Think, Radcliff.
Lily can’t die.
She can’t.
The low, gurgling croak of a raven snapped me from my paranoia. The creature faced me, flapping its wings furiously. It was staying put at the end of the hole. Its voice went shrill like an alarm call.
I thought it would attack me when its ghostly white eyes sharpened in my direction. A blind raven. It croaked again and again.
“What do you want?” I ascended into the same murderous falsetto of the creature.
The creature’s eyes shifted direction, the waves reflecting in the reflection of its iris. But it disappeared the next second in the direction of the sky as if the message had been delivered.
I narrowed my eyes at the icy ocean. Lily’s body was now underwater. She was gone. Fucking flower goddess. The cards never lied. She was my number XVI—the one causing me to fall from The Tower. I said I’d go to hell for her. Truth was, I was going to Tartarus with no hope to escape.
It was a matter of seconds before I’d swim in the middle of the lost souls spinning endlessly in torment.
I cracked my knuckles and took a leap of faith at the price of signing over my immortality for a death sentence. I had a seventy percent chance of hitting the rocks, to be dashed against them. Twenty percent chance of being swept into the channel that went under the cliff to drown. Nine percent of dying of shock and having my brain get snatched. And one, of saving her.
I jumped like a demon banished from heaven. For a short while, I hovered in the air. Then, I hit the merciless ocean, absorbing the trauma of it with my hands. Pain lashed across my lower back, branching across it like lightning. Thrown under the dishwasher of the ocean, it felt like swords went through me, cutting me everywhere. The salty water hissed like needles inside the opening of my scars, wanting to take my flesh away.
Blood danced wickedly in the ocean as an offering, as if a sharp-toothed creature ate me from the inside. I ignored the crushing of my internal organs, searching desperately and savagely for Lily. After all, pain had been my only friend; I was used to it. Being pulled out by the powerful undertow, I fought against it. But there was no sign of her.
My eyes burnt from looking underwater for her, and I felt my vessels colored in a hellish color as they stung my eyes. My vision became blurry. I struggled to keep my eyelids open. The adrenaline took possession of me. I pushed my body to its limits. It was hell fighting hell.
Lily.
I perceived her silhouette from afar.
She was drowning further and further away from me. She was being taken away inside the abyss.
She would be in the shadows.
She was terrified of the dark.
I couldn’t let the stygian water steal her from me.
I sank into my own aphotic zone. I reached out to grab her and held her body close to mine for us to swim back to the surface. The light was a tunnel that withdrew itself each second. I used all the strength of my sore body to pull her up, pushing her toward the light.
Her body was flying to the gleam, and for a moment, I thought of disappearing where I belonged, engulfed inside the belly of darkness. But she wasn’t saved yet. I stirred the water in a wrestling match to reach the surface.
Out of breath, I emerged on the other side of the somber water, carrying Lily. I swam back to the shore, the current an ally. I was careful that her body remained on the surface. She couldn’t die. I wouldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t fail like Orpheus did.
I fought the urge to peer at her. I swam as fast as I could, my gaze not leaving the sight of the bank. My feet touched the ground, and I carried her until we reached the beach. I posed Lily on her back in the dry sand.
The color had drained out of her face, her usually golden, sun-kissed skin as white as a ghost. Her lips had turned to a purple-blue. I checked her pulse. She wasn’t breathing.
“Fuck, Lily! You asked me not to leave you, so don’t fucking leave me!”
I placed the heel of my hand on the center of her chest at the nipple line. I roared at her between each chest compression. “Lily! Don’t fucking die. I forbid you.” I couldn’t save my mother.Don’t die too.
Again and again, like a madman, I continued. But nothing. I tilted her head back and lifted her chin. I pinched her nose before sealing her mouth with mine. I yearned for all the air inside my lungs to travel to her. I watched for her chest to rise, for any sign that I hadn’t lost her.
“I’ll hunt you even after death. You’ll never escape me!” I’d continue my routine until the end of time if I had to. Thirty compressions. Two breaths.
“Radcliff!” I assumed Hugo had barged his way to the beach down the old stairs hidden in the rocks. Only a rope held them, so no tourists ever came to this beach. “Radcliff, what happened!”
Thirty compressions. Two breaths. I focused on my mission. My body created a barrier between her and the freezing wind; I was hoping to beat another element once more. Drops of my blood slipped on her angelic face, and I ignored the slamming ache inside my core.
