“This is not the end. Not for you. And not for me,” he’d remind me when the world had grown a little darker. “History will remember our truths.”
I remember his face – those bright eyes that saw an illusive future. I remember his laugh, his dreams, and the plastic plants he’d keep by his side.
“One day, I’ll have a garden,” he’d laugh. “And in that garden, there will be life.”
I remember my friend.
Time has a funny way of catching up with you. It is a slow-moving behemoth that you can never outrun. Inevitably, your legs give way and the timeless monster wins.
But there are some monsters that are also created… Born of a desperation to be free. Born when an empire, that is gluttonous for more, takes too much. We were born, my beloved and I, into the palms of the hungry. And in that place where life cannot thrive… should not thrive… we found our hearts. Our chosen family. The people we could call our home.
We had each other, and for a while that was enough. But… like sand slipping through your fingers, our brief respite from this violent world ended.
The profession of resistance teaches you to trust your instincts. And deep down I knew that time had finally caught up. The air was quieter than a whisper; the armory, undisturbed; the passages, empty. No more restrained joy. No more hushed conversations. Just silence.
I woke up that day and found that I was the only one left. Their gluttony had swallowed my family whole. The monster had won. I held his hand in mine. My beloved. My friend. His body, cold. His eyes, empty.
I still see their faces in my dreams, and I ask myself… dare I be selfish, for once in my life? Could I ask for an impossible wish?
In this life, I’ve learned that history would sooner forget we existed than remember our truths. Sometimes, the quill of history must be taken by force.
This is not the end.
Not for him. Not for us.