[8/18/461 AC, 6:39 AM]

  “Why…” The half formed question sticks to my tongue, as warm blood runs down my hollowed face. Slipping through my cracked lips like broken gss. “WHY!”

  It stings.

  It snags.

  It bleeds. Like her.

  Eyes wide and clear. Like the paling sky, vender over wine dark waves. Her breaths are ragged, her lugs rising and falling, the skin of her chest half ripped away. A tatter of bck fabric and pulsing pink flesh. A worn smile crosses her warm face, winced by pain. “Why not, green-eyes.” She grasps my hand, her fingers cold in mine. “You’re my friend.”

  “I’m not your friend.” Teeth crack, as fangs slice my lip. I feel like puking, but nothing fills my dead gut. “I— I ki—”

  She kisses me. Her lips wrap around mine, pushing into me, as her hand gnces my cheek. Pulling me in. If I still needed to breathe it wouldn't matter. All I need is her lips on mine. Her touch on me.

  All I need. Is her.

  “You’re right.” She whispers as she sinks back against the balcony wall. “You’re my girlfriend”

  “Bea.” I sputter as I refocus. “Bea…” Her chets no longer rises. Her scent grows… still.

  Bea’s dead.

  I scream.

  Red heat flows down my freckled cheeks, as bck mysts burns from my mouth. Around us, corpses sever and twist. A cacophony of fragrant squelches and boney cracks. As, a face with bck lipstick and amber eyes, smokes and sputters in the first motes of daylight. Left forgotten. As she left me. As I now left Bea.

  I smell the ash and char, turning to see the sun, golden and pink over the waves below. I slowly get up. My blood is thick, my body heavy, as day comes for me. I wipe blood onto my jacket. And face the sun. Pain. My skin peels like old parchment, cracking driftwood. Every nerve of mine decays and alights, as I grit my jaw shut and silent. I face my final death.

  Icy blue eyes stare into mine.

  “Boo!”

  “Fuck!” I stumble back, slipping on a pool of blood, as I tumble through the door. Bea, my dead (dead dead) girlfriend stands . . . floats above me.

  “I’m not leaving you just yet Fruitbat” Half hazy, she smirks. “So . . . Please don’t try to be a candle.”

  And I swear. My heart beats.