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You stand at the beach, the one where you and he strolled along on bright and warm summer nights when the gentle breeze sways the purple strands into his ocean eyes, the ones that resemble the sunset you're looking at now.
It once hurt to even think of his name. It suffocated you to imagine all the happy moments with him, and reminiscing about all the adventures he took you on.
The agony ate you up, so much that you stopped eating or even caring about yourself. The unbearable pain that he vanished on that fateful night a year ago and never came back. In the past months you have lived no life, you have only been a shell. An empty vessel where once his love brightened your soul. But now there's only emptiness left, a dark bottomless abyssal of dread.
Rafayel has left you and the hope of his return has kept you upward, the certainty that he wouldn't leave you without a message soothed your worries in the beginning - it all has long wilted away, just like a delicate flower in the harshest winter.
You once clung to the fiery thread around your heart, the everlasting covenant that is your bond with him. He wouldn't leave you, that was your mantra in these last months. The sliver of hope you hold as tight as a shipwrecked sailor a piece of wood in the open vast of an endless ocean.
But your love never returned.
And Rafayel will never.
This truth has spread its ugly thorn through your whole being in the last weeks and brought you to this place tonight. To the moon-shone beach where you were once so happy.
No emotion is left in you as you stare at the calm sea in front of you. Your fishie is gone from your life. And nothing will ever change that. You were able to accept that finally.
All that you feel now is a final determination.
He won't be with you and you can't without him anymore. You're tired - burnt out. The flame inside you has extinguished.
As if your body has its own life, a first step takes you past the water line, the magical border where the waves kiss the cold skin of your naked toes.
And like a spell has been broken, more steps follow swiftly. One after another brings you further away from the beach and deeper into the waves. Soon your body is immersed in the cold Sea Water and laps around your hips.
Bewitched you stare at the surface that shimmers whimsically under the full moon. Your palms caress the gentle waves that surround you like a predator, its innocent prey.
With a last smile that doesn't reach your eyes, you leave the sandy ground at your feet and start to swim towards the blue dark vastness in front of you.
Maybe here, in the element your beloved was born, can you feel yourself near to him once more.
You remember clearly the day he showed you where he felt most at home, the fantastic world beneath the sea. How happy you were back then. And how much in love. The adoration in Rafayel's eyes never once wavered.
And still... He left you. Without warning, without a message. There was no arguing that could explain his sudden disappearance or anything else. One day you both were utterly in love, the next night Rafayel was gone. And never returned.
For about a year you have nothing left of him aside from memories and his paintings.
You close your eyes as a sudden wave crashes in your eyes. The waters have gotten restless since you left the ground. But you don't care. Maybe a storm helps you to end this emptiness inside of you. The unbearable darkness that has consumed you over the past months.
You are an empty shell now, void of any feeling. And tired.
So you let go.
With a relieved sigh, you stop your swimming movements. Stilled down you rapidly sink, the white dress you once wore to your wedding swiftly drags you under the empowered waves. A befitting attire to put an ultimate end to your devotion. A dress that cemented your life with him, now the witness of your own.
The last thing you hear before you are entirely submerged is a roaring thunder.
So a storm has started.
Good. It's a loud end to your silent suffering until everything becomes calm around you as you sink deeper and deeper. Under the sea everything is serene and peaceful. Like you're inside.
A sudden strong undercurrent propels you above the surface again and you are surprised.
And the ocean is in turmoil. Waves as high as skyscrapers now cover the moon and in the next second, you're underwater again.
The sudden silence is controversial to the cacophony above where light and thunder overrule the moon's light and the crashing of the waves.
But you couldn't care less. You close your eyes again and let yourself get submerged once more.
You don't even know if you are even able to drown, since you're once bonded to the God of the Sea. But he doesn't care anymore about you. So maybe the bond doesn't protect you.
Inside you are still dangerously calm. Outside the ocean is in tremor. Is the Deep Sea angry with you? Who knows? And it doesn't matter.
All you want is to end your life, the endless suffering, the unbearable grief, and the agony of heartbreak.
Then you're thrown to the surface again, blazing light blinding you. Gigantic waves are throwing you around like a buoy at sea. Roaring thunder nearly leaves you deaf.
You want to scream but you can't. Your youth is filled with water.
Then there's hardness at your back.
You're near the beach again as you recognize with a panicked gaze around you.
"No!" You scream but it goes under in the angry thundering sound that follows as a lightning splits the dark night sky.
Fighting yourself back into the depths you curse the storm now. It won't take away your deserved peace.
Stubbornly you struggle against the raging elements, the angry waves that press you back to the shore, the lightning and thunder that scream at you, and the moon that observes it silently.
Over and over again you lose against the power of the storming sea and as your strength has finally left you, you're spilled against the sandy floor of the beach.
With a dark hopeless chuckle, sudden gentle waves shove you higher in the sand.
"Even the Sea doesn't want me anymore."
And with dread in your face, you close your eyes once more, deciding to simply stay where you are.
Maybe once the sun rises you'll finally find peace and the scorching heat will release your soul from the empty shell that you are.
Limp, you stay as the ocean has spit you out. A broken puppet without its strings. It's good enough for you, the will to live has left you the same day as the hope that your beloved comes back to you.
As long as this numbness inside you ends, everything will be alright.
And so your mind starts to drift away, the exhaustion from the fight against the ocean overwhelms you.
Maybe you can dream of him one last time, feeling something for a final fleeting moment.
That's when you hear it.
"Did you really think you could die on me once more? In the realm that I command, no less?" Rafayel's voice cuts through your haze and you smile.
Of course, he mocks you in your last moments. Even if it makes no sense to you at all. But what could you expect from the hallucinations of a broken mind?
"Shut up and let me have my peace, stupid fish," you mumble weekly under your breath. Can't he be nicer now that you're dying?
"Only when you come back to me. Silly girl." The last words were whispered. A hushed worried tone that pulls at your heartstrings. What an inconvenience. You start to feel something again, now that you have decided to die.
Then you lose the feeling of the sand underneath your body and a weightlessness greets you. With a brief blink of sand-stained eyes, you catch a glimpse of Rafayel's side profile. His amethyst-like hair fell in cascades down his neck and even further down his back. A golden crown, formed like branches of an unknown coral, adorns the wavy strands.
Oh, your fantasy is still working it seems, and gave your fishie long hair. Cool.
Well, at this point nothing should surprise you. Your brain goes all out now that it is about to go into an endless vacancy.
And then shining blue eyes meet yours in a worried gaze. "Stay with me, please."
And tired you whisper back with a little strength you find who-knows-where "You were the one who left me."
And with that, the lights finally go out and you embrace the darkness that washes over you.
An annoying rhythmic sound disturbs the peaceful darkness of your being. A steady babomm-babomm calls your mind back into its mortal vessel.
You don't know what's going on. Did you die?
Slowly your senses follow your dizzy mind and to the strange noise adds feeling. Warmth. An overwhelming all-surrounding heat nearly suffocates you.
Your palms resting on a smooth surface, a faint familiar feeling of something long and nearly forgotten. But you can't put your thumb on it.
Then you are reminded that you have eyes to see. So you open them.
And you are greeted with slightly reddened skin, glistening in a thin sheen of sweat. And your hand lies on it, in the height of a burning red mark.
A symbol of an outlined fish.
You gasp.
Rafayel's bond mark!
And before you can look up if you're right you hear his voice, not as smooth as you remember it, slightly raspy and strained instead. "You're awake?"
Bluish-pink eyes welcome you beside the soft golden light of the morning sun.
And your first thought slips through your lips "Now that I'm dead you'll come back to me?" and with dripping sarcasm and a roll of your eyes, you add "Typical."
A crooked smile is the answer, once you longed so long to see again. "I'm feeling like a cooked crab now under all these blankets to warm you up and that is how you greet me, Cutie? I deserve a little more, dont'cha think?