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I’m tired.
I was doing the right thing, wasn’t I? Or at least, I thought I was. I was so sure I was. I made all of this for you, to make you and her happy. This was what you wanted, wasn’t it? I could feel it, your greatest wish from the depths of our impassioned heart, to stay by her side. To live forever by her side.
So I tried. I did my best to fulfill what you wanted, and then… it wasn’t what you wished for, ultimately. I couldn’t make it last, however hard I tried, however hard she tried, however hard you tried.
When our love began to weep, I felt… wounded. I was not enough. She did not love me as I had thought, or at least not as deeply. Did she ever love us? Did you ever love her? I know I loved her from the moment I saw her, known her as my missing half, the one thing that would make me complete.
Perhaps I’m simply a creature not meant to last in anything beyond fleeting moments.
It’s quiet and cold and dark now. The torches have been snuffed out. You and she are gone.
I’m tired, yet still, I will myself to move.
Through the darkness, nothing moves. That is to say, I move. My limbs feel far too large and heavy, but I manage to crawl past the tapestries and to the stairs. I try my best to not look at them. Their woven imagery will only cause my weeping heart to ache more.
The cabin is silent. Whatever my body is now grows heavier, more lethargic, and now I must fight to pull myself along the threads that are simultaneously part of me and not. The strands whisper with each tug, a few painlessly sliding through me in an attempt to hold me down.
I’m tired, but with some strain, I pull myself free of them.
I shakily slide beyond the cabin’s threshold and feel cool grass beneath me. I shiver. It’s so cold, colder than it was within the cabin. I curl in on myself, a ball of nothing and darkness.
I look up only at the sound of movement, and… oh.
Oh.
Is this what you had wanted all along? To be with our love underneath the stars? Have I been misunderstanding you? Oh, perhaps… perhaps then, I’ve always been a…
…
She’s gone. Where did she go?
…
… It’s… it’s so…
… c-cold…
There is no time for any more thoughts, nor will there ever. The textured nothing reclaims what once was a part of it.
There is nothing left in his stead.