My thread kinda disappeared, well at least I can't find it here anymore. So, tidied up a bit, here are 4 Ev Song Stories: based on My Last Breath, Anywhere, Understanding and Surrender.


“Her Last Breath”


December, 1770. Emily lays dying in her lover Samuel’s arms; a wasting illness, now reached its end. Emily adored Samuel, a beautiful man, strong and gentle. She loved Sam so much it hurt her. And Sam thought her the most wondrous gift in his life. Nothing in all the world could separate them and he lived for her. Now this. A sorrow beyond his imagining unfolding in this tiny room.


“Hold on to me, my love, Sam, hold me”

Emily’s voice, barely a whisper. It broke his heart. He looked down at her, cradled in his arms. She looked smaller now, less substantial. These were their last moments together; Sam knew it but he struggled to push the thought from his mind. She would see his fear; it would betray their promise to stay together for all eternity. The beautiful and careless promise that young lovers make.

“You know I can’t stay long now, don’t you my dearest. I…” her voice trailed away, only her lips moving now in a semblance of speech, too tired, too small.

“O God don’t you leave me, don’t leave me Em.” Samuel choked back a cry. The last time to hear her. The last time to hold her. The last moments, ending. Unbelieving, his eyes filled with unbelieving tears as he looked at her. She was speaking to him but they were silent words now that lay beyond the shallow movement of her chest.

“Oh Sam, if I could reach out to you just once more and tell you, just tell you that I love you, and that I’m not afraid any more. Not afraid to die now Sam. Do you know that, my love? Can you hear me? I will leave soon but I’m still here, can you still feel me in your arms? I’m still here, I love you.”

She shifted almost imperceptibly in his strong and delicate embrace.

“My dearest, keep me close to your heart a while even when I’m gone from here. Keep us together Sam, until the snows give way to the new spring. I shall miss the winter; you called it our world of fragile things. Go back to our white forest, love, and look for me there. I’ll still be hiding in the hollow of our tree; you’ll find me.”

He felt her move in his arms and felt so helpless. His chest hitched, struggled for air and he would die himself from the certainty of their separation. He thought of the times they had spent so wonderfully in love. He remembered how excited she had been by the first fall of snow and how they had made their secret places and secret promises in the wintry woods of Leigh amongst the beech and ancient oak.

She stirred again. “And you know I have all my thoughts of you, safe inside me now for ever. The life we had together, such rapture. But my love, in this world it ends here. I know you can hear me Sam; yes, I taste it in your tears my sweet, but don’t weep for me now. Just say goodnight my darling, and don’t be afraid.”

She looked up now and their eyes met, and shared a thousand treasures in that moment as their souls danced with each other for the last time. Then the moment was gone and her eyes closed.

She lay very still.
Spiralling somewhere deep inside herself she smiled for him, for them both.. ”I hear you calling…calling me. Can’t come back Sam. This…my last breath, I give it to you. I…love you.”


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Anywhere. A Story for Bedtime. 1866.


“Grandma Amy, who’s this?”

Amy took the yellowed card that the small girl had selected from amongst the bundle of letters and crayoned pictures and looked at it closely, though she already knew the answer.

“That’s your great uncle Gideon, child.”

“Is he dead?”

“Yes my dear, quite, quite dead.”

“Tell me about him Grandma, he looks very handsome.”

“Aah yes,” she sighed, “my beautiful brother Gideon. Come, child, let me tell you something of his story.” Little Ruthie cuddled up to her grandmother, and Amy began.

*

“Back in the year of seventeen hundred and eighty nine, your great grandfather, my father, worked the land for his living – we were a farming family. Harte’s Farm. There was me, Gideon, and mother and father. I can’t remember quite when we started attending worship together as a family, but I do remember very well how exciting the Sunday School was. You see, while the ladies and gentlemen prayed to God, the children would gather in one of the unused chapels – it was around one side of the church and had a huge ceiling with criss cross wooden beams – and there we would have stories. Wonderful stories of mystery and discovery and travel to faraway lands. We had short stories and epic stories, stories that made us laugh and sometimes cry. But every story had a meaning; every story taught us a little about right and wrong, or about faith, hope and charity.

