Life Ain't Always Beautiful

He heard her stir, felt the way she distrubed the air, in the way one could feel when they were being watched. He did not move, just lay there with his head hung in sorrow. She was alive, and this should have been a moment of… of something else. Some sort of bursting joy and disbelief, passionate kiss as he held her to his blood soaked body and took her from this hellhole. Instead he felt a strange hollowness inside of him. A pain that grew over the numbness. He released his hold on his head and it hit the ground with a heavy thud.

“Zee.” he whispered again. “You died. I found your body, Tamsyn and I. I tried to… I tried to join you.” His confession was soft and slow, drawing it from his body like he was slowly pulling out his intestines. “And she refused to let me succumb. We took your body back to the pack. The Armada mourned you. My night terrors returned, Zee.” he whispered to the hard floor. He squeezed shut his eyes, but the tears seeped through. “It was supposed to be that I would never live longer than you. If you died, I would join you, but she would not allow me that. I tried… I tried so many ways, and she pulled me back from the brink each time until our friendship broke. I taunted Art until he bled me, but I did not die. I… I almost killed Briar.” he couldn’t shut up, he couldn’t keep himself from talking. Like a poison that needed to be drawn. “All this time while I gave in to despair, and learned to live again like broken legs relearning to walk. You were here. Every day, every minute. You were alive, and here, and hurting. I did not come for you, I did not spare you this. I was too busy wallowing in what was taken from me to realise. I… Zee. I should not have lived.”


"Speech"