Light slowly fades from bright yellow...to oranges that seep deeper into a red so vivid, you forget the temperature cooling all around you as the colors fade into darkness.

You are cold and you put on a jacket. You step out for your nightly patrol of the streets. You put each foot in front of the other as it gets colder. You aren't really thinking of anything specific. There is nothing but a random jumble of thoughts that has turned to white noise, until you realize that you are already at the cemetery, your heart beating like a drum, your body no longer cold but heating up, thrumming...eager...aching.

You breathe...and you feel a weight in your chest. each second you inhale, like water being poured in, making it heavier, more compact.

You press your body, your face, your palm against a familiar door, closed for now, and your heart is full to bursting. Your body is close to shaking from this weight that should be imaginary but feels so real, and it is all you can do to hold it all in, when every fiber of your being is trying to reach out, begging you to just open the door, because you know.

You know.

You know he is on the other side, in the exact position. That he feels the distance between your palms vibrate, even as his palms caress the smooth surface, while he drinks the scent of you in.

That his feelings are going through the same amount of turmoil (torment) - maybe more, because he believes himself in love with you, and he inwardly despairs that you aren't.

An inch thick of wood separates you, but you can feel it. The bonds that you strain against intellectually, reason clamoring that this is wrong, this shouldn't happen, that this was the worst thing you could possibly do, but you should have been dead anyway and it was just...just crazy, just INSANE that you were brought to life again, and he's dead but he's walking and talking (and that was the least of her problems about the things he COULD do), so why couldn't this make sense...but you listen to the rationale your mind is pounding into you long enough to start pulling away, to turn around and walk back into the open streets, instead of opening the door and maybe having to admit that this was more than what you keep telling yourself it is.

You keep walking, briskly now, and the feeling isn't lessening. Your skin, still tingling, as if he was touching you. Anywhere. Everywhere.

And the ties that bind linger.

And he catches up to you. And he confirms it.

All of it.

And you're struck all over again by how real they are.

That even when you walk away, they will pull him to you.

He tries to comfort you, and the part of you that is tired of fighting it, just wants to accept it. and welcome it. and relax.

And you fight it. You hurt him, and you fight him.

And it hurts. It all hurts. No matter what choice you make.

That denial, reason, will...they all crumble and fall.

The reality you refuse to give voice to is unchanged.

No matter how much you fight against it.