Atlantean Dreams

As the bodies dropped behind me, only slowing me a step for each strike, I knew I was going the right way. Even as the last of them hit the dirty warehouse ground below, the only barrier was but a pane of glass: a flimsy barrier broken by a wiry frame and the berserk force that fueled it. The ground was unforgiving, hurting just as little as the window through which I’d left, so on I went until...

Time seemed to slow as she appeared in my vision- beauty as I’d always known, hidden under pain and open wounds.

Tied to a rotten post mid-river: she was finally within reach again! My senses dulled to anything else- I heard nothing but my heart pounding in my ears; saw nothing but her eyes as they fluttered open; felt naught but the ropes as I cut her free, and her lips against mine as relief washed over us...

and her body going limp...

The smoking gun dropped by the riverside, the shooter melting away before I saw, but I knew despite it.

Her blood already soaked what rags I had left, and I rendered speechless... I could do nothing but hold her closer. Carissa’s fingers traced along my chest, with searing pain, like a hot brand. Looking back later, I was right to think I could never feel so low again as she whispered through pain,

“To like is to... want... but to love is... to give... your every...thing...”

Tears hot against my face- crying not from the loss, or even as the adrenalin made me ache, but from her throwing that back in my face... I clung to her into the night, until all heat had left us...

When Gods work against us, all we have left are the Atlantean dreams.