The Other Side of the Moon

Apocalypse (Part 3)

Song: Watch you Sleep by Girl in Red

"I don't want to leave," Kai rasped, his entire body shaking with the effort of dying, or maybe it was the effort of not dying. It didn't exactly matter anymore— they had run out of food and water days before, and had barely mustered the energy to make the small fire that was now nothing more than burning ashes.

Cinder pulled herself up just enough to look down upon him. Her eyes were sad as she took in his face— the way his eyes had turned to black and his skin nothing more than chalk. He knew that he was leaving and that she would stay a while after him. The fire within her had always burned brighter, and he was nearing the smothered ashes of the fire at their feet.

"Don't worry," Cinder soothed, though Kai could hear the hidden sob within her voice. She had pulled her entire body up off the ground, and the moon rested directly behind her head like a glistening halo. Kai could hardly bear to stop looking at her. She was like an angel, there to take his broken body away from his broken world "I'll watch you sleep."

Kai tried to raise his hand to touch her face but he couldn't muster up the energy. She grabbed his frozen hand and raised it up to her lips, placing a gentle kiss to the skin upon it. Then she wrapped her own frosty fingers in his own in an attempt to rub warmth back into them.

She tried to hum a distant lullaby, but her voice could not sustain the melody. They were both empty shells of the people that they had once been— nothing more than shattered bits of glass of the people that they were before everything had happened.

Her other hand touched his cheek, wiping away a tear that he hadn't known was there. He could barely manage to keep his eyes open to gaze upon her, his lids drooping slowly farther and farther down upon his cheeks.

"I'll watch you sleep," she repeated. "I'll listen to you breathe."

Her fingers traced his cheeks with the gentlest caress. He never wanted her to stop touching him; he never wanted to stop feeling her.

"I don't want to leave," Kai choked, the words barely able to escape his lips.

"I know," Cinder said, her voice hitching on the last word. He could barely see her through the crack in his eyelids, but she still remained an angel silhouetted against the moon. "Close your eyes, my love," she whispered, placing her hand flat against his cheek. "I'll watch you sleep."