“Poor Gideon was at first forbidden from Sunday School. He was ten years older than me, and at least five years older than the oldest child there. He was nineteen. A man, really, but somehow locked into the mind of a child. Father never understood Gideon. I think he was embarrassed to have what he considered a ‘feeble’ son, so Gideon was always kept at home on the farm, and as a farmhand he grew to be strong and obedient and of great value to father in the physical toil of keeping the freehold productive.

“One Sunday I was unwell and mother thought it best I stayed at home with Gideon. I was so upset at having to wait another whole week for Miss Kennett’s stories I almost cried my fever away. Imagine my delight when, that very afternoon, she came to visit, bringing freshly baked loaves for mother and more stories for me.

“Kathy Kennett was the preacher’s daughter in our village. At 23 years old, she was headstrong and in constant conflict with her father, and – he said – with the Lord Jesus himself. It was in part to appease him, but in truth to give herself occupation, that she had set up the school in the old west chapel of St Augustine’s. Unbeknown to Pastor Kennett, Kathy taught us little about Christianity; her real pleasure, as I have said, was storytelling. Well that morning, she had noticed that I was missing, which was unusual, so she had sought and received her father’s permission to make a visit to Harte farm to ‘check that all was well with little Amy’.

“In short, my child, that day was to change our lives for ever.”

*

Ruthie stirred in her grandmother’s warm arms. “Why, Grandma?”

*

“Because on that day Kathy met Gideon for the first time, and they seemed to share something together that at first, no-one noticed. I cannot begin to imagine what my brother thought of this heavenly creature – for young Kathy was a fine looking woman and no mistake; but Gideon had seen few villagers of the female variety, and none at all since father’s decision to ‘keep him at home’ some five or six years ago. He spoke little to the other labourers, nor a word to the visitors at the farm that mother and father received from time to time. Gideon was more or less a secret.

“We saw Kathy several more times at the farm that summer; she would call in with more loaves or with baskets of berries that she had plucked along the Pill hedgerows, ‘to chatter with your ma’ and ‘with Gideon’. I still enjoyed our Sunday storytelling so when Kathy suggested to father that Gideon be allowed to come along too, that she was ‘sure he would enjoy school’ and ‘wouldn’t be any nuisance whatsoever to the children’ I was delighted.

“But for Gideon and Kathy, something strange and different was happening. Throughout the autumn months that followed, although I didn’t recognize or understand these things as a child, the two of them fell in love. I can remember being almost frightened at the way he could now talk to her with so much ease and grace, as if he had known her for all of his life; you see, this was not the dull son of farmer John Harte. My brother was, well, coming to understand who he really was. Kathy’s friendship and trust was a bridge for him to the real world. I could see him becoming every day more confident, more thoughtful, more gracious; it upset me so, that father could recognize none of this.

“I had always thought that Miss Kennett, Kathy, was quite the most beautiful lady I had ever seen. Soft dark hair fell in waves across her face and shoulders, to cascade down her back like a fairytale princess. Her eyes were exotic, being the deepest blue, and when she smiled, everyone smiled with her. I thought Gideon and she made a handsome couple, and at first I didn’t understand the hurt and anger in her eyes when I told her this one Sunday in the chapel. Some of the children giggled and Gideon himself flushed and threw me an injured yet reproving glance.

“Well my child, it seemed that even princesses can be sad and lonely. You see, Kathy’s father had forbidden her to visit the farm and to make matters worse, Sunday was to be the last school day for Gideon. Of course, he loved her stories too and had soon been able to add some magic to them from his own imagination, so that they both entertained and delighted us in turn. But my father, noticing Gideon’s distraction from his duties on the land and blaming the weekly lessons at St Augustine’s, had chosen to keep his son away. So my wonderful, deeply-in-love brother found himself condemned to his former isolation.

“Pastor Kennett had, perhaps, seen some change in his daughter. To my eyes, falling in love with Gideon had made her even more beautiful if that was possible. But to the contrary, she had taken all possible care to hide her relationship from her father, knowing his disapproval would end it. Whatever the reason, he was not prepared to grant any further permissions for visiting Harte’s. Oh, poor Kathy. How desperately I felt for her when I learned of this. She had recently confided in me that she found Gideon ‘blessed with an incandescent mind and deep, deep kindness’ and that he ‘sets my heart afire and lifts my spirit so high, so high’. I had a sense of her words and knew then that she loved my brother very, very much.

“But that wasn’t the end of the story.

