with them and just as I started to appreciate his presence, he was gone.

Seven years have passed, dreadful and long-lasting, and I haven't seen him. One day after another, I ached for him, more and more. Until one day he showed up again.

He was just as same as before. Silent and beautiful. As I gazed into the mirror he stood behind me. I couldn't see his face, but I felt his smile. Some morbid curiosity pushed me to speak.

"Take me with you."

Rising his index finger, he gestured for me to remain quiet. I remember his hands being as cold as the deadliest winter as they wrapped around my throat. He didn't hurt me. He would never hurt me.

The wind was raging, the second time he came to me. I should know, I've spent the entire day at the graveyard.

I've lost my mother that day.

After that, his visits became more frequent. My love became my shadow and I was safe with him. Most of the time he would be with me even in my dreams, dragging his frosty fingers over my neck. I loved those nights for what they were, cold and dark.

I wished to spend my life with no one but him by my side.

But after a while, he was gone again. And I was left to deal with the agony of reality.

On the night of my twenty-fifth birthday, he found me, one last time. He sat in the passenger's seat as I drove towards my childhood home. And he sat next to me on the sidewalk as I watched it burn to the ground, with my father inside.

One last time, before he left me forever, he wrapped his long, icy fingers around my neck. As I said before, I've never seen his face until now, but that night I felt his lips on mine. Gentle and slow, barely touching me. With that kiss, he turned into the ashes, much like the one I glistening around me, and disappeared.

"And how was the ride?" his voice was deep, but quiet at the same time. There was something very comfortable about it.

"Excruciating."

"Tell me what happened." He offered me a glass of wine as we sat down on the sunlit couch under the window. The wine had no taste.

"I bought a rope."

He came closer to me.

"I wanted to be near you so bad."

He tilted his head to the side and let his lips slide over the purple marks on the front of my neck. I hadn't even noticed them by now, to be honest. His lips were warm, or maybe my skin was just freezing.

How was my skin so cold on such a beautiful, sunny day?

"And then what?" He asked.

As I came to the realization of where I was, I felt the tears, wetting my cheeks for a while now. I watched it more carefully. The sun was shining over the ruins and remains of a house overgrown with weeds. In the middle of what once was my room, a white couch, from which I observed the nightmare around me. Ashes falling like snow from the sky, melting into the grey of his suit. 

He pulled back, looking at me with that smile I've once felt. I can sense my lip tremble as I struggled to speak.

"...and then, I died."