My Love and I

We ran as fast as we could through the wooded forest by the sea. Once again, they had returned, the voices. I could hear them as usual, this time louder than ever, but still couldn’t see the source. They had come back to haunt and terrorize us again, my love and I. Try as they may, nothing could separate us, maybe for a moment, but not for eternity. As long as we kept running, they could never catch us. We were always a few steps ahead of them. So we kept running, with the rhythmic beating and pounding of my heart louder than the voices gaining behind us and the crashing of the sea waves combined. We ran into an abandoned hut to escape them.  

He was always so supportive of me even though he didn’t feel that running would keep them away. “Face them head on,” is what he’d always say. Even still, he’d find himself running with me to escape. We crouched in the corner behind a shelf. For a moment, they were quiet and distant. Then suddenly, from out of nowhere, they broke in like a mighty rushing wind echoing and beating from wall to wall like the loud, ruthless noise of a freight train. Petrified, frozen, and panic-stricken, I covered my head and ears hoping that I'd be hidden from the unseen terrors of the night. I screamed shrills and shrieks of horror as two hands gripped my shoulders pulling me from the floor. I fought so fervently to get away, until I opened my eyes to find that it was my love telling me that we had to keep running. We escaped through the broken back door and continued running through the dense, bewitched forest. 

We ran for half an hour, it seemed, ducking and dodging the voices throughout the woods before finally making it to the edge of a cliff. The haunted forest towered behind us as the vast, ominous sea raged below us. With nowhere left to go and only seconds left to escape, we decided to hold hands and jump for it. We could hold on tightly to one another and rise together again by the bottom of the cliff. Three, two, one, hand in hand, we leaped from the cliff’s edge, my love and I, horrified of the fast approaching sea that raged before us with wavy arms outstretched to meet us, yet free from the unseen horror that lurked behind us. 

A thousand pins and needles pierced every fiber of my being. Ice is the opposite of fire, but they're one in the same when they seep through your flesh and attack your bones and soul. As my heart thumped louder and harder than a band of snares, I scrambled and kicked around in the cold, gruesome, darkness for air, for liberty, but most of all, for my love. I looked around back and forth in the blackness, reaching out clawing at the nothingness that surrounded me.  

I emerged from the watery abyss, clinging to nearby branches at the cliff’s edge, hanging onto life, but it was only I in the cold, dark lonely mass of incessant, tossing billows. Exhausted for hours, I clasped to limbs and branches waiting for the storm to cease, waiting for the storm of my life, this nightmare, to cease. So helplessly, I waited for him to surface and join me once again. So hopelessly, I waited for the impassioned sea to return my love unto me, but she kept him, she kept my life, my soul, my meaning, my reason for living. Maybe he escaped her viciousness somehow as I did, just a little further down the way.  

The sea is merciless, the waves unforgiving. It violently tosses and turns seeking vengeance on any and all who dare venture near its savage grasp. My heart is shattered into countless pieces that can’t compare to the grains of sand in the sea. My soul bears the pangs of a million lost loved ones. My agonized soul cries relentlessly for him night after night. The crying of my soul is endless. The dying of my soul, ceaseless. What am I without him? Nothing. My life has no purpose, no meaning.  

I return to the place where we jumped to reason with the sea, hoping she will pity me and return my love to me. At first, she only roared back in anger and bitterness, but over time, she began beckoning me to come. I resist. If only I could cast my being, my soul into the wicked sea that stole my love from me, and purge my sorrowful soul in its billows, but I’m afraid that he may return for me and I’ll be in another life. So I wait patiently, destitute, powerless for him to come unto me, fearing one day that sorrow and misery may outlast my patience and will to live any longer.  

He appeared to me in a dream once. He met me at the cliff’s edge. We held hands once more. It was good to feel his touch again, to hold his hand in mine. Oh, how I missed it. We smiled, we embraced, we looked back at the eerie forest then down at the enchanted sea. That night replayed itself. Together we jumped once more, this time holding hands more firmly. I’ll never let him go again. Not this time. Then suddenly, his hand slips from mine and I wake in a cold sweat to find that I am still alone, utterly alone.

I visit the sea again. Once more, she beckons me, invites me. I hesitate. Suddenly I see his face below the surface of the water. Could it be! He reaches out for me. Hopefully I'm not dreaming, but my heart can't take the risk of not taking this chance. I must go for I am afraid to lose him again.

Frightened yet unwavered, I close my eyes and leap from the cliff's edge. My body cuts through the air like a knife, and the winds fold back away from me like parted waters. Suddenly I am no longer afraid. I close my eyes and spread my arms for flight from the misery and loneliness that have plagued me. I fly. I soar. Now I am free. Free from the voices, free from all worry, free from all care.

Suddenly I open my eyes and there he is before me. Maybe I’m dreaming again, my mind playing tricks on my heart, deceiving me again like in many dreams before. He touched my face, he stroked my cheek just like he used to. It seemed so real. His smile was genuine, just as before. 

I pinched myself to wake myself from this dream that I was dreaming, but I’m very awake and aware! It’s truly him! Once again, I am his and he is mine! I knew he’d return to me! The sea is over her wrath and fury! She has considered my sorrow and has had pity on me! She tosses and turns no more. She is calm and peaceful just as I am.

Nothing can taunt us here. Nothing can harm us now. We have conquered and won! Here together, in the sea, we will live forevermore, never to part again, my love and I.