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I figured when people die, they relive their lives. Relive the good things in life they took for granted. Their family. Their friends. That hug they didn’t know was the last or that song that spoke to them, yet now had all new meaning.
I imagined even more dwell on the regrets of life. Things they left open and wished they’d finished. Fights or disputes they wished they’d resolved. Time wasted. Dreams not followed.
I thought I’d look back at my life and see a joyous childhood and well-lived life. Looking back, I only saw broken promises, mistruths, and deceit. I had grieved Liam and Father— the only good things in that life— not knowing I’d see them faster than anticipated.
Instead, I mourned the life I had yet to live. I had a makeshift family of sorts starting. We had a connection unlike anything I’d felt before, and I saw an opportunity and a future on the horizon. My life was over right as I’d decided to live— something I hadn’t gotten a chance to do until then.
I had seen only a tiny part of the world I longed to see and experienced just a few things I’d only read about. I thought I was experiencing life through reading— and sometimes it was a beautiful substitute— but I found quite a few things you cannot fully understand reading in a book.
Some things I needed to experience for myself. I mourned their loss, even while grateful to have experienced them, if only briefly.
I forced my eyes open, needing to see E.Z.’s face, even if my eyes seemed too heavy and my body too numb. He had changed me.
Kissing E.Z. had changed me. I needed more. More memories and more living.
I had believed I knew what it meant to be kissed. I’d imagined the feel of a man’s lips on mine from words alone, but nothing could adequately describe kissing E.Z.. His was the type of kiss that authors endlessly tried to recreate, where you could see infinite possibilities and dreams that could become realities. Nothing could do justice to the memory of it, let alone find words to describe it. Nothing could describe the intensity of the feelings it invoked. I had to feel it myself and every other delicious thing he had done to me. And I may have only gotten to have experienced it that one time.
My eyes fell closed again. It became too much work keeping them open.
“No, Kaia. Wake up.” E.Z. repeated, squeezing my shoulder and giving it a slight shake. “You have to stay with me. Please stay with me. I need you to use your Earth. You can heal yourself. You’re not giving up.”
“I can’t,” I whispered, blinking my eyes back open to seek out his.
I felt the new sensation of the Earth Magic within my chest, but I couldn’t access it. I couldn’t use it intentionally when feeling well, let alone when I was bleeding out.
“You can, Kaia. You can,” E.Z. insisted. “You have the magic. You’re definitely powerful enough. You just need to use it.”
I knew I couldn’t. I was too weak and tired, too far gone. The desperation in his voice and the agony on his face said he knew it too, even if he did a decent job of hiding his fear.
And my eyes were just so heavy.
“Goddess, please!” E.Z. begged on a ragged exhale. “I’ll do anything. I swore to protect her. To put my life before hers. And I let her get hurt. Goddess, help us.”
It was inevitable that the guys would blame E.Z. for this, yet I feared no one would blame him more than he blamed himself. If anything, this was all my fault. I painted a target on their backs and made them go on the run. I was the weak link, the one who couldn’t use my powers, the one who slowed them down.
They would mourn me and blame E.Z.. I couldn’t leave him to think like that. This cannot be what he thinks about when he remembers me.
“It’s not your fault, E.Z.,” I whispered, forcing my eyes open one last time.
I found just enough strength to reach up and cup his cheek. He immediately placed his hand over mine and leaned into the touch, holding my hand there. His eyes filled. A tear fell, running over our combined hands. It only seemed to make more fall.
I tried to smile at him, but it ended in a cough. Blood trailed down the side of my mouth.
“Goddess, no, Kaia. Help!” he screamed into the stillness. “Help.”
E.Z.'s face was the last thing I saw before my eyes closed and refused to reopen. His glossy, bloodshot eyes, thin, downturned lips, clenched jaw, and corded neck showed the sheer agony he was experiencing.
Darkness overtook me. It was a place even the cold didn’t penetrate.
E.Z.’s hands shook as he continued to run them over me. He kept pressure on my side, but his other hand was everywhere he could reach. Shaking my shoulder, he begged me to wake up. His touch ran over my arms and pushed the hair away from my face with the tip of his finger one moment, and then tucked my face into his chest and held me the next.
I felt all that. And I felt E.Z.'s chest as it racked with gasping breaths, felt his body as it shook. I heard his cries as he screamed for the Goddess to help while screaming curses and promises to anyone who would listen. I experienced his sobs inside my soul, but I couldn’t move or respond in any way to reassure him. There were no reassurances to be given.
“Kaia, I can still feel you,” E.Z. attempted to sound calm, but his voice shook. “I know you’re still there. I need you to fight. I need you to wake up and fix this.” His voice rose and turned, pleading. He held me even tighter. “Goddess, take me instead. Please, take me instead. Goddess, let her live.”
His words were fast and jumbled, broken by cries and hysteria, yet I heard every word. And I hated them. I couldn’t live knowing I was the reason another person died. Especially him. He was one of the best men I’d had the opportunity to meet. I wanted him to live and shine his light on the world. E.Z. dying would be the worst thing to come out of this.
I tried to let him know I felt him, heard him. That I didn’t blame him. I wanted to beg him to forgive himself and to remember me with fondness, not regret. I tried to tell him I loved him. But I couldn’t.
The world went black.
To be Continued…
