Hearts in Shadow

"Gabriel... will you not play the lute? It's sitting there, waiting for your touch."

Her raven black hair gently fell around her shoulders, and I reached out to grab it. As my fingers went through it, it was like there was a stuttering in the world. A rip. And my fingers went straight through her as if she was immaterial. A ghost.

"No," I moaned. The slow pulse in my throat was becoming too much, but I didn't want to move. There's something soft beneath me, and yet I can't see it. All I can see is darkness, and her. "I'll play the lute later."

The image shifts.
I'm still floating on softness.

"I want you to live, Gabriel."

Is that a bed I lay on? Yes, and there are the curtains of the house we had in Seahaven, so long ago. When I was still breathing. Yet, I'm not breathing now. I feel no heart in my chest, and again I try to reach for her, only to have that soft hair shimmer from me.

"Lilian... do you really want me to live? Is that what you would call this? I know the Truth, and the Truth torments me. What use is it to know the Truth if they won't have any of it?"

"My love... my love..." Echoes of the past. Echoes of passion, and it hurts. "Play the lute."

"You play the fucking thing, Lilian." The words were like venom dripping from my tongue, and she faded into the darkness only to reappear yet again to say; "Gabriel, I want you to Live."

"WE CAN'T LIVE!!"

"We live forever."

"No, we're dead!"

"Dead until the day we are blessed to life. Dead, and manipulating, and conning. Liars in shadows, monsters in darkness, until that day when we may assume the place once more. Go to your Twisted One. She'll know. Tell her that you don't want to be mortal anymore."

"But I'm not mortal."

"You are young... so young, and so wise yet. You've seen so much, and learned things beyond others of your age, yet your passion is your mortality. Save your passion for when we are truly free, Gabriel. For when there are no enemies left around you. Save your passion for hugs with your Twisted one. Save it for embraces with the Insane Child. Your mortality drives you further and further from the shadows...

In Shadows we are One
In Shadows we are All
Until the fall of the sun
Until we no longer have to run
Until we can live in peace.

Ask your Twisted one, she will know."

And then I realized that the soft thing I lay upon was a cushion, and it was extremely wet.
I also realized... the voice had been my own.

(( I'd like to announce to those of you that do check here (bless your little hearts) that this will probably be the last blog post I will be making for a while. A while, when considering I usually do a few a week. Thank you - Leech ))