“Endless weeks followed through one of the hardest winters for the farm. Kathy and Gideon exchanged letters in secret, once a week. I was pleased to be active in the intrigue and played my part well, carrying the notes between them and praying so hard that they would find a chance to see each other again. But I was distressed to see them so unhappy.

“Then one Sunday morning, with the approach of Spring, Kathy Kennett wove the most inspiring and exhilarating story of them all. In the note for Gideon, she had resolved that they should be apart no longer. It was too much to bear. She had rescued him once and she would do it again now; they were to run away together, that very evening. She wanted me to say a proper goodbye to him, and to help him collect a basket of his things, clothes, some food and extra blankets. I read the note:

Dear my love, haven't you wanted to be with me
And dear my love, haven't you longed to be free
I can't keep pretending that I don't even know you
And at sweet night, you are my own
Take my hand

We're leaving here tonight
There's no need to tell anyone
They'd only hold us down
So by the morning light
We'll be half way to anywhere
Where love is more than just your name

I have dreamt of a place for you and I
No one knows who we are there
All I want is to give my life only to you
I've dreamt so long I cannot dream anymore
Let's run away, I'll take you there

Forget this life
Come with me
Don't look back you're safe now
Unlock your heart
Drop your guard
No one's left to stop you now

*

“Where’s Anywhere, Grandma Amy?”


*

Amy dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. “Anywhere isn’t a real place, my sweet. Anywhere for Kathy and Gideon turned out to be south; they headed south across the moors, through villages more remote even than Harte’s farm, and they walked and walked until they couldn’t take a single step more. They slept in an old barn on the first night, the smell of damp hay and manure obscuring the freshness of the meadowland and silver pasture outside, bathed in moonlight.

“They knew there would be search parties dispatched just as soon as Pastor Kennett and my father worked out what had happened. But that would not be until several hours later that morning, once it was clear that Gideon was not already out working in the lower fields on the borders of our estate, where I told him I thought he’d gone.

“They journeyed a wondrous distance. When it was clear their plan had succeeded, the search parties withdrew and the pastor and the farmer prayed to the Good Lord Jesus for forgiveness and to return their children safely to them, in such time and in such manner as The Good Lord would see fit. Of course they planned their own familial retribution – there would be no prodigal son or daughter for Pill.

“In time, Gideon and Kathy reached the town of Plymouth, right on the sea. They found a simple lodging in a tiny garrett above an inn, right down near the dockside, where the to-ing and fro-ing of the fish traders, merchants and shipwrights promised a rich tapestry of colour and life. On their first night they joined together at last in physical union; they pledged their souls one to the other for all of eternity and they fell asleep at last, in peace, in each others arms.

“In the morning, Kathy was awoken by an unholy commotion from the tavern. She turned to waken her love but he was not there, so she stood to look down through the tiny window to the street below. Everywhere she saw confusion and anguish. Names were shouted, people looking for other people. My dear, you will not understand this now but in those days, young, strong men were sometimes snatched against their will and forced to sail away to fight for their country on great warships. This is what had happened to my beloved brother.

Neither I, nor Kathy, ever saw him again. We do know that he served King and country aboard His Majesty’s Ship of the line Victory, and fought many battles with great courage and fortitude.”

*

“What’s fortachewd?” Ruth’s tiny voice, laced with sleep now.

*

Amy smiled. “My dear child. It means your great uncle had the strongest heart in all of the world, and no matter how unkind the world could be, it would never stop him from being brave and true.”

“And did he love his Kathy for ever and ever?”

“Oh yes.” Amy reached up to brush away another tear. “I’m certain of it.”


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“Understanding”

3.03 AM Turning his head on the pillow to squint again at the clock. God, barely a minute since he last looked; time for David was slowing, perhaps more this night than ever, if that were possible. Wasn’t time meant to fly past when you had things on your mind? Didn’t you toss and turn and run clean out of time for sleep? Not him. Not now. No, just 3.03. The green illuminescence shot back at him.

3.04 AM a digital instant, one step along, but it was still endless. Endless nights laced with vitriol - an incessant barrage of recrimination, shame, guilt, fear. Then images of her. Shards of memory from the broken mirror of their dreams that had once existed in another time, another place. This night, like every night now.

Closing his eyes shut out nothing. He relived the moment again and again,

[there’s no easy way]

sometimes in fragments that threatened but refused to materialize; other times he felt it – felt it – in technicolour waves that pushed him right down to the ocean floor. No escaping those fuckers.

