unblindeduniverse

[unblindeduniverse]

And I never knew that death could taste so bitter-sweet

"No, no, just keep your eyes on me. Keep those eyes on me." Sova's words felt like an echo of something that can never truly get to me, no matter how many times I hear it from his lips. I can feel his shaky hand holding my face, his look filled with worry, but I cannot get myself to focus on anything - it all seems blurry, and getting even more so with each passing second. I try to keep my eyes open, to keep myself alert, but staying conscious seems like too much of an effort right now. My breath feels so shallow. My face and hands covered in sweat, my clothes all in blood, and my mind in silent fear of what will become of me.

This battle was never supposed to result in no losses - we all knew it. Perhaps the most stupid thing is that we never wanted to realize it. To truly grasp the dangers of war.

The walls of my own skull suddenly started to feel so foreign to me. My mind strangely quiet. I just wish he was putting me to sleep instead of desperately trying to keep me awake. Wouldn't it just be much easier?

"Just let me go, Sova. You need to continue fighting," I gather all my strength left in me to form my words, but I can't help being too much out of breath. All that comes out is nothing but a mere whisper full of struggle. "This battle won't win itself with… with you standing over a breathing corpse."

"I can't just leave you here to die, you idiot!"

I find it hard to figure if he is angry, or sad, or just disappointed at my words. I just feel cold. Out of touch. My fuzzy mind just feels surprised that he understood what I wanted to say. I barely register my own voice myself anymore.

The blood keeps escaping my body, and it doesn't look like it wants to stop, no matter how much pressure Sova applies into the wound. He can't force himself to fake a smile with a "you will be alright" anymore, and neither can I fool myself at this point.

I am not going to make it.

There is no god to help me right now, no destiny that would be willing to intervene and save me from the cold embrace of death. I can already feel its stinky breath on my neck. Its filthy hands grasping my neck tightly, leaving me out of air.

"Cypher… don't leave me. I beg you."

He cries into my shoulder, his arm still pressing into the place bullet pierced through me. And now I don't know what pains me more - my terrible luck in this battle, or the sight of him so… broken.

"Do not weep, Sova." I whisper, feeling like the last bits of strength are close to leaving me at this point.

He looks at me, eyes filled with despair, hopeless. His clothing almost as much covered in filthy blood as mine.

"Just promise me… that you will carry me in your heart." I try to keep my gaze on him steady, wanting my last words not to be lost in the wind. "Just like I always carried you in mine."

The moment of my last breaths is not the circumstances in which I would have imagined I would tell him how much he means to me. But now I don't need to carry the potentially insufferable consequences I've always been so afraid of, at least.

"I need you to know… I love you. And my heart might bleed out on this battlefield, Sova… but my love for you will never cease."

He just seems to stare at me for a moment. His eyes red from crying, his breathing shallow and out of rhythm. I can feel him sensing that the light is about ready to leave me. He might just think I am talking nonsense.

But the darkness comes. The filthy beauty of that cold, silent peace already reaching me. Crawling slowly to blind me completely. And I can only surrender. The chaos around me not even creeping in between the cracks of my barely-thinking brain anymore. It is just quiet. Disturbingly so, if I were to focus on that. But now, I just wish to drown.

Drown, drown, keep drowning. Until there is nothing left. Only me and the void.

His arms lock me in an embrace yet again. My body feels like it doesn't belong to me anymore.

Then I hear a rough whisper between his cries, right into my ear.

"I love you too, Cypher. And I always will."

And I never knew that death could taste so bitter-sweet.