“I didn’t think I could ever love, not like this. I realise it was wrong last time, not really love, just a need to punish. But this is different. Daniel, I’m not able to be without you. Could I at least come with you?”
“Caz, please. Calm down. We were supposed to be talking this through.” His pulse was racing. There was no-one else around. He held his hands towards her in a gesture of despair.
Her eyes were wide as she brought the knife around and pointed it towards him.
He dropped his glass and it shattered at their feet. “Put that down, Caz. Drop it. You’re in a state. You can’t mean this – you love me, remember? And you shouldn’t hurt the one you love.”
“You did.”
She thrust the knife towards him, but he grasped her wrist and pushed it hard downwards and away from him to make her let go. As she struggled, he needed more force. But too much. The knife slid low into her abdomen, surprisingly making no sound. She doubled up in pain, puzzled eyes looking up at him.
“Oh my god, Caz!”
She sank slowly onto the cold concrete. After a few stunned moments, he turned away and threw up. Then he placed his folded jacket under her head, knelt beside her, and clasped her hand. She was looking towards him, now in shock, colour leaving her face and blood flowing across the purple fabric of her frock and pooling at her side.
“Daniel,” she gasped. “For the first time in my life, I really, really loved someone.”
“I know,” whispered Daniel. But she would not hear.
Eternal Love
Can a heart still break if it does not beat? Can grief still snatch the breath from one whose lungs lie still?
My lover clings close to my lifeless chest, she is almost gone and yet these are the thoughts that preoccupy my troubled mind. For thoughts are all I have. All human emotion I have forsaken.
Her body is cold, yet still warm to the touch of my un-dead hands caressing her cheek. I stroke her silken hair, gently bowing my head so that cold lips nuzzle her ear and in a moment of uncharacteristic tenderness, I whisper the words I have for so long refused to speak.
As she hears my words, she shudders.
Is it the touch of death that makes her quiver so, or something else? A fond memory of happier days maybe? Whatever the cause, she smiles weakly and tells me that she loves me too.
But could it be true?
Am I still capable of love even though I can no longer feel? Could love be a state of the mind and not the heart?
A strained smile, a half-grimace, meets her own pallid pout and I know that if it were still possible, I would weep, bathing her in warm tears of grief.
But that could never be; for I am un-dead and cursed to live this half-life, devoid of all feeling or emotion...
...and yet?
There is a pain in my chest that grows stronger by the minute.
Subconsciously, I run a hand down the front of my shirt, my fingers seeking out the imagined cause of my discomfort; a sharpened stake, or a crossbow bolt lodged between my ribs. Slowly, I realise that this ache is the first I have felt in over a thousand years.
But is it real or something else?
There is no doubt in my mind that this woman resembles my one true love from a time when I was still human, a time when I was still capable of these imagined feelings. Could this phantom pain merely be a memory of a distant experience?
My lover coughs and I am snatched from my reverie. Her life is faltering. Each breath is but a shallow mist dissipating into the cold night air, each gasp snatched away by the wind’s icy draught. She holds me close and I feel her slipping from my grasp. I force a practised smile.
Wincing dreadfully, her eyes fill with pain. She draws her hand to her breast, clutching at the lump that grows beneath her flesh. She whimpers pitifully and I imagine a lump of my own swelling up within my throat, failing to choke the breath that does not come.
I know that soon I will be alone once more and that thought disturbs me more than anything I could imagine. In my own desperation, I consider breaking the solemn vow that I once made to her. The vow that I did not think I would have to keep.
I could save her.
I have already offered her eternal life in death; a place by my side for always. But she has refused and who can really blame her? Would anyone willingly choose a life devoid of warmth, of emotion, of real love? Would anyone choose a heart that does not beat and lungs that cannot breathe? To settle for a life half-full, a life committed to skulking in the shadows?
Dark thoughts cloud my mind.
I could make her stay, against her will.
She would probably thank me for it.
Eventually.
Looking into those deep brown eyes, I realise that this is something I cannot do. I cannot condemn this woman to walk this earth without a soul. I cannot force her to eke out an existence, feasting on the blood of others. I cannot be the monster that others believe me to be, the monster that she has convinced me that I am not.