*

He had loved Dawn from the moment they’d met and they had become inseparable, and married, almost five years ago. Then the day she was home from work early, sitting rigid at the kitchen table as he came through the door. He saw she had been crying, her eyes were swollen and ugly, mascara smudges still on her cheek; but it was the emptiness of her eyes that had frightened him, a haunted and dreadful loss of something. It was as if she had died, right there on that stool. Then as his heart began to hammer its warning she said it.

“Davy, there’s no easy way to tell you this.” She faltered, fresh tears welling. “I’ve done the most stupid thing and I’ve hurt you in the worst possible way. My God Davy I am so sorry.” She brought her sleeve to her face and wiped away snot and tears; she couldn’t look at him. David recognized in that moment he was on the edge of an abyss, into which he dared not look, but was going to fall anyway. The door took his weight while he listened to the words which would push him over.

“I was drunk. At a work thing. I went with someone else, it… it just happened.”

He heard her words; and yes, they were the words he was afraid he’d hear when he’d seen how empty she looked. He heard them loud and fucking clear, but something wasn’t stacking up. Why? Why was she telling him? A one night stand; unbelievable, his Dawn, stupid bitch.

[there’s no easy way]

Why didn’t she keep her mouth shut? He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know that she had done this.

“And now I’m pregnant”.

*

3.05 AM and she drew the covers up over her face and stared into the darkness. Last night had been the same, and every night before that, from the moment she had told him. He had looked stricken then, and in truth still did now; nothing had improved but everything had changed. At first he had refused to have anything to do with her; they didn’t speak, he made sure they weren’t seen out together, life cancelled. Ha. How true that was.

A tear rolled down to the pillow.

As he came to terms with it he had even come back to their bedroom; not for intimacy of course. No, just so he could get a night’s sleep on a proper bed, the sofa doing almost as much to cripple him as she had. But she thought it had been a start.

Her own universe had folded in from the day of her doctors appointment. They say having a child gives you a new outlook on life; they say it’s the most wonderful thing. She sniffed more tears back, tried to do it quietly so she wouldn’t wake him. These interminable nights. Her impossible decision to let someone else’s life grow within her, when she knew…

At least they were together for the moment, so that was OK, wasn’t it? She had been taught that togertheness was the most powerful thing, the way to stay real. Days they saw little of each other but at night she lay here next to him, listening to him breathe. Wretched night and silence screaming in her heart. How long would she continue to deceive herself? She felt alone, they weren’t together, and that was real.

3.06 AM and she twisted the sheet in her hand and quietly sobbed into the soft linen. Her impossible decision. Why had she told him this and not the other? Perhaps that's just the way the human mind works - whenever something is too unpleasant, too shameful for us to entertain, we reject it. Except for Dawn the imprint was permanent, not just in her heart but burning through her veins.

*

3.05 AM and sleep refused to take him away, no respite from this. He had hit her. His own wife. But his own wife shouldn’t have been screwing around behind his back.

[there’s no easy way]

His own wife shouldn’t have been so stupid. Shouldn’t have been so weak. Shouldn’t HAVE SOMEONE ELSE’S FUCKING BABY.

He looked at the glow of the clock reflecting off the corner of the bedside table, and in the glass of water that stood there. It looked like a poison cocktail. Jesus, he loved Dawn, that was the truth, the bottom line; so how many more nights of recrimination would he make her suffer? A lifetime? She couldn’t just cry it all away; and he couldn’t scream or fight it all away. She had told him about the baby, how she had decided to keep it, how it wasn’t the baby’s fault only hers and she’d live with the consequences. He knew her well enough to understand how hard that decision was. Understanding was at least something they had always shared, though whether that was still true he couldn’t say.

He felt her draw the bedclothes up. She would be lying on her back staring into the blackness and she would be crying. He should be comforting her, touching her, forgiving her. He should be. He had hit her when she told him; lashed out in the kitchen they had built the previous spring, all mod cons. Hers was the con now. He felt ashamed for her – for her weakness – and he felt ashamed of himself. For better or for worse in sickness and in health, the vows barbed and stung him. He once called himself a Christian.

3.06 AM said the green timekeeper, and don’t wait around for the next one, it’ll be an age coming you know. He was throwing away five years. Well no, she had thrown them away, hadn’t she, not him. None of this was his fault? He heard her tiny sobs beneath the sheet then, and his heart pitched. Yes he did still fucking love her. She was dying with misery there next to him, and that was his fault. It was his fault he had hit and rejected her; his fault he wasn’t big enough to forgive her; his fault she faced fear and uncertainty on her own.

