Cursed by You

I am a cursed person.

Cursed to live. To see the hours pass, the days, the weeks. I have watched as the years slog by with all the flare and vitality that I no longer have. The same wonder that you once held in your strong grasp. A strength that cursed us both but went further with you. It killed you. It killed every part of you first before finally stopping your heart.

I watched it happen. Frozen in place with so many voices telling me what to do, I couldn’t help you. You reached for me. Begged me. Cried for me.

Your voice grew hoarse until it was nothing more than a whisper. Your tears flowed like twin rivers until your eyes were red and raw. Your hand, long fingers that you used to twirl in my hair, trembled. Nails clawed at the ground. They broke and bled. Your calloused palms lasted longer, but it was worse when that toughness was scraped away. I watched your hand fall to the ground after days of reaching for me. I watched as it stopped moving.

It was only after you died that the ice that encased my body melted. The brilliant sun you carried in your chest let out one last solar flare that destroyed everything in its path. It freed me, burned me, and made all those voices against you silent once more. They couldn’t hold me any longer, but in return, I could no longer hold you.

You were the sun, and I the moon. You were brilliant and bright, and yet destructive. You ignited everything around you, starting with yourself. Your body was the kindling to your fire. No one realized this, I didn’t realize this, until you burned out. They thought you set fire to the world so you could reshape it however you pleased, but you were never that cruel. Never that ambitious. They didn’t realize that you were your first victim.

I was the moon. Calm and gentle, but passive when I should have been firm. I moved like the ocean, or so you told me. I accepted everything, adjusted to everyone’s needs. I took up space, and yet very few noticed me. Always there, but often forgotten. You saw me. You were the first person that truly saw me.

And I…

I let you die. No words will ever be enough to lessen that terrible blow.

I am cursed to live, while you were cursed to die. But no matter how much time has passed, I still see you.

Your smile appears in every sunbeam. The messy locks of your hair in every shadow. I see your confident stride from the corner of my eye. I hear your laugh in the cracking of a fire.

At first, it was comforting. It was like you were still with me, even after I betrayed you. Even after I did nothing to save you. But then, you lingered. You lingered and… you changed.

There are fangs in your smile now. Your lips curl in a way I never saw in life. It’s almost cruel, curling in a way that makes the hairs at my nape stand tall. Sometimes, your teeth part and your tongue glides over your gleaming white fangs. Red follows in its wake.

The shadows that once reminded me of your lovely dark hair become sharper. Jagged and pitch black, they look more like hard lines of ink on the ground. Sometimes, when I pass under the shade of a tree, I feel something on my skin. Like spiderwebs in the breeze, something reaches for me, sending shivers across my body with their light touch. I try to brush it away, but the feeling remains until I’m out of the shadows.

From the corner of my eye, I see you sprinting towards me. I know that it’s you. I’d know you anywhere. Your body, your voice, your scent. I’d know your blood by taste alone if I were crazy enough to drink it. I think I might be. Crazy. You run towards me every day, even though you’re dead.

You move like a panther ready to strike. Lithe and swift, nothing is an obstacle. Not people, plants, buildings. I see you coming for me and my heart rate spikes. Panic shoots adrenaline in my veins and I feel the urge to flee. But the moment my eyes dart to you, you’re gone. Not even a trace of your presence. The only thing that remains is my fear.

It’s your laugh that finally broke me. It was the last to change, the thing I loved the most about you. The freedom and joy in your laugh. It was exciting, comforting; a melody so unique that nothing could ever come close to inspiring me the way your laugh did. Then, when it changed, I began to realize the truth of these visions. They weren’t your last gift to me. No, they were your last punishment.

I hear your laugh everywhere now. It used to just be something that echoed in fire, but it’s more than that now. I hear you in static. From a radio or a TV or even the buzz of fluorescent lights. Your laugh, no, it’s like a cackle now. Loud and harsh. A stuttering staccato that seems to clash with my heartbeat. We used to be one, and now you are doing everything in your power to be my opposite.

Every mundane sound carries your laugh. The hum of a car engine, the clacking of a keyboard, the beep of a timer. I hear you in footsteps, in sighs, in yawns. A laugh, a cackle, a caw. It’s mocking me. It’s driving me insane.

The more I hear it, the more I can picture the face that makes such a sound. It’s your face but it’s broken. Eyes that once gleamed with intelligence are now flat and empty. Your skin is grey, your cheeks sallow. That terrifying smile looks too wide. The corners of your lips are bloody, like they were ripped apart so that you could haunt me with more of those unnatural fangs. You laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh— you don’t even pause to take a breath.

Why would you? You don’t breathe anymore. You don’t breathe, you don’t laugh, you don’t smile, you don’t run, you don’t do anything anymore.

And yet…

It’s been ten years, and I still see you. I still love you. I don’t know how you feel. Then I remember, you are dead. You can’t feel.

I know only three things:

1) You are dead.

2) I killed you.

3) You haunt me.