I kiss her gently. My own dead lips meet hers and I steal away her final breath.
A single tear streams down her cheek and I realise that she is gone.
It is too late to change my mind, to break my vow. Holding her body close to mine, a primeval scream fills the air, frightening, terrible; acknowledgement that I am once again all alone.
***
Daylight is near, but I no longer care.
I should fear the coming of the sun, but I know that I cannot. For how can one fear the bringer of one’s own salvation?
Looking back at the last millennium, I wonder. Was eternal life all that I believed it would be? Would I have sought it had I known that it would bring a thousand years of solitude, of desperate loneliness?
An orange glow creeps across the horizon as the rising sun peers over the mountains of my homeland. It has been a lifetime since my soulless eyes last viewed its beauty and I yearn to bathe once again in its heavenly warmth.
The first rays of sunshine bring with them excruciating pain and the stench of burning flesh yet, despite this, I find myself smiling. I cannot help but wonder...
...will eternal death bring us together once more? Will I experience again the emergence of real human emotion?
As the redeeming flames consume our bodies, I consider that this is a risk worth taking.
I hold my love close to me and kiss her for the last time, and then together, we share the dawning of the new day.
Authors’ Bio
All of our writers are members of www.inkslingerbooks.co.uk , an online community for budding authors.
AJ Armitt lives with his wife and three children in Manchester. He currently has one book in circulation ‘Entwined – Tales from the City’ and is writing a sequel. He can be found on twitter @AnthonyJArmitt
Shirley Blane is the author of The Widow's Revenge, now published as an e-book with Amazon. She has also written several prize winning short stories and is currently working on a sequel to her novel. Find her on Twitter @BlanethePain333
Robert Brooks is a young father, husband and sometimes writer of fiction and poetry! A lifelong Londoner he can be found making witty observations on twitter @robbrooks2 and blogs his poetry at www.rbpoetry.blogspot.com
Rachel Dove is a wife, mother of 2 very boisterous little boys, frustrated writer, avid reader, blogger, teaching degree student, book reviewer for the Kindle Book Review and bad housewife. She is currently working on her first novel, and can be found on twitter @WriterDove .Her two blogs: frustratedyukkymummy.blog.co.uk and thekindlebookreview.blogspot.com
Megan Merry Wright lives in Leeds, is a nanny and storyteller extraordinaire for adorable twins and waiting to take a place on a primary teaching course. Avid poet and hopeless procrastinator, one day hoping to eventually finish her children’s novel (it’s only been six years in the making after all!). Twitter account @meganelisabeth
Paul Murphy lives near Brighton, with his wife and four children. He is currently finishing an histori
cal fiction novel "Wolf of Rome", the first in a series of action adventures set around the time of the Emperor Augustus. He can be found on twitter @PaulMurphy1234.
SJA Turney is an author of Roman historical fiction and historical fantasy. He lives in rural North Yorkshire with his family and barking mad dogs, researching the depths of the classical world. He can be found on twitter @SJATurney. To find out more about his work, visit his website at www.sjaturney.co.uk
Robin Carter is a long time reviewer and book seller finally having a go at writing. (It couldn't be that hard, could it?). Oxford born, he now lives in Newark with his wife and Granddaughter. His first love in reading was fantasy and he believed David Gemmell to be the master. After Gemmell’s sad passing, he found he was unable to read fantasy for some years and moved on to his new passion, Historical Fiction. One day he hopes to write some Historical Fiction himself, but he admits that trying to compete with people like Christian Cameron (his favourite author at present) scares the hell out of him. For now he is content to dabble in short stories while he works on his first novel. You can find Robin at twitter @parmenionbooks, web site www.parmenion-books.co.uk, blog: http://parmenionbooks.wordpress.com/
Jacqueline Pye lives in Southampton, and has for many years, been a successful writer of non-fiction, but is now concentrating on fiction. She has recently published the first in a series of books for children, Millie the Detective. You can follow her on twitter, @JacquelinePye
Thank you for purchasing this ebook, we hope you enjoyed it.
Volumes 1 and 2 are already available through Amazon.
Tortured Hearts - Twisted Tales of Love - Volume 3 Page 9