And so his decision was made. No, you’re not alone honey, he whispered to the night.

David closed his eyes and for the first time since forever, he saw that maybe it was going to be alright. He didn’t kid himself that it would be easy (kid, haha, I’m going to be a daddy, the real daddy not the biological fuckhead that started this). Nothing is ever really forgotten, he knew that, but he reckoned he could live through this, and he believed he could love Dawn and they would raise the child, and have other children too. He resolved this, and slept.

*

3.07 AM Had he said something? She lay absolutely still. No, his breathing had changed, but she was sure he was asleep.

She didn’t blame him for striking out at her; she would’ve done the same. She didn’t expect him to forgive what she’d done. All she had wanted was not to be rejected, not to have to bear this all alone. But she knew it was all over. He had cast her away, he would never want her again. Which was the only way it could be, of course. There are some things time can’t heal. Some things that come with a doctor’s second phone call to please come in and see us as soon as you can there is something else you must know.

She loved him so much. How could she have destroyed everything they had, so easily. One drunken night, flattery and charm. She raged at herself; she raged at her seducer; and she raged at the nemesis that had now brought her to this, her final truth. She had been fighting the moment every night. She was tired, defeated. Two lives tonight to save the third, was how she saw it. Davy would be free to move on, no baggage. No bastard offspring to set tongues wagging, and no whore wife who he couldn’t sleep with anyway because she was HIV positive.

Her hands shaking, she took the last of the pills from her bedside drawer and with a mouthful of water they were gone. She put down the glass and noticed how the green display from David’s clock reflected in the water like poison.

3.08 AM it glared. She turned then to nestle in against his warm, slumbering body. “Goodnight my darling. God bless.”


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"Surrender"

October 2004

He had met Rosella at one of those tiresome after-office-hours drinks sessions and from the very start had found something distasteful about her, despite her obvious sex appeal. It transpired that no-one from work had actually invited her or even knew her, but she clearly relished the attention of being there and had little difficulty insinuating herself into each of the ‘babes and beer’ male cliques that passed for management’s social intercourse on a Thursday night. The Old Spire wasn’t bad as Bristol bars go, and quiet most evenings during the working week; but that night the weather was foul and the streets had emptied into all the bars that lined the waterfront down on Welsh Back.

“Klastenbrau?” Tom had made his excuses to leave and was partway to the door when she came across to block his way and hand him a bottle of Germany’s finest. He had noticed her talking with the guys from sales and had registered her too-good looks, like every other man in the bar. Now she was standing within breathing distance, offering him his fifth beer of the evening and his unease grew.

“Take it, please, we have to…talk.” He couldn’t hide the rush of colour in his cheeks as Rosella took his arm and steered him over to the greasy leather sofa in the corner. “Sit” she whispered, “I have to explain something”.


December 2004

“For Godsakes Tom it’s the bloody office Christmas Party, not a hanging. You going to look like that all night?” Melanie already had her coat on, and was headed toward reception to join the others; the first taxis had arrived and she wanted to be there early to clock the men and work out her strategy for getting home. She paused and looked back at him. “You actually don’t look that well, what’s up?” But before he could create his lie the cab had loaded up and she was gone.

He had almost ignored the first text message that morning. Expecting a ‘have fun’ from Julia, who was working shifts tonight and wasn’t much bothered about missing his Christmas outing anyway, he was surprised to see a number he didn’t recognize. He hit the read key and glanced down. UBLG 2ME. That was all. No name, no sense as far as he could see; thinking no more of it, he went back to his report.

When the envelope icon reappeared – same number – he punched the key and read his message. What he saw made his heart lurch in his chest. He felt his face drain of colour as he sat back in the chair. The walls of the tiny office seemed to crowd in on him.

NO ESCPG ME. R.

It was her.


*

“Hey Tommy, over here. Thought you weren’t going to show. What’s your poison?”

He asked for a beer and told them he wasn’t feeling too great so wouldn’t stay long. A tray of drinks appeared and he slipped off his jacket and sat down. The bar area was on the downstairs level so he had been able to stand by the door for a while and scan the partygoers; he’d got a pretty good look and was sure she was not there.

“Yeah you don’t look too good. What’s up?”

