~Hope

A blazing sun torments me from above, heating the sands beneath my feet to ensure that there’s no escape from the scorching heat. I don’t deserve an escape.

The desert sand slides away, pulling my foot along with it and forcing me to fall. It burns me with its embrace, but I freeze, unable to move.

Did the monsters hear me? Are they coming for me?

I listen, and I listen, waiting to hear the monster’s scream. The sound of the ground vibrating underneath me, pulling me into the monsters embrace, but… nothing. I’m alone, the monsters didn’t come for me. I’m so worthless that even they don’t want me.

My hands sink into the sand as I push myself off of the ground, pressing on without looking back.

My skin burns, my chest hurts deep inside, and the tears that try to drip from eyes disappear; stolen by the dry desert air.

I’m alone.

I’ve been alone for a long, long time. My steps in the sand an empty trail through an even greater emptiness. There is nothing ahead of me, and I cannot look back, there’s nothing there for me but regrets and pain.

“Whatever you do don’t stop.” The whispers haunt me, “Don’t look back, just keep moving forward.”

I set my eyes to the next hill and keep walking, treading in the shadow of a dune.

I want to go back.

I should go back.

There’s nothing for me over the next dune, at least the regret and pain behind me is something mine.

“Keep going.” The whisper worms it’s way into my ears, more real than even the desert around me. The voice pushes me like a hand on my back, and so I lower my head and I lift one foot, then the next.

I once lived in a castle, a princess to a grand Kingdom. Or at least, the king called it grand, the peasants who tore it down didn’t really seem to think the same. They came with torches on a dark winter’s night, cutting down the guards who didn’t surrender.

It was in the heart of a blizzard that we escaped from the castle, a few loyal servants protecting us as we ran for our lives. I nearly froze to death that night, a man who’s name I never knew gave me his coat to keep me warm. He was frozen dead by morning.

The next day, the peasants paraded the heads of my parents around on pikes, they looked surprised, their mouths agape, and their eyes open wide. My brothers and sisters were executed to roaring applause, the servants protected me from the sight, but I can still hear it.

My brothers pleading, the falling guillotine, and the roar of the crowd. My younger sister couldn’t even form words, just screams… it’s the silence after that still hurts now. No matter how much I cover my ears, that silence is still with me.

It still wasn’t enough for them. They hunted us everywhere we tried to hide, even living in rags in the lowest slums of the city wasn’t enough to satisfy them.

We wandered from place to place, but we never settled anywhere for long before someone noticed us. Our hair, our eyes, how we weren’t like the other kids. We couldn’t hide it.

I remember them burning our nursemaid, a woman closer to us than our own mother, and we ran away as she screamed in pain.

I wanted to give up then.

I still want to give up, the sand shifting under me, sapping away every bit of my strength.

“Things will be good again.” The whisper in my ears, stings my eyes with tears that are denied by the desert winds. “The brightest flowers only bloom in the spring, just be patient, and keep on going.”

We set out across the desert in the hope of finding a land beyond. A land of hope, where we might live our lives free, where we won’t be hunted.

That was a long time ago.

Now alone, I walk on, waiting for the monsters to take me too.

~Fate

Hope is still asleep, as unmoving as the older locals who have slipped from our world into the hearts of the gods. She’s not gone to the gods yet, and she’s not going to either.

She’ll wake up again soon. I know it.

Missy and Jake returned to the inn a while ago, their concern for me and Hope overwhelmed by their own mourning. They promised to come meet me again come morning, leaving me alone with Hope and the spirit who’s body has dribbled away to a being half her size and shape.

Her aura is dying, and so is she.

“Is Hope dying?” the spirit asks, looking down over Hope where she lies by the fireside. Her eyes aren’t flickering with dreams as when I waken before her, her breath is low and weak compared to what it should be. I could once feel her pulse just by touching her chest, but now I can barely feel the faintest pulse from her wrist.

“She isn’t going to die.” I say, but even I can hear the doubts in my own voice. I can’t let myself go down this road again. I have to believe, especially because no one else does.

“Is it sad?” The spirit asks, her thin, fragile expression twisting as she looks down at Hope’s unmoving expression.

“Yes, of course it’s sad!” I say, pulling Hopes hand into mine as I look up at the spirit.

“Because you’ll be alone?” The spirit asks. “You won’t hear her singing; you won’t be able to dance with her again? You can’t eat with her, or drink? No dice or cards either?”

“Yes, all those things and more.” I hiss, “But it’s not going to happen.”

“Because it’d be too sad?”

“Yes.” I whisper. “Why are you asking me this? Are you trying to make this worse?”

“I live alone on the mountains.” She says. “I have a voice to speak and to sing, but no one to listen. To me it’s not sad to be alone. It’s normal. This dream is different. It’s special.

“Losing it doesn’t hurt me or make me feel sad, it’s just the end of a season. Summer can’t last forever. The world can’t keep going for eternity, the gods have waited long enough for us.”

“It can.” I whisper, trying to find the warmth inside me, the part of me that believes in the impossible. “I can make the world keep going. I can live with Hope, and we can travel this world all the way around.”

“All things die.” The spirit says in a husky whisper, “Even the mountains fall, and even the gods will one day pass away and be replaced by others. It hurts less to accept it.”

“I refuse.” I say, lifting my head as heat fills my mind. “I refuse. What kind of life can we have just waiting to die? What kind of death would that be? No, screw Sanguine and Cerulean both. I want to live.”

The spirit nods slowly, not saying anything more as she slowly dies, melting into the floorboards.

“I want Hope to want to live too.” I say, looking back at the bag that she’s been carrying with her. The thing that is so precious to her. Bones.

A beautiful place. That’s what she’s after.

A beautiful grave, but is it for one or for two?

And worse than that, will I have to be the one to dig it?

“No, she’s going to be fine.” I say, clutching her even more tightly. The spirit’s eyes are focused on me as she leans on the tableside. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I… want to feel sad, too.” She says, her voice barely a whisper. “I want to feel sad like you do.”

“I don’t.” I choke off the word and press my focus on Hope instead. She’s still warm, and her heart is still beating.

“She’s still alive, there’s no reason for me to be sad.” I say, leaning forwards and rubbing at my face to hide the evidence trying to escape my eyes.

The spirit nods slowly, turning away from me and letting me clean up the tears without being watched.

All around us are the frozen corpses of the others who drank the tea, it almost seems like they’re all sleeping, but there’s no breath coming from them, no snores, no shifting. They’re eerily, terribly still, and there’s nothing that will wake them from their dreams tonight.

“They chose to die today because the world is ending at the end of the year. It doesn’t make any sense!” I shout. “If the world was going to keep on going, then they’d never of given up, but because the world ends in less than a year they decide to die even sooner?” My voice breaks as I pull Hope closer to the fires.

The spirit takes out some firewood and throws it into the flames, the water of her body hissing as it drips into the fire. Her hand starts losing its shape, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She doesn’t seem to care.

“What will you do in this next year that will change your ending?” The spirit asks, smiling as she touches Grammy’s arm. “They were excited to spend their time with me tonight. The tea that took their last breaths, gave them the strength to dance and sing. It took their pains away so that they could enjoy tonight.

“This was something they could only do now. It’s something I could only do now. Another year on the mountain won’t change that. We chose this end because we get to experience something special before the end.”

“Then why are you crying?” I ask, staring up at her watering eyes, the rivulets no different from the rest of her body.

“I’m crying?!” She asks, leaning in close to me. “Then this… this is sadness. Grief. Another human thing I get to experience.

“Sadness isn’t so bad, either. It reminds me of the happiness we had a little bit ago. It hurts, but it hurts in a good way.”

“There’s no such thing.” I hiss, pulling Hope’s bag close before pushing it onto her.

“Hope, if you want to finish that task, that one last thing. Then you have to wake up. You aren’t finished yet. Please, wake up.”

I don’t want to be alone.

I don’t want to say goodbye here.

I don’t want this to end.

I haven’t had the chance to get to know Hope as well as I’d like to. I’ve been a coward, hiding from topics that might have driven her away. There’s so much about her that I want to know, so much that I want to ask.

There’s so much that I want to share with her if she’ll listen. Not just road companions on the way to the end of the world, but something more.

I want to have something more with her.

“Please, wake up.”

~Hope

I step into the sand, sinking into it and then taking the next step forwards, leaving hollow footsteps in my wake, soon to be erased by the warm winds.

On my back, I carry a bag. It’s a heavy weight, a burden that I can’t forget bearing down on my shoulders.

I want to turn back around.

I shouldn’t have left.

A hand presses on my back, much smaller than I remember.

“Keep going.” She whispers in my ear. “Keep living. Please, please, survive this.”

A rush of sand bursts from the earth behind me. I turn around, but there’s nothing there.

Just my own empty footsteps.

She’s gone.

I’ve been walking alone for a long, long time, and now… now the end is in sight. Towering mountains rise over the sand dunes before me, and on my back weighs a heavy burden, pulled from the sands.

I just have to press on alone a little longer.

Alone?

For some reason that feels wrong. I should be alone, but for some reason something is missing. There should be someone beside me.

It doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t matter, but for some reason my mind keeps ticking back to that thought. The silhouette beside me that I can’t quite figure out, far too lively to belong to my memories. It dances forwards, towards the mountains and I struggle to keep up.

“Keep going, keep living, and wake up.” The weight presses my back, shoving me towards the silhouette that I can almost make out.

The mountains rush closer, the icy breeze cutting into the desert and dying out here in the wastes, but drawing me out with an invitation I can’t refuse.

The hand pushing me gives one final shove, as I leap forwards, and open my eyes.

The morning light fills the tavern with a warm glow.

Fate leans over me, her face a mess of tears that she’s rubbed away. It looks wrong, twisting up with worries that she shouldn’t have.

“You should be smiling.” I say, touching her cheek and all at once the light snaps back into place in her eyes, and her lips curl up into the most beautiful smile.