Awoken dead, a thought as sharp as the gasp of his shock at this the tragic revelation of his actions made manifest. Tragic as the weight in his chest, gripping the base of his throat seeking to bring his death more suredly, more truly this time round but it was more the death of his soul than his flesh. The fog lifted from his eyes that had blinded him to the world, there he saw in such short scenery his life. Tragically short and woefully small. He lay in a bed with his arms bound to leather straps on either side, the blinds had been drawn low casting moonlit panels across the room bending with the furniture but it was the sullen light from out to the hall that painted the room and shaped its emotion. Heavy with silence and shrieking with the melancholy , the air of unsteady peace entombing them, him and her, his katherine. Sleeping in the chair next to him, her hair a tousled mess thrown about the right side of his bed, resting on his hand were the strands which played in the soft light enticing him with its luminous red, flooding him with every thought that red hair was in, the happiness in her dance and laugh as it bounced. The way it draped across her face in her most begotten moments, whether she was taken by anger or sadness it never took from her beauty. No she could never let go that weight bound in her every movement, which took from her everything she sought and returned her only that which she despised. Unwanted attention, accusations and bias, lies and deceit unjustly earned or given, presumptions that dredged forth her demons, one to drag and one to claw but both to hurt only her. Yes, tragically beautiful.

He saw past this, at the captive in her faberge shell meekly screaming to be seen and set loose, he knew her fear and held it in his hand as she drew out further slowly and with care, his care. That same hand led her further down her own path of imaginings, building her road brick over brick, bits of her own shell over which she stomped, to bury the person she always feared, herself and her expectations. That guiding hand, gentle and picturesque beguiled the heavy man who bore it, the man who dragged as she strode, laden just as her but from within to her without, unable to tear away his weighted dread without tearing himself. This same supporting hand stayed on as she shown brightly in her own right, thickening ever more the darkness that led from that hand in comparison, though not her intent nor her fault, without malice without greed or wraith her hope was his despair as such that his leaden hand could no longer hold onto her soft image, light and sweet as she had become, he felt as the poison in her air. Life without has never known a way to live within the depth of such sharp tragic fate.

That was the story, a part of a piece and the steps that brought them here, in this room, under this light. He moved his hand to meet her hair and the sweet sullen head that lay beneath, he could see her eyes swollen and red, the dry lips and crumpled tissue all betraying her anguish. He softly brought the back of his hand over her cheek and bent to kiss her, the last he would ever feel of her skin against his lips for he would know her warmth no more, from henceforth he would only know her as she was, her memory. The monitors rang in an uproar, crying out a high pitch that brought the night nurses rushing in, katherine startled awake and jumped to her feet, giving the nurses a wide berth to work but still filling the room with her mantra soft and pleading as it was while she nervously rung her tissue, her rosary. "Please don't leave me here" repeating steadily and as low as her sunken heart drowned in the tears of her hope, that hope when when they found him, that damned hope when she heard his heart beating, that god damned unforgiving hope as she felt his chest rise and fall for hours in that bed.

"Please dont leave me, please" he lay there motionless and unfeeling, he didnt feel the pressure on his chest as they compressed it, nor the warmth of their hands only the blinding of the pen light which shone in his eye for an instant and in the next he saw something anew. In the door frame a lurking figure draped in shadow, its head slowly rising to meet his,its eyes red with blood burst from the white leaving only the soft blue of its eyes floating in a sea of red and speckled white. It shambled forth with deep intent unrelenting in those eyes which emanated such raw, heart wrenching sadness, alluring and consuming him. His world that was that room fell silent, fading out with a whine as though his ears were blown, only broken by katherines prayer, deafening in the underwater soundscape her voice was clear and pleading. His sight blurred next filling the room with only blurs and misted figures all but the staggering thing before him draped in cloth burnt dark with embers still breathing with each step forward. His death was only told in katherine, in this quiet you could hear her heart, her soul, her hope all shattering slowly, through the blur katherine burst, flinging herself on him gripping him and pawing at his legs with her deep sobs echoing into seemingly endless void, her face contorted in suffering but still she cannot escape that beauty. "You cant, its not ok, its not fair. you cant just walk into my life, not like that, you cant be this good and kind, you cant make me better than i ever wanted to be, you cant just...change me." She started hitting his leg, softly at first, each strike punctuating her sadness and growing stronger in tandem with her pain turned rage.

"Why do you have to hurt me worse than any of those other bastards, why did you show me all these great things if you knew itd just hurt more now. i dont know who i am without you, not anymore." The dark figure grew as it crawled onto his bed , unfurling its arms and expanding its consuming darkness as it did, inching up his body hovering slowly over him but still its weight, that he could feel, crushing as if despair were made real. "Why?....why?!" katherine began to scream as she struck his leg without refrain her body faltered as she was pulled away by the hazy images that once were nurses.

" WHY!?!" she bellowed in a loud yell thick with fear, as much was it tinged with fear as coated with rage, so few were their differences. The figure could be seen now in bright clear light which grew from nowhere, only enough to see her face, the shadow looming over him and condemning this room bore the face of a young woman, her jaw uneven and broken clearly from the white bone poking through the torn skin at the end of her jawline. From the neck down her body was dark and featureless, it was the feeling it exuded, the scent of ash and its brittle arms trembling against his shoulders that told her story. Her mouth opened to whisper but her words were caught by an unfelt wind, it was the cold drops on his forehead that drew him from the moment and made him look at her eyes again. Her eyes doubled in pain, sickened with fear, tears puddled in her bloody eyes and fell to his forehead and cheek. Softly katherines injured supplicating words drifted to him through that imposing miasma of decidedness.

"please dont leave me here.......please." With such punctuation did the curtain of darkness envelop and draw to a close this tragedy of love. That beautiful tragic love.