From across the room he could hear Melanie holding court with the girls. “It’s nothing. Let’s drink.” With that, he swept up his glass and emptied it in one long draft.

*

A few moments before midnight, Mistletoe Melanie pushed up to him at the bar and promised him a spezzhuul Chrizmaz s’prize. By getting there early she had succeeded in depleting the club’s stock of vodka, but to her regret had failed in her manhunt. Tom began to explain that he was in no fit state to drive her back, but she took his hand in hers: “No no no. Don’t wanna lift. Whatever. I’ve got you a s’prize. Spezzhully for you.” She held up the sprig of berries and told him to close his eyes. He grinned, rested his glass and puckered up theatrically. “Clozh your eyse.” He closed them.

*

It was one of the doormen who saw most clearly what happened next. The girl with the mistletoe stepped to one side and the other girl, the one in black, stepped in front of the guy expecting the kiss. She leaned right into him and fastened her mouth onto his. Whoops and cheers from those close enough or sober enough to focus on what was happening. She had the guy pinned against the bar; his eyes flew open and he tried to cry out but she reached up and pulled him in tighter. When she relaxed the embrace he didn’t move; people would later remark that ‘he looked totally wasted’. More cheering - maybe they thought someone had got him a strip-o-gram. The first girl was looking a little worried; it seemed even in her state of inebriation she could tell that something was going wrong. She dropped the mistletoe and moved to pull the newcomer away. The girl in black lashed out and Miss Mistletoe lost the little remaining steadiness she had, slipped and thumped to the floor. Moving up against the guy again, the strip-o-gram turned her head and began whispering to him. Not so much laughter now; more people down there were looking concerned; the guy looked catatonic. The moment had stretched out in time, unfolding in slow motion.

*

Tom, expecting a vodka kiss, instead felt a sensation of ice, consuming and burning, steel fear returning in that instant as he recognized two truths – he had let down his guard, and somehow everything that he held to be impossible, everything he had pushed away, was real, was happening. Rosella. He also knew then it was too late; helpless and weak from an evening’s drinking as she held him firmly against the bar, his mouth already open, he felt himself breathe in and take her life in him.

*

He’d put up with her ridiculous stories of passion and possession all that October evening at the Spire and in the car. She had explained how the kiss of everlasting life could never be forced, only accepted freely and unchallenged. “You’re unreal” he’d told her. She had thanked him for the lift.

He dismissed the encounter then, dismissed her – until the nightmares began: Rosella would visit his room, make love to him as Julia slept beside them. Always he would struggle, always she would demand his surrender. At every nightmare’s end he would weaken, offer himself to kiss…and wake up. He would wake in a state of exhaustion; Julia believed his work was stressing him out.

Rosella knew where he worked and for a while, during his weeks of disturbed sleep, she sent him short notes in the mail.
“Thom, you belong to me, why deny this? x Rosella.”
“No sense in running Thom. You know I’ll find you. Don’t deny me. x Rosella.”
“Take my life in you. Take the kiss. x R.”
“Surrender Thom. Soon. R.”

He considered going to the police about his ‘stalker’ then felt foolish and guilty. He knew almost nothing about the woman, blamed his dreaming on the notes and generally felt screwed up. When the bad dreams stopped, so did the notes in the mail, and Tom was relieved to draw a line under the whole irrational episode.


*

But now she had taken him. A trick. He felt nothing and heard nothing of the bar or the party. There was just her.

“Is this real enough for you?” Her breath cold on his face, stinging, triumphant. He was nauseous, cramping up and wanting to retch but she held him tight. “You were so confused Thom, you never believed me but you loved me in your dreamstate. Mmm?”

“And then you abandoned me.” She pushed her mouth down violently on his once more, biting on his lip to draw out a small swell of blood. He was aware only of her voice.

Two centuries and still your flesh is weak. “I accept your surrender.” Her eyes burned with a preternatural exhilaration. “Now, we live forever. In the end, you are too weak to deny me.”

His eyes misted a deep crimson and he collapsed onto the floor. Somewhere, a girl screamed. He looked like a corpse, sucked dry of colour, drained of life. His new girlfriend looked around at the frightened partygoers; by contrast, she was pumping with life. She even smiled.

“Everything is perfect now.”

And before anyone could move or say a word, she was gone.



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I just want to say that it is very creative to make up a short story out of Evanescence songs.