End

“Tori? Can I talk to you?”

…

“A-are you afraid?” Tori asked, her voice trembling.

“Of course I’m afraid.” I forced a laugh. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I don’t know what’s after this. Where will I end up?”

“You don’t have to leave.” Tori’s voice sounded urgent and pained, but her eyes gave away the lie: Her heart still beat, and with every pound, she became a new person, but I was still the same person I was at my death. Frozen in time, I was incapable of changing. I was stuck. Tori felt this, and I frustrated her. She wanted me to leave, just as much as I wanted to go.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I love you, Tori. I always will. But I can’t stay like this. I meet resistance at every turn. It’s like being stuck in a mud hole. Every movement of mine is heavy and gets harder and harder to do. I’m ready to scream, explode. I can’t be here anymore.”

A long time ago, she would have fought, screamed, or cussed me out. She would have blamed me for abandoning her. She has changed. She stood there, quietly. I heard the faintest breath and she nodded. “If that’s what you want.”

“It’s what I need.” I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t sorry.

Like my mother and Tristan, she was suddenly just another person. I would always treasure the memories I had of her, but there was no longer a connection.

“I’m sorry, Tori,” I whispered.

Her dark eyes filled with tears. “Dammit. Me, too. You were everything to me. I’ll never be able to forget our plans. I’ll never be able to forget you.”

“Late at night, when no one else is around, that’s where I’ll be. Feel free to visit me anytime.”

“I will.”

“I’ll see you on the other side. Maybe we’ll meet again in another life.”

A faint spark of her old fire returned. “Hell, maybe this life wasn’t the first. Maybe we were tight in Ancient China, or something. Maybe we’ve known each other long before we ever met.”

Whoa. “Yeah. Maybe.” The thought hadn’t even occurred to me.

“So this isn’t really a good-bye,” Tori said, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “This is merely a ‘see ya.’”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Well, then. See ya.”

The humor slipped off her face. “See ya.”

The world began to break apart, pixel by pixel, leaving only empty blackness. The last thing to dissolve was her face, slowly dimming as my light faded. I turned once, and there was a fierce light that, if I had eyes, would have blinded me. I walked into it.

I will forget her in my next life; I have accepted this, too. But at the next death, at every death, I will remember her again. There is no such thing as End.