"To Never Be" - Prologue

       Another cold night; leaning against these pale white walls, while listening to the echoing of sirens grow ever louder before trailing off into the distance. Another chance for me to live this life, wasted, given away to the idleness of my fate. I sit here everyday, in this place I have gotten myself, wondering about the world outside my door. Wondering how much it has really changed since I locked myself away from the fear.

       “I’ve made you who you are, and who you will become.”

       Those words still haunt me, sounding in my dreams and beckoning me into the darkness of the night. For the past five years I have been hiding in the shadows of that sentence, listening to it resonate in my head, planting itself ever deeper into my soul. Your answer to a question, I hadn’t meant to ask, your last words spawned a series of queries to which I thought I would never know the answer. I was just making conversation, trying to hold on to every moment you had left, struggling to make that moment seem like any other. Tonight I know the meaning of your words, for tonight I can measure how much you have changed my life.

       Before I had met you I was a child, living entirely within the realm of my parents. I was new to the world, and often too afraid to face it’s dangers alone. You guided me; you brought out an inner strength in me, one which I never knew existed. When I was with you, I was treated like family, I was protected from the world, and most importantly I was loved. You taught me of the world, and on nights when the clouds would give way to the moon, you taught me how to find the beauty which existed in every moment. Because of you, I developed passions, which would spark into my talents, hopes, and my dreams. And for the first time in my life, someone had shown me that there was more to living in the world than simply being alive. Together we grew older, wiser, and became much more set in our ways. The invigorating young girl I once knew had transformed into an astonishing woman, and would never let the world get the best of her. Our bond grew ever stronger, we became inseparable, and over time we learned to compliment each other’s weakness so that we were greater together, than we would ever be apart.

       The night you died, the night I held your hand, continuing to squeeze long after you had stopped, that night I felt more pain than any death can bring. That night I died with you. I tried to go on living, I moved away from the memories, started over, filling my time with friendships and bonds, trying to tie myself to the world. I thought I was strong enough to go on without you, building beautiful illusions around me, trying to mimic the happiness I saw in other people; however I was hollow inside, left dead from your death. The more I tried to rebuild, the more I tried to save those around me, was all the more I would die inside, barren, empty, alone. I found that I could hide from myself in the problems of others, and the more attachments I made in the world, the less I cared about my own existence.

       And that brings us back to the beginning of our story, sitting against this cold white wall, waiting for someone else to need me. I hear sirens in the distance, but I’m not really listening because the only thing I can hear is your voice, struggling for breath that night...

“Squeeze my hand as hard as you can.”
                            “Only if you promise to squeeze back.”
“I Promise.”
                            “I can’t squeeze your hand forever.”
“Why?”
                             “Because I’m done here...
                             I’ve made you who you are,
                             and who you